LXXVI.
“Cheilon and **** have the same letters, and why? It is because Cheilon will lick things that are like and unlike.”
This mockery is addressed to the cunnilingue Cheilon. The epigram tells him that he has somehow a right of licking, as his name, composed of the same letters as ****, announces at once the licker, whether he may lick the lips of a mouth, similar to his own, or those of a vulva, which are very dissimilar.
The distich of Meleager upon Phavorinus, published by Huschkius in his _Analecta critica_ (p. 245), seems to bear upon the same subject:
“You doubt whether Phavorinus does the thing. Doubt no more; he told me himself he did,—_with his own mouth_.”
As Martial uses often very happily the word _narrat_ (III., 84), when he speaks of the abuse of the tongue for _fellation_, and Horace the same, so Meleager says **** (he told) of the man, who employs his for licking the vulva.
The following epigram of Ammanius from the _Analecta_ of Brunck, vol. II., p. 386, is somewhat more obscure:
“It is not because you suck your pen that I dislike you; ’tis because you do so,—without a pen.”
The scholiast imagined by author wanted to upbraid a lazy pupil who passed his time sucking his pen, as do others biting their nails, and to scold him at the same time for sucking without a pen, meaning for being a _cunnilingue_. But it may be taken to refer, and I think with more reason, to a man who is in the habit of putting out his tongue for the obscene act of the _cunnilingue_, and who is so accustomed to it that he puts it out in the ordinary intercourse of life.
This monstrous practice was pushed to such lengths that, it is almost incredible, there were people who, not content to lick vulvas which were dry, did it when they were humid with the menses or any other secretion. Aristophanes says of Ariphrades in the _Knights_, v. 1280-83:
“He is not only lewd; his fancy goes astray; he pollutes his tongue with shameful pleasures, licking up in his orgies the abominable dew, fouling his beard and tormenting women’s privates.”
Tormenting women’s privates, licking the dews, staining the beard, there you have the man whom humid vulvas do not disgust! there you have a beard like that of the Ravola of Juvenal, IX., 4, “when he with beard all moist was rubbing against the groin of Rhodopé.” However, not to be dogmatic, it may be admitted that Ravola’s moist beard may have been intended merely the wet hair of a fornicator’s pubis. From the above passage of Aristophanes we may deduce surely enough that the expression “working with the tongue,” which he also uses, rather ambiguously, with respect to the same Ariphrades, applies to a _cunnilingue_ rather than to a _fellator_, _Wasps_, 1847-77:
“Then Ariphrades, the best endowed of all, of whom his father said once, he never had a teacher, but prompted by nature, of his own free will, learned how to work his tongue, visiting every brothel!”
The same personage re-appears in the _Peace_, 885, where he is described without any circumlocution as imbibing the feminine secretion by way of a sauce:
“And throwing himself on her he will drink up all her juice.”
The Greeks, however, had in this kind of voluptuousness a host of imitators amongst the Romans. Mamercus Scaurus is known to us through Seneca (_De Beneficiis_, IV., ch. 31), in this light:
“Did you not know when you appointed Mamercus Scaurus as Consul, that he swallowed the menses of his servant girls by the mouthful? Did he make a secret of it? Did he pretend to be a blameless man?”
Similarly with Natalis, letter LXXXVII.:
“Lately Natalis, that man with a tongue as malicious as it is impure, in whose mouth women used to eject their monthly purgation....”
Both of them were consequently “imbibers of menses,” an appellation which, as we have seen in chapter III., Galen applies to _cunnilingues_.
Now too we can clearly understand the meaning of Nicharchus’ epigram against Demonax, vol. III., p. 334 of Brunck’s _Analecta_:
“Do not, Demonax, regard all things with downcast head, and do not spoil your tongue with over-gratification; the sow has threatening bristles. You live amongst us, but you sleep in Phœnicia, and though no son of Semelé, you are thigh-reared.”
He never looks up, exactly like the Cinede Maternus of Martial, I., 97; he gratifies his tongue, which likes erection; whether the vulva be covered with hair or depilated, he does not mind; during the day he lives in Greece, but sleeps in Phœnicia, because he stains his mouth with the monthly flux, which is, as every one knows, of the Phœnician dye, viz., purplish red[103]; like another Bacchus, he draws his nourishment from a thigh.[104] This scarcely needs an explanation. You can picture the _cunnilingue_, with his mouth glued between the thighs, at work.
This strange depravity was still in favor in succeeding centuries. Ausonius, in his _Epigrams_ CXX., CXXIII., CXXV., CXXVI., CXXVII., and CXXVIII., has bequeathed a very unenviable notoriety to the names of Castor and of Eunus:
Epigram CXX.:
“Castor[105] wanted to lick the middle part of men, but he could not persuade any one to go with him; however the _fellator_ did not miss his treat; he went and licked his own wife’s privates.”
Epigram CXXIII., entitled _In Eunum liguritorem_.—On Eunus the Licker:
“Eunus, why do you pay court to Phyllis, the perfume seller? Men say your tongue knows her parts, but not your member! Mind you make no mistakes in the names of her scents and perfumes, and that Seplasia’s atmosphere play you no tricks; think not costus and cysthus have the same odor,—that sardines and nard exhale the same savor. Poor Eunus! the things that he tastes and smells are very different; his mouth and his nose have tastes widely dissimilar!”
He says mockingly: think not the sundry wares in the shop of Phyllis your little perfume seller of Capua (Seplasia is in fact a street of the town of Capua, where perfumes were sold), are all of the same odor and savor. The costus[106] does not smell like the cysthus[107], the nard[108] has a different flavor from the sardines,—a sort of little fish preserved in salt. By this salty condiment Ausonius means to imply precisely the same as the author of the Greek epigram signifies, when he speaks of the Salt Sea, and which he himself has called salgama, meaning the secretion of the humid vulva. But Eunus shows no discrimination between what he licks and what he smells; the two have nothing in common. He inhales perfumes which smell beautifully, and licks the vulva, which smells abominably. His nose obeys one law, his tongue another.
Epigram CXXV., directed against the same Eunus:
“The salgamas are no balmy odors; give place, all other perfumes. I would rather not smell at all, either good or bad.”
Here again the poet plays with the words. The perfumes which Phyllis sells he calls balms, and salgamas those which her vulva exhales. Properly speaking, salgamas are roots and greens, which are preserved in salt for winter use, and the odor of which is not pleasant to every one’s nose. His saying that he would rather smell nothing at all than smell something bad is borrowed from Martial VI., _Epigr._ 55, against Coracinus, who was a _cunnilingue_:
“Rather than smell bad scents I would not smell at all.”
Epigram CXXVI.:
“Lais, Eros and Itys, Chiron and Eros, Itys once again,—if you write the names, and take the initial letters, they make a word, and that word is what you do, Eunus. What that word is and means, decency lets me not say in plain Latin.”
