In 1754, the Lübeck merchant P.H. Tesdorpf published his poem “An Attempt at Describing the Most Beautiful and Nearly the Smallest of All Birds, Which Is Known as the Colibrit.” The poem is everything its title promises, but Tesdorpf’s annotations offer the occasional bit of comic relief.
Take this footnote, for example, provided as explication of the strophe in which the poet describes the hummingbird’s valiant defense of its nest:
Should anyone find objectionable the comparison between the bird’s bill [Schnabel] and a fork [Gabel], I would counter by observing that when the birds mean to strike or stab in anger, they often open the bill, thus doubling its capacity to puncture, and consequently transform it into what is essentially a fork. Not to mention the difficult of finding a rhyme for the unavoidable word “Schnabel.”
Now there’s a practical-minded poetaster.
