diction
Wherefore, I beckoned to Gioffredo to take the ankles: but I myself took the hollow armpits; and terribly the head waggled between. In this manner we flung the dead slave from the balcony: but, after we had heard the splash of his fall in Tiber, we returned, expecting new events.
‘Terribly the head waggled between.’ Waggled? Waggled? A trifle bathetic, don’t you think?
I suppose I shouldn’t complain, though; I mean, it’s not like he compared Herodotus to a desiccated lemon or a primary source to minestrone soup — unlike one scholar (in a published article) whose name I shan’t mention. (Not that said scholar seems to stand much on his dignity…)