The initial letters of the six Greek names form the word ****, he licks. The phallic poet (_Priapeia_ LXVII) plays in the same way upon the word _paedicare_ (to pedicate):
“Take the first syllable of _Pe_nelopé; add to it the first of _Di_do; then to the first of _Ca_nis append the first of _Re_mus: what they make, I will do to you, thief, if I catch you in my garden. This is the penalty your crime will meet.”
Ausonius plays on the words _doing_ and _making_. The initials of the Greek words _make_ a word he cannot say in Latin,—it is too indecent. Yet Eunus has no hesitation in _doing_ it,—putting it in action.
Epigram CXXVII.:
“Eunus, when you lick the groins of your wife, she being with child; ’tis because you would be betimes in _teaching the tongues_ to your babes yet unborn.”
You seem, he says, to send out your tongue to meet your unborn children, and fulfilling your duty as a Grammarian, to teach them lessons of tongue, and the interpretation of obscure terms.[109] The Manneius of Martial, whom we have spoken of above, was also in the habit of licking pregnant women’s privates.
Epigram CXXVIII., entitled _On the same Eunus, the Learned Licker_:
“Eunus, the little Syrian pedagogue, licker of privates, Opican doctor (’tis Phyllis he owes his knowledge to), beholds the feminine engine in fourfold different fashions: Opening it triangularly, he makes it the letter Delta (Δ); seeing the pair of folds side by side along the valley of the thighs with the line in the middle where the slit of the vagina opens, he says it is a Psi (Ⲯ); in fact its shape is triple-cloven then. Then when he has put his tongue in, it is a Lambda (Λ), and he makes out therein the true design of a Phi (Φ). Why! ignoramus, do you think you see a Rho (Ρ) written, where merely a long Iota (Ι) should be put? Contemptible doctor, foul pedant, you deserve the Tau (Τ) yourself; the crossed Theta (ϴ) should by rights be put against your name.”
Ausonius calls Eunus an Opican, because these filthy practices were, according to Festus, most common among the Osci or Opici. He then indulges in a series of jests, or rather represents Eunus as doing so, on the shape of the female organ[110]. He says it seems to him either quadrangular, or triangular, in the latter case corresponding to the Greek [Greek: D] (similarly Aristophanes called it a Delta,—“their delta plucked clean of hair,” _Lysistrata_, 151), and also likens it to the letter **, owing to the folds which surround the vulva on either side[111], and form the outer lips, the lane in the middle being the opening of the vulva, and so together form the trifid letter **; in the _Technopaegnium_, 140, he calls it a three-pronged fork, the slit being the middle and the lips the outer prongs. Then he says that Eunus is a Lambda when he is licking, on account of the first letter of the word ****. All this is clear enough, and I do not understand how the very learned Vinet can complain of its obscurity. Neither has it given me much trouble to make out what Ausonius means by the letters Rho and Iota. The solution seems to me to be as follows: “Do not tell us, Eunus, that your pike in action resembles the letter (Ρ) of the Greeks, a letter which evidently looks like a lance with balls; in your amorous diversions you use no other lance than your tongue, which, as you will not deny, looks more like a javelin without balls, something like the letter Iota; you cannot deceive me, who well know that you would rather be taken for a fornicator than for a _cunnilingue_, like that Gargilius, of whom Martial, III., 96, says:
“You do not enter, only lick my mistress; yet you boast yourself adulterer and copulator!”
Lastly and finally by the Tau he threatens his man with the gallows, and by the Theta with death. Of this there can be little doubt; it is a proved fact that the letter Theta, the initial of the word ****, signified with the Greeks condemnation to death[112]. With regard to Tau, there is room for doubt; instead of Tau some of the copies of Ausonius give (δ), and although this sign may, according to Scaliger, very well signify the rope for hanging, the difficulty I feel is this, that a composite letter, a small letter, an abbreviation of doubtful antiquity, thus placed amongst simple, capital, unabbreviated letters seems to come in very inappropriately. It may be that Ausonius originally wrote ****; then * having been left out by an inadvertence of the copyist, the ** might easily have been turned into **. The Tau, as the reader will see at once, represents a gallows. Tertullian, _Adversus Maricionem_: “This letter Tau of the Greeks is with us the T, a sort of cross.”
As was the case with irrumation, so with even more reason the licking of women’s privates was particularly adopted by old men, whose tool will not raise its head[113].
Aloysia Sigaea, Dialogue VII., says: “He (Gonzalvo of Cordova), was likewise a mighty _cunnilingue_ by reason of his great age.”
“Why does Blatara lick? because he cannot manage otherwise.”
The same author, VI., 26:
“Lotades has lost the power of stiffening; so licks.”
And again, XII., 88:
“Thirty young boys you have at command, and as many girls; yet you have only one member, and that will not rise. What then will you do?”
Lick, no doubt, as we are told Linus did, in _Epigr._ XI., 25:
“This too frisky mentula, Linus, so well known to girls in plenty, will longer stand; so mind your tongue.”
Sextillus (Martial, II., 28), was in all probability also a _cunnilingue_:
“Have your laugh at those, Sextillus, that call you cinede, and show them your middle finger[114]. You are not, Sextillus, a pedicon nor yet a fornicator, nor does Vetustilla’s burning mouth tempt you.—You are none of these, I allow, Sextillus; then what are you? I know not, but remember! there are two sorts yet.”
Two sorts are still left for Sextillus, to suck the virile member and to lick the vulva, while he is neither a fornicator, nor a cinede, nor a pedicon, nor an irrumator. Which did he choose to be? This we are not told. Eunuchs, just as impotent as aged men, adopt the practice for the same reason.[115] Gregory Nazianzen says in his funeral sermon on Basil the Great:
“They of the gynaeceum, those men, who amongst women are men, and amongst men women; who have nothing virile about them but their impiety; those that cannot give themselves up to voluptuousness in the natural way, have recourse to their tongue as their only alternative.”
The _cunnilingues_ exhaled an evil smell from the mouth, and their kisses were as much shunned as those of _fellators_. Martial, XII., 87:
“You say the mouths of pedicons smell badly; if this is true, Fabullus, as you say, tell me! what think you of the breath of _cunnilingues_?”
And the same, XII., 59:
“The neighbors kiss you every one, from the bearded cowherd, whose kisses have flavor of the he-goat, down to the _fellator_ and the _cunnilingue_ fresh from his business.”
_Cunnilingues_ and _fellators_ are compared to he-goats by Catullus (XXXVII.), on account of their fetid breath:
“Think you you alone have members, that you alone are entitled to satisfy women, and may consider all other men he-goats?”
