Editing Louse (section)

===In literature and folklore===
[[File:Mother Louse, Alewife Wellcome L0000658.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Mother Louse, a notorious [[Alewife (trade)|alewife]] in Oxford during the mid-18th century, shown with three lice as a [[coat of arms]]. Image by [[David Loggan]].<ref name="White1859">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l68ZhT2agbEC&pg=PA275|title=Notes & Queries|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1859|pages=275–276| vauthors = White W }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|publisher=University of York| vauthors = Pierce H |title=Unseemly pictures: political graphic satire in England, c. 1600-c. 1650|date=2004|url=http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/9864/1/423697_vol1.pdf}}</ref>]]

[[James Joyce]]'s 1939 book ''[[Finnegans Wake]]'' has the character Shem the Penman infested with "[[foxtrot]]ting fleas, the lieabed lice,&nbsp;... bats in his belfry".<ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Joyce J | author-link1 = James Joyce |title=Finnegans Wake |date=1939 |publisher=Faber |page=180}}</ref>

Clifford E. Trafzer's ''A [[Chemehuevi]] Song: The Resilience of a [[Southern Paiute]] Tribe'' retells the story of Sinawavi ([[Coyote]])'s love for Poowavi (Louse). Her eggs are sealed in a basket woven by her mother, who gives it to Coyote, instructing him not to open it before he reaches home. Hearing voices coming from it, however, Coyote opens the basket and the people, the world's first human beings, pour out of it in all directions.<ref name="Trafzer2015">{{cite book | vauthors = Trafzer CE |title=A Chemehuevi Song: The Resilience of a Southern Paiute Tribe |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GA81CgAAQBAJ&pg=PA24 |date=2015 |publisher=University of Washington Press |isbn=978-0-295-80582-5 |pages=22–25}}</ref>

The Irish songwriter John Lyons (b. 1934) wrote the popular<ref name=Clare/> song ''The Kilkenny Louse House''. The song contains the lines "Well we went up the stairs and we put out the light, Sure in less than five minutes, I had to show fight. For the fleas and the bugs they collected to march, And over me stomach they formed a great arch". It has been recorded by Christie Purcell (1952), Mary Delaney on ''From Puck to Appleby'' (2003), and the [[Dubliners]] on ''[[Double Dubliners]]'' (1972) among others.<ref name=Clare>{{cite web | vauthors = Carroll J |title=Songs of Clare: The Kilkenny Louse House |url=http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/songs/cmc/the_kilkenny_louse_house_jlyons.htm |publisher=Clare Library |access-date=19 October 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |vauthors=Scott B |title=My Colleen by the Shore |url=http://www.veteran.co.uk/VT149CD%20Paginated%20booklet%20pages.pdf |publisher=Veteran |year=2013 |access-date=25 October 2015 |archive-date=4 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304000329/http://www.veteran.co.uk/VT149CD%20Paginated%20booklet%20pages.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>

[[Robert Burns]] dedicated a poem to the louse, inspired by witnessing one on a lady's bonnet in church: "Ye ugly, creepin, blastid wonner, Detested, shunn'd, by saint and sinner, How dare ye set your fit upon her, sae fine lady! Gae somewhere else, and seek your dinner on some poor body." [[John Milton]] in ''[[Paradise Lost]]'' mentioned the biblical plague of lice visited upon pharaoh: "Frogs, lice, and flies must all his palace fill with loathed intrusion, and filled all the land." [[John Ray]] recorded a Scottish proverb, "Gie a beggar a bed and he'll repay you with a Louse." In [[Shakespeare]]'s ''[[Troilus and Cressida]]'', [[Thersites]] compares [[Menelaus]], brother of [[Agamemnon]], to a louse: "Ask me not what I would be, if I were not Thersites; for I care not to be the louse of a lazar, so I were not Menelaus."<ref>{{Cite thesis |title=Insect Life in the Poetry and Drama of England: With Special Reference to Poetry | vauthors = Twinn CR |publisher=University of Ottawa | degree= PhD |year=1942 |hdl=10393/21088  }}</ref>