Do not suppose for a moment that Catullus is speaking here of castrated he-goats, which would be against the sense of the word, one invariably used to designate entire he-goats. The sense is the same, but got at in another way. He says: “Do you believe that you alone have members fit to do the girls’ business? that all the others betray by their goatish breath their vile trade as _cunnilingues_ or _fellators_, and consequently the inertness of their mentulas, their feebleness, their inability for erection? You will better appreciate the sting of Atellane verse respecting Tiberius Cæsar: “An old buck licking the she-goats’ parts.”
It was thought better to be taken for a fornicator than for a _cunnilingue_; in the first place, because your friends would not kiss you; Martial, VII., 94:
“I had rather confront a hundred _cunnilingues_.”
Suetonius, _De Illustribus Grammaticis_, ch. 23:
“He (Remmius Palaemon) was passionately fond of women, so much so as to prostitute his mouth to please them, and it is said that he was one day rebuked in the following way by a man who in the throng could not contrive to avoid one of his kisses: “Master,” he said, “if you see a man in a hurry to get away, will you lick him off?”
In the second place for fear of scaring away your guests. Aristophanes says of Ariphrades, in the _Knights_, 1285, 86:
“Whoever does not execrate that man, may he never drink from the same cup with us”—lastly, for fear of letting it be plainly known how shrunken one was, and how miserable one’s member. Martial, III., 96:
“You lick my mistress, but you do not enter her; yet you boast yourself adulterer and copulator!”
Hence the _cunnilingues_ took no less care than the _fellators_ to hide the fetidness of their breath by means of essences and perfumes, Martial, VI., 55:
“Always scented with cassia and cinnamon, and your skin darkened with perfumes from the Phœnix’ nest, you reek of the leaden jars of Nicerotus’ shop. You mock at us, Coracinus, because we are unscented. Rather than smell sweet like you, I’d not smell at all.”
To remove every doubt as to Coracinus being a _fellator_ or a _cunnilingue_, we will quote _Epigr._ IV., 43, where he is expressly called a _cunnilingue_:
“I did not say you were a cinede, Coracinus; I am not so rash and reckless. What I did say in a light, insignificant matter, one perfectly well known, that you will not deny yourself,—I said, Coracinus, you were a _cunnilingue_.”
It was believed that Venus revenged injuries done to herself or to hers, not only by condemning the guilty to submit to be the passive party, but by turning them into _cunnilingues_. Hence the pathic tastes of Philoctetes:
“With which the destitution of Lemnos inspired the heir of Heracles.”
To use the very words of Ausonius, _Epigr._ LXXI; and by inflicting these tastes Venus is said to have avenged the wounds of Paris, Martial, II., 84:
“The sons of Poeas was effeminate and prone to man-love; thus they say did Venus avenge Paris’ wounds.”
In the same epigram Martial rallies Sertorius on being _cunnilingue_, giving as a possible reason his having killed Eryx, the son of Venus:
“Why does Sicilian Sertorius lick women’s privates; because, Rufus, it would seem it was he killed Eryx.”
_Cunnilingues_ appear to have been generally pale-faced; it is for medical men to say why. This may help you to discern the salt in Martial’s epigram on Charinus, I., 78:
“Charinus is well and strong, and still he is pale;
Charinus drinks with moderation, and still he is pale;
Charinus digests well, and still he is pale;
Charinus loves the open air and sun, and still he is pale;
Charinus dyes his skin, and still he is pale;
Charinus licks a woman’s privates, and still pale is he.”
That is to say, amongst the causes that should prevent paleness the one last enumerated is the veritable cause of his paleness. _Fellators_ would also seem to have had pale faces, _Catullus_, LXXX:
“How is it, Gellius, that those rosy lips of yours grow whiter than the winter’s snow, when at morn you leave your house, and the eighth hour calls you from your long-protracted soft repose? I know not what to think. Can it be true what rumor whispers, that you devour the middle parts of men? This at any rate is evidenced by wretched Virro’s sunken flanks and your own lips masked with the milky juice sucked from him.”
The withered flanks are those of Virro, the _irrumator_, the lips those of Gellius; the passage is somewhat ambiguous, and only thus to be explained. One Virro, accustomed to take the passive part, has been already mentioned by us, in quoting Juvenal, IX., 35. I do not know whether it is the same:
“Though Virro has caught sight of you all naked, and the foam has come to his lips.”
_Pathics_, too, no less than _fellators_, appear to have pallid faces. Juvenal, II., 50:
“Hispo submits to young men; he is pale with either kind of infamy.”
He served as _patient_ to young men, and was moreover a _fellator_, as is shown by the difference which the poet institutes between him and women, who do not lick each other’s secret parts:
“Taedia does not lick Cluvia, nor Flora Catulla.”
Women, in fact, are rarely _cunnilingues_, although there _are_ examples. Martial only mentions one woman as belonging to that category; we shall come across her again in the next chapter.
FOOTNOTES - CUNNILINGUES
-----
Footnote 102:
But Clodia was something more than a sister for Publius Clodius; this would appear from the spirited pleasantry of Cicero, _Pro Coelio_, ch. 13:
“If there had not arisen differences between me and that lady’s husband, ... brother, I would say; I always make that mistake.”
Footnote 103:
Gonzalvo of Cordova, according to Aloysia Sigaea (Dialogue VIII.), made similar jokes: “He also, I am sure, in spite of his age, was a great tongue-player (linguist). A pretty girl of some twenty years had to amuse him. When he wanted to put his tongue to her _juste milieu_, he declared he wanted to go to Liguria.” He could play with words upon the same matter, always implying the idea of a humid vulva, saying that he was going to Phœnicia, or to the Red Sea, or to the Salt Lake; you now understand what is meant by the Salt Lake or Salt Sea, into which Alpheus threw himself according to the epigram in the _Anthology_. Nearly related to this are the salgamas of Ausonius, of which we shall speak shortly, and the “onions swimming in putrid brine,” which the Bæticus of Martial, III., 77 devours. As it was said of the fellators that they “Phœnicized”, because they followed the example set by the Phœnicians, so probably the same word was applied to the _cunnilingues_ as loving to swim in a certain sea of Phœnician red; and, in fact, this was the case. Hesychius: “Scylax, an Erotic posture, like that assumed by Phœnicizers.” The Phœnicians assumed a certain posture, called Scylax, or _the dog_. There could be nothing better for describing the depraved action of a _cunnilingue_ than this canine epithet with regard to the posture taken for irrumating or fellation; dogs are _cunnilingues_ as anybody knows, and have been so ever since their abominable adventure which their ambassadors met with (allusion to Phaedrus’ fable).
Footnote 104:
Ovid, _Metamorphoses_, III., 308-12:
“... Mortal woman could not survive the celestial fire; she was consumed by her spouse’s favours. The infant but half formed is torn from the mother’s womb, and, if we may believe the tale, is sown still immature in the father’s thigh, and there completes the period of gestation.”
Footnote 105:
This Castor is perhaps the same who, according to the statement of Ausonius (Epigram in _Professoribus Burdegalensibus_, XXII., 7) had published a book with the title _Cunctis de Regibus ambiguis_.
Footnote 106:
Pliny, _Nat. Hist._, XII., ch. 12: “The Costus-root has a burning taste and an exquisite smell; its berries are otherwise useless.”
Footnote 107:
The Cysthus, Greek **** is the private parts of a woman. Aristophanes, _Lysistrata_, v. 1160: “And a more beautiful cysthus I never saw.”
Footnote 108:
Pliny _Nat. Hist._, XII., ch. 12: “The leaves of the nard must be considered more minutely, for they are a principal ingredient in perfumery.”
Footnote 109:
Quintilian, _Instit. orat_., I., ch. 1: “He can learn the interpretation of the occult languages, what the Greeks call ****** Alcuin, _Grammatica_, p. 2086, in Putschius’ _Collection_: _Glossa_ is the interpretation of a verb or a noun; _e.g._ _catus_ is the same thing as _doctus_.” On this occasion it may be permitted to the Director of the Court-Library at Coburg to state, that this library contains a remarkable copy of the collection of Putschius, by the hand of John Scheffer, who died at Upsala in 1679, beginning thus: “The notes to be found in this volume, on the margin of books IV. and V., of Priscian, have been made after a very ancient and most beautifully written manuscript, in which a number of traces of primitive Latin orthography are found, as for instance: _dirivare_ for _derivare_, _peneultimus_ and _antepeneultimus_ for _penultimus_ and _antepenultimus_, _Oratius_ for _Horatius_, etc.”
Footnote 110:
As we are on the subject of the shape of the female organ, it will not be amiss to enumerate in this place all the various names by which it was known in Latin; the greater part of them we have gathered from the treasure-house of Aloysia Sigaea: “The field, the ring, the furrow, the cavern, the clitoris, the conch-shell, the cunnus, the little boat, the cysthus, the pit, the garden, the between-thighs, the barque, the swine, the wicket, the slit, the precipice, the hole, the trench, the sheath, the virginal, the vulva. And what should hinder us from giving at the time the names of the virile member: The armature of the belly, the catapult, the tail, the stem, the parcel, the column, the pole, the lance with balls, the amulet, the pike, the groin, the hanger, the mentula, the mutinus, the muto, the nerve, the virile sign, the stake, the peculia, the penis, the stopper, the phallus, the javelin, the tree, the obelisk, the shaft, the spectre, the seminal member, the awl, the bull, the dart, the balista, the beam, the thyrsus, the vessel, the little vessel, the vein, the private, the verpa and verpus, the verge, the ploughshare.” Here you have more than enough.
Footnote 111:
_Altrinsecus_, in Ausonius, is equivalent to _utrinsecus_, meaning, from either side. Lactantius employs that word in _De Opificio Dei_, ch. 8: “It is incredible how the fact of their being double (the ears) adds to their beauty, as much on account of the symmetry thus produced, as because the sounds which arise on all sides, can more easily be received on both sides (altrinsecus).”
Footnote 112:
Persius, VI., 13: “And you may mark the crime with a black Theta.” See also Martial, VII., 36.
Footnote 113:
I say it was adopted by them particularly; that there were also young men, who by a singular depravity licked the vulvas they might have entered legitimately, Martial tells us, XI., 86:
“An evil star, Zoilus, has struck your tongue of a sudden, even while licking a vulva. Of a surety, Zoilus, you must now use your member.”
Footnote 114:
When the middle-finger is pointing, the other fingers are turned inside, representing thus a mentula with its accessories; for which reason it was thus pointedly shown to Cinedes (the Greeks expressed this in a single word: ******), either by way of invitation or to tease them. Martial, I., 93: “Cestus has often complained to me, Mamurianus, that you tease him with your finger.” It was also pointed at people held in contempt. The same author, VI., 70:
“He points with the finger and that the impudent finger” (that is Martianus, who is never ill, does to the doctors). Thence this unlucky finger had the epithet “infamous.” Persius says without any obscene afterthought, II., 33: “The grandmother cleanses the babe with the infamous (middle) finger.”
Footnote 115:
Nevertheless, Eunuchs who have been deprived of their testicles, but not of their mentula, are by no means wanting in lubricity: they can do the business without any danger for a woman, inasmuch as they cannot generate children. The Roman matrons were well aware of the fact: Martial, VI., 67:
“You ask me, Pannicus, why Gallia keeps so many Eunuchs; she loves to be enjoyed, but wants no children.”
Juvenal, VI., 365-67:
“There are women who like feeble eunuchs, and kisses that are ever harmless, and the absence, nay! the impossibility, of a beard, for they need use no abortive.”
St. Jerome, in the _Life of Hilarion_: “A steward with curled locks, castrated for the sake of longer pleasure and perfect safety....” To make more sure of their enjoyment, experienced dames did not allow the testicles of the Eunuchs to be cut off until the member had attained full proportions, apprehensive that it might remain puny and inactive if the operation were made earlier. They wanted their Eunuchs well furnished, capable of challenging Priapus himself. By such they liked to be worked, being sure of not becoming enceinte. Juvenal, VI., 367-77:
“With those however is love’s pleasure most exquisite, whose testicles, when they are lusty and fully matured, are delivered to the surgeons, the pubis being already black with hair. The organs are spared till they are full and ready; then at last, when they have reached two pounds in weight, Heliodorus cuts them, to the prejudice of the barber. The observed of all observers, stared at by all, see him enter the baths and challenge the god of vineyard and garden, castrated thus by his lady’s order. He may sleep now with his mistress; still beware, Josthumus, how you trust him with your Bromius, now fully developed and ready for the razor.”
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## CHAPTER VI
OF TRIBADS
THE tribads, also called frictionists[116] from the Greek ****, I rub, are women, with whom that part of the genital apparatus which is called the clitoris, attains such proportions, that they can use it as a mentula, either for fornication or pedication. The clitoris,[117] which is a very sensitive caruncle (a small fleshy cone), capable of movement and resembling the verge, gets into erection with all women, not only during the coitus, the delights of which it is said to enhance immensely by increased titillation, but also in consequence of mere amorous longing; with tribads, either by a freak of nature or in consequence of frequent use, it attains immoderate dimensions[118]. The tribad can get it in erection, enter a vulva or anus, enjoy a delicious voluptuousness, and procure if not a complete realization of cohabitation, at least something very near to it, to the woman who plays the passive part. What more is there to say? She plays the man’s part with the omission of the ejaculation of the semen, not that this sort of coitus is an altogether dry affair, as women are in the habit of emitting their liquid during the joys of love[119].
This depravity of voluptuousness, whether caused by the warmth of the climate, or by a peculiarity of the soil or waters, or other reasons unknown to us, was especially common with the women of Lesbos; this is attested by all the old writers. Lucian, in his “Dialogues of courtesans,” No. V. (Works, vol. VII., p. 349.): “This is one of those tribads, as they are to be found in Lesbos, who will have nothing to do with men, and do the men’s business with women.” If such things were an every day occurrence with the Lesbian women, we must believe that they were pushed to them by natural instigation[120], and to allay an intolerable pruriency. Who has not heard of that most celebrated queen of all tribads, Sappho, herself a Lesbian? Some authors, Maximum of Tyre the first among them, have with the best intention tried to exonerate her from his infamous vice; but hear her in Ovid (and he represents the Ancients in sentiment and feeling), repudiating her would be apologists, _Heroides_, XV., 15-20:
“Neither the maidens of Pyrrha, nor those of Methymna[121], nor all the host of Lesbian beauties please me. Vile to me seems Anactoria, vile the fair Cydno, Atthis is no more so dear to my eyes as once she was, nor yet a hundred others I loved not innocently[122]. Villain! yours is now what belonged to many women....”
and verse 201:
“Lesbian women, beloved, who made me infamous!”
Sappho speaks first in general of those that have submitted to her caresses, the maidens of Pyrrha and Methymna; then she mentions by name Anactoria, Cydno and Atthis,—to whom Suidas adds Telesippa and Megara:
“Her favorites, whom she loved well, were three in number, Atthis, Telesippa, Megara, and for those she burnt in impure passion.”
These passages from the Ancients are clear enough, and do not admit of any doubt; they even assist us in explaining other sentences, which otherwise seem obscure or ambiguous; for instance the “masculine Sappho” of Horace (_Epistles_ I., XIX., 28); “making plaint against the maids of her country” (_Odes_ II., XIII., 25); also Ovid, _Art of Love_, III., 331.
“Sappho should be well known, too; what more wanton than she?” _Tristia_, II., 363:
“What was the lore Lesbian Sappho taught, but to love maids?”
and Martial, VII., 68[123].
“Sappho, the amorous, praised our poetess; the latter was more pure, the former not more perfect in art.”
Lucian’s witty and licentious pen has made famous another tribad, Megilla, in the above quoted Dialogue. This Dialogue is not outrageously obscene, for it breaks off just at the moment when things would have had to be said very plainly; nevertheless, the virginal modesty of our Wieland has not dared to translate it into German. The philosopher of Samosata brings Leaena upon the scene, and makes her disclose by what artifices Megilla gained her consent. Leaena asks Megilla:
“Are you then made like a man, and do with Demonassa (whom Megilla used after the manner of tribads), as men do?” “I have not got exactly all that, my Leaena,” answers Megilla, “but I am not entirely without it. However, you will see me at work, and in a very pleasant manner. I have been born like all of you, but I have the tastes, the desires and something else of a man. Let me do it to you, if you do not believe me, and you will see that I have everything that men have. Give me leave to work you, and you will see.” Leaena confesses that she at last consented, moved by her solicitations and promises, and no doubt also by the novelty of the thing. “I let her have her way,” she says, “yielding to her entreaties, seconded by a magnificent necklet and a robe of fine linen. I took her in my arms like a man; she went to work caressing me, panting with excitement and evidently experiencing the extreme of pleasure.” Clonarion asks her inquisitively:
“But what did she do to you Leaena, and how did she manage?” But Leaena eludes the question. “Do not ask me anything more; these are nasty doings; by Urania, I shall not breathe a word more!” she answers, to the great regret of the reader, who would like to penetrate further this mystery.
Amongst the tribads is still to be named Philaenis, the same, no doubt, who according to Lucian (_Amores_, ch. 28—Works vol. V., p. 88), wrote about erotic postures: “Let our women’s apartments be filled by women like Philaenis, dishonored by androgynic[124] loves!”—Sophoclidisca in Plautus, to whom Paegnion says: “Do not caress me, subagitatrix!” (_Persa_, act II., 41);—and Folia of Ariminum, who according to Horace (_Epodes_, V., 41) was “of masculine lubricity.” However writers as a rule touch upon these points more lightly than is agreeable to the curiosity of the reader. For the same reason the too great reserve of Seneca (_Controversia_, II) is to be regretted, where he says at the end:
“Hybreas having to plead in favor of a man who had surprised and killed a tribad, described the grief of the husband; on such a subject one must not ask for a too particular investigation.”
Much more complete, full and explicit is our good friend of Bilbilis (Martial). Hear him! he is disclosing the tribadic doings of Balba, so clearly that it could not be done better; I., 91:
“As no one, Bassa, ever saw you go with men; as rumor never assigned you a lover, as every office about you was fulfilled by a troop of women, no man ever coming nigh you, you seemed to us, I admit, a very Lucretia. But, oh! shame on you, Bassa, you were a fornicator all the time! You dare to conjoin the private parts of two women together, and your monstrous organ of love feigns the absent male. You have contrived a miracle to match the Thebian riddle: that where no man is, there adultery should be!”
Surely it is clear enough what Bassa did, in conjoining the privates of two women together. By no means! There are expounders, and very good ones, too, who have quite misunderstood this very easy passage, and have imagined that Bassa misused women by introducing into their vagina a leathern contrivance, an olisbos, a _godemiche_; we shall speak at the end of this chapter of this kind of pleasure, but it was quite unknown to Bassa, who simulated the man in her own person.
Nothing could be more monstrous than the libertine passion of Philaenis; she did not content herself with introducing her stiff clitoris in the vulva of tribads, Martial, VII., 69:
“Tribad of tribads, you, Philaenis, you are well justified in calling her your mistress whom you work;” or in those of other young girls, and to get a dozen of them under her in a day; but she even pedicated boys; Martial, VII., 67:
“Philaenis the tribad pedicates boys[125], and stiffer than a man in one day works eleven girls.”
In order to leave nothing untasted in the way of virile lusts she was also a _cunnilingue_; same epigram, at the end:
“After all that, when she is in good feather,—she does not suck, that is too feminine; she devours right out girls’ middle parts. May all the gods confound you, Philaenis, who think it manly work to lick the vulva.”
Philaenis, when overmuch in rut, caused herself also to be served by _cunnilingues_; this is clear enough from Martial, IX., 41:
“When Diodorus, wanting the Tarpeian crowns, left Pharos behind and sailed for Rome, Philaenis vowed that to celebrate her mate’s return an innocent maid should lick her, such a one as the chaste Sabine women still cherish.”
She vowed if her husband returned to have her vulva licked by a young girl, well-known for her innocence and chastity; to have it done by prostitutes was for Philaenis nothing new; she wanted on that occasion to experiment with a virgin, exactly like men, who always want something new and strange to spur their lust. How rare it was for women to use other women for that purpose appears from Juvenal II., 47-49:
“... There will no other instance be found so abominable in our sex; Taedia does not lick Cluvia, nor Flora Catulla.”
But what could you find stronger, more energetic and plainer to enlighten the reader completely on this subject than the following verses in _Satire_ VI., 308-333, where Juvenal’s ire against the tribadic orgies in Rome breaks out in words of fire?
“At night they stop their litters here, make water here, and flood with long syphons the Goddess’ statue, and ride turn and turn about and go through the motions under the eye of the conscious moon; then they make for home. When the morning light returns, you walk through your wife’s piss, to visit your great friends. Known are the secret rites of the _Bona Dea_, when the flute excite their wanton loins, when drunk with music and with wine they rush along, whirling their locks and howling, these Maenads of Priapus! How they yearn for instant copulation! how their voice trembles with passionate longing! what floods of old wine gush down their dripping thighs! A prize is offered, and Laufeia challenges the brothel-master’s girls, and wins the first place for nimble hips; while herself is mad for the pleasure Medullina’s artful movements give her. Amongst these dames merit carries off the palm from noble blood. There nothing must be feigned, all must be done in very truth and deed,—enough to set on fire, however chilled with age, Laomedon’s son and old Nestor with his rupture! Then is seen mere lust that will brook not a moment’s more delay, women in her bare brutality, while from every corner of the subterranean hall rises the reiterated cry: “The hour is come, admit the men.” Is the lover asleep? she bids the first young man to hand snatch up his hood and come at once. Is none to be found? resort is had to slaves. No hope of slaves? a water-carrier will be hired to come. If he comes not, and men there are none, she will not wait an instant more but get an ass to mount her from behind.”
The tribadic orgies were divided into two kinds; in one of them the Roman dames, giving free course to their lust, defiled the altar of chastity; in the other they celebrated the mysteries of the _Bona Dea_. You see in the first place the tribads go at night in litters to the altar of chastity, there pass their water[126] against the statue of the Goddess, and having perhaps spirted their urine up to her face[127] they at all events wet the area all about, (their husbands walking right through it in the morning, when they go to see their patrons), and then they ride or allow themselves to be ridden alternately; here we have more than one Philaenis, tribad of tribads! Other ladies go to celebrate the mysteries of the _Bona Dea_, well known to the public since the adventures of Clodius[128]. You observe them rousing themselves with the sounds of flutes and trumpets, as also with fumes of wine, to undergo valiantly the jousts of mutual love; you see their amorous frenzy, their hair flying in the wind; you note their sighs of longing, and how they piss with excitement. A prize is set, as in the feast of Pope Alexander VI., to be given to the most intrepid tribad: Laufeia calls upon the brothel-girls to let her ride them, and carries off the crown[129]; there is none there of better heart than Medullina, expert in plying her loins and buttocks; there all etiquette ceases, mistresses and servants alike contest for the palm of obscenity; there is no sham, all is tribadic reality[130]; but, after all, finally nature got the upper hand again, the tribad disappeared, and the woman became again a woman, leaving alone tribadism, as a phantom only of pleasure, and not satisfying them; from all parts a cry is raised: “Now is the time for the men to come in: go and find young men; if you cannot find any, then slaves will do; if they are lacking, bring the first men you can find in the streets.” And if all fails, in their shameless wantonness, they will offer their buttocks to an ass[131]. On the origin of tribads[132] Phaedrus has a fable, IV., 14:
“Another asked the reason why tribads and cinedes were created. The old man thus explained: The same Prometheus, modeller of the human clay, that if it knock against Fortune is shivered in pieces, once when he had been fashioning all day long separately those parts that modesty keeps hidden beneath a garment, to fit them presently to the bodies he had made, was unexpectedly invited to supper by Bacchus. There he imbibed the nectar in large drafts, and returned late home with unsteady foot; then what with fumes of wine and sleepiness, he joined the female parts to male bodies, and fixed male members on to the women. Thus it is we find lust indulging in depraved pleasures.”
The masculine member applied to women is evidently that clitoris of such proportions in erection, that the tribads can use it like a penis; the female apparatus fitted on to man is nothing else but the posterior orifice, which itches in the case of cinedes, just as the vulva titillates women. Tribads were not wanting in the times of Tertullian; he calls them frictrices. _De Pallio_, ch. 4:
“Look at those she-wolves who make their bread by the general incontinence; amongst themselves they are also frictrices.”
The same author says in the _De Resurrectione Carnis_, ch. 16: “I do not call a cup poisoned which has received the last sigh of a dying man; I give that name to one that has been infected by the breath of a frictrix, of a high-priest of Cybelé, of a gladiator, of an executioner, and I ask if you will not refuse it as you would such persons’ actual kisses.”
Nor was the trade of tribad out of date in the time of Aloysia Sigaea:
“Nay! do not think me”, says Tullia, Dialogue II., “worse than others. This taste is spread almost over the universe. Italians, Spaniards, French, are all alike as to the tribadism of their women; if they were not ashamed, they would always be rutting in each other’s arms.”
More, she quotes herself some examples of the hot transports of tribads, Dialogue VII.:
“Enemunda, the sister of Fernando Porcio, was very beautiful, and not less so was a friend of hers, Francisca Bellina. They frequently slept together in Fernando’s house. Fernando laid secret snares for Francisca; the latter knew that he desired to have her, and was proud of it. One morning the young man, stung by his desires, rose with the sun, and stepped out upon the balcony to cool his hot blood. He heard the bed of his sister in the next room cracking and shaking. The door stood open; Venus had been kind to him and had made the girls careless. He enters; they do not see him, blinded and deafened by pleasure. Francisca was riding Enemunda, both naked, full gallop. ‘The noblest and most powerful mentulas are every day after my maidenhead,’ said Francisca, ‘I should select the finest, dear, but for you; so fain am I to gratify your tastes and mine.’ Whilst speaking she was jogging her vigorously. Fernando threw himself naked into the bed; the two girls, almost frightened to death, dared not stir. He draws Francisca, exhausted by her ride, into his arms and kisses her: ‘How dare you, abandoned girl,’ he says, ‘violate my sister, who is so pure and chaste? You shall pay me for this; I will revenge the injury done to our house; answer now to my flames as she has answered to yours.’ ‘My brother! my brother!’ cries Enemunda, ‘pardon two lovers, and do not betray us to slander!’ ‘No one shall know anything,’ he answered, ‘let Francisca make me a present of her treasure, and I will make you both a present of my silence.’”
The conversation of Ottavia with Tullia, acting as tribad, in the same work (Dialogue II) is still bolder and more to the point:
TULLIA: Pray do not draw back; open your thighs.
OTTAVIA: Very well! Now you cover me entirely, your mouth against mine, your breast against mine, your belly against mine; I will clasp you as you are clasping me.
TULLIA: Raise your legs, cross your thighs over mine, I will show you a new Venus; to you quite new. How nicely you obey! I wish I could command as well as you execute!
OTTAVIA: Ah! ah! my dear Tullia, my queen! how you push! how you wriggle! I wish those candles were out; I am ashamed there should be light to see how submissive I am.
TULLIA: Now mind what you are doing! when I push, do you rise to meet me; move your buttocks vigorously, as I move mine, and lift up as high as ever you can! Is your breath coming short?
OTTAVIA: You dislocate me with your violent pushing; you stifle me; I would not do it for any one but you.
TULLIA: Press me tightly, Ottavia, take ... there! I am all melting and burning, ah! ah! ah!
OTTAVIA: Your affair is setting fire to mine—draw back!
TULLIA: At last, my darling, I have served you as a husband; you are my wife now!
OTTAVIA: I wish to heaven you were my husband! What a loving wife I should make! What a husband I should have! But you have inundated my garden; I am all bedewed! What have you been doing, Tullia?
TULLIA: I have done everything up to the end, and from the dark recesses of my vessel love in blind transports has shot the liquor of Venus into your maiden barque.
Leo Africanus, in his _Description of Africa_, p. 336 (edition Elzevir, of 1632), mentions the tribads of Fez:
“But those who have more common sense, call these women (he is speaking of witches) “Sahacat,” a word which corresponds with the Latin _fricatrices_, because they take their pleasure with each other. I cannot speak more plainly without offending decency. When good-looking women visit them, these witches fall at once in hot love with them, not less hot than the love of young men for girls, and they ask them in the guise of the devil to pay them by suffering their embraces. So it happens that very often when they think they have been obeying the behests of demons, they have really only had to do with witches. Many, too, pleased with the game they have played, seek of their own impulse to enjoy intercourse again with the witches, and under pretence of being ill, summon one of them or send their unfortunate husbands to fetch her. Then the witches, seeing how matters stand, asseverate that the wife is possessed by a demon, and can only be liberated by joining their association.”
You ask whether tribads are still to be found in our days? If there are none now, there certainly were some in existence in Paris only a short time before the Great Revolution, if we are to trust the author of _Gynaeology_, III., p. 428. There was a veritable college of tribads in Paris, who went by the names of Vestals, holding regular meetings in
## particular localities. There were a great many members, and of the
highest classes; they had their statutes with respect to admission; the affiliated were divided into three degrees: aspirants, postulants, the initiated. Before the postulant could be admitted to the secret of the order, she had to undergo for three days a difficult probation: shut up in a cell tapestried with lewd pictures, and ornamented with carved Priapi of magnificent proportions, she had to keep up a fire with I do not know how many ingredients, and arranged in such a manner that it would go out if there was taken too much or too little of any of the materials; on the four altars of the temple, which was adorned with statues of Sappho, of the Lesbians she had loved, and of the Chevalier d’Eon, who for so many years successfully dissimulated his sex, and with splendid hangings, perpetual fires were burning. Kept English women, too, did not recoil at tribadism, as the same author states, III., p. 394. He affirms that not long before the close of the last century, confederacies of tribads, called Alexandrine confederacies, were still in existence in London, though in a small number only.
Enough now of those who are, strictly speaking, included under the name of tribads; but the word has a more extended signification. The term is also applied to those women who in default of a real mentula, make use of their finger or of a leathern contrivance, which they introduce into their vulva, and so attain a fictitious enjoyment. Germany, I have lately heard, has been ringing with complaints about this abuse. As regards the leathern engine[133], called by the Greeks olisbos, the women of Miletus, above all others, made it their instrument of pleasure. Aristophanes, in the _Lysistrata_, 108-110:
“For since the day the Milesians left us in the lurch, not an olisbos have I set eyes on, eight inches long,—that might give us its leathern aid....”
Suidas under the word “****”:
“A virile member made of leather which was used by Milesian women, as being tribads and immodest. It was also made use of by widows.”
The same author under the word “****”:
“Cratinus also says on this head: _Lewd_ women will be using the olisbos.”
Hesychius quotes the same passage.
If you ask whether modern women, who have suffered the wrong of seeing their beauty slighted, actually have recourse to this leathern substitute, Aloysia Sigaea (Dialogue II) shall answer you:
“The Milesian women made for themselves imitations in leather, eight inches long and thick in proportion. Aristophanes tells us that the women of his day habitually made use of such. And to this very day Italian, Spanish and Asiatic women honor this instrument with a place in their toilet apparatus; it is their most precious possession, and one very highly appreciated.”
It is an undoubted fact that the Roman matrons cherished a species of inoffensive snake[134], the cold skin of which served as a refrigerator in summer, Martial, VII., 86:
“If Glacilla winds an icy serpent round her neck....”
Lucian _Alexander_ (Works, vol. IV., p. 259):
“In that country one sees serpents of an enormous size, but so quiet and mild that they are fondled by women, sleep with the children, do not get angry on being trodden on or handled, and suck the nipples of the breast like a nursling.”
This being so, our eminent Bottiger was probably right, when he wrote page 454 of his _Sabina_[135] a profoundly scientific work in German, that very likely snakes were used as instruments to satisfy the lubricity of amorous women. You may understand now what happened, or what might have happened to Atia, the mother of Augustus, of whom Suetonius (_Augustus_, ch. 94) wrote:
“I read in the treatise of Asclepiades of Mendé called the _Theologumena_, how Atia the mother of Augustus, having gone at midnight to the temple of Apollo, to assist at a solemn sacrifice, fell asleep, and so did the other women present; how a serpent suddenly glided close to her, and after some little time withdrew again, and how on waking she purified herself, as though she had left the arms of her husband.”
There would be nothing surprising in the fact that a serpent of that sort should have investigated even without incitation on Atia’s part, a certain locality which was well known to it by the lubricity of other women, and that Atia felt on awakening the very same sensation as though she had undergone a real coitus.
FOOTNOTES - OF TRIBADS
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Footnote 116:
They were also called hetairistriae:—Hesychius: “Hetairistriae tribads”—and likewise dietairistriae, according to the same author: “Dietairistriae, women who go after prostitutes (hetairae) for carnal intercourse, just as men do; same as tribads.”
Footnote 117:
Aloysia Sigaea, Dialogue III.: “But I forgot (Tullia speaking) to tell you of the clitoris. This is a membranous body, situated at the bottom of the pubis, and representing in a reduced form the virile verge. As is the case with the verge, the amorous desire excites it to erection, and in certain women of an ardent temperament it inflames them with pruriency to such a degree that by the mere caressing of it with the hand they very often discharge their fluid without the help of a rider at all.”
Footnote 118:
If that woman whom Plater saw, according to Venette in his _Tableau de l’amour conjugal_, vol. I., ch. 1, 3, was not a tribad, she might well have been one; her clitoris, which with other women attains in its utmost erection the length of the half of the little finger or thereabouts, was as long as the neck of a goose. Is it surprising that women furnished with such an implement should wish to get rid of it? Amputation is however dangerous. Plater did not venture to finish an amputation which he had commenced, and Rodohamides, an Egyptian physician of the XIth century, had not courage to even undertake one, although commanded by a queen to perform the operation (Venette, IV., 2). Those whom Adramytes, the king of the Lydians, order to castrate women, were they more courageous? Athenæus, XII., 2: “Xanthus states in the second book of his Lydiacs, that Adramytes, king of the Lydians, was the first to have women castrated and employ them as eunuchs.” However that may be, these female eunuchs have very much exercised the commentators. Some suppose that straps and buckles did in their case the same service as the chastity-belts, which, it is said, Spaniards and Italians to this day compel their wives to wear if they think they have reason to be jealous: others believe that it was a question of suture, as is the case with the natives of Angola and the Congo, who stitch the vulvas of young girls for the protection of their maidenheads; but I believe that nobody knows anything certain in this respect. Nor does it appear that these women had to submit to an operation, which is certainly practised upon the young girls by the Arabs, Copts, Ethiopians, in some parts of Persia and Nigritia, and which consists in cutting off the prepuce of the clitoris; this is proved by abundant evidence, and reported in the Encyclopedia of Ersch and Gruber under the word: “Beschneidung” (Circumcision); how indeed could Athenæus describe as _Eunuchize_ that which is calculated to increase the fecundity of women. I thought first that these women were tribads changed into eunuchs by the removal of their immoderately large clitoris; I am now inclined to believe that the king caused that to be done to these women, which according to Aristotle, _Nat. Hist._ IX., 50, was done to sows: “Sows are castrated, so that they shall no longer desire the coitus and get quickly fattened. They are castrated, suspended by their hind legs, after fasting two days, by an incision in that place where with a man the testicles are situated, in fact in the female matrix.” Pliny, _Nat. Hist._, VIII., 51: “Sows are castrated in the same way as female camels, after a fast of two days, suspended by their hind legs, by an incision in the vulva; they thus fatten much quicker.” Columella, VII., IX. 5: “Sows are also castrated by incision in the vulva; the wounds cicatrics, and they cannot conceive any more.” This practice has by no means disappeared; Schneider notes it in the passage of Columella; sows, cows, mares, sheep, are still castrated by excising their ovarium. Why should we not believe that Adramytes wanted the same process to be applied to the fair sex, in order to make women sterile? However the ancient Egyptians, who (see Strabo, book XVII., p. 824) undoubtedly circumcized themselves, and also their women, appear to me to have had in view not so much ovariotomy as the circumcision of the prepuce of the clitoris, a practice still in use with them, as stated above; cutting the female parts being thus something like circumcision, it is to be assumed that a similar operation was intended rather than any other one.
Footnote 119:
Let us consult again Aloysia Sigæa, Dialogue III.: “It has happened sometimes to myself (Tullia), when Callias tries on me his lubricities, when he tickles me and excites me. Then I sometimes water his too libertine hands with an abundant dew from my pleasure grounds. And that gives him an opportunity for letting off a whole sheaf of sarcasms and jokes. But what can I do? I begin to laugh, and so does he; I tell him he is too impudent, he tells me I am too lewd; we call each other names right and left, and in the midst of our mutual recrimination he will throw himself upon me, turn me on my back, and force me to submit to his assault, saying he will give me his dewdrops for those he has drawn from me, so that I may not be a loser.” Further on, Dial., IV.: “Callias, pressing me more closely to him, buried his weapon deeper into my belly, almost as though he were trying to get himself in altogether. Soon a delicious stream spirted into me, and at the same time I felt my liquid boiling over, causing me such delight that I forgot all reticence, and myself excited Callias more and more, pressing him against me and begging him to quicken his pace. Thus we expired both together with our muscles relaxing at one and the same instant.” You will understand by this the meaning of the epigram to Sosipator in the _Analecta_ of Brunck, I., p. 504:
“Until the white liquor ran over with both of them, and Doras unwound her wearied limbs.”
Reiske thought the “white liquor” in this passage meant drops of perspiration. Nonsense! it means the virus secreted by both sexes, and liberated in the last spasms of lust. Aloysia Sigæa, Dialogue IV.: “As I finished speaking” (it is still Tullia that speaks), “he got upon me, and collecting all his strength he pushed the arrow into me, he filled my womb with his fecundating dew, and I also shed the rivulet of white liquid. Incapable of enduring any longer so intense a voluptuous feeling, we sank back exhausted in each other’s arms.” We have quoted besides on different occasions extracts from the rich treasures of Aloysia Sigæa, on this subject.
Footnote 120:
Women, whose clitoris is too prominent, are thus prevented from having intercourse with men, so that when they are seized with amorous designs they cannot well find any other way of satisfying their desires than by playing tribadism. (Venette IV., ii, 4.)
Footnote 121:
Pyrrha and Methymna are towns in Lesbos. Pomponius Mela, II., 7: “In the Troad is Lesbos, and in Lesbos there were formerly five cities, viz.: Antissa, Pyrrha, Eresos, Methymna, Mytilene.”
Footnote 122:
Not innocently, or rather, “not without crime”; some read “which I loved not without crime” others, “which I loved here without crime,” but the difference is not great. If you prefer “which I loved here,” the excuse itself is a confession. All we want is the admission that the tribad-tastes of Sappho are no modern invention, but originated, how we know not, and prevailed in very early times. The love of woman for woman was never known under any other name than the notorious one of tribadism.
Footnote 123:
See whether it is with good reason or no that the succeeding epigram, no. 69, calls Philaenis the tribad of tribads.
Footnote 124:
To make yourselves quite sure about what the author means by androgynic loves, look at the passage as a whole: “Come, you man of the new age, you lawgiver of unknown amours, if you open out new ways to the lubricity of men, you may grant to the women equal license. Let them cohabit together as the men do; let woman lie with woman, and simulate with their lascivious organs conjunctions, sterile though they be, as man lies with man! Let the word one hears so very rarely, and which I am ashamed to pronounce, let the lubricity of our tribads triumph without blushing.” Observe in the first place how tribads were seldom spoken of, and that they kept themselves in the dark; in the second place how the immoderate clitoris of the tribad is said to simulate lascivious organs in conjunction. Seneca, _Controversia Secunda_, in a similar sense, calls such a monstrosity *****, an _artificial man_; lastly the epithet “sterile” is applied to the clitoris, and points to the dry unproductiveness of the tribadic coitus.
Footnote 125:
Instead of “pedicating boys,” Martial might have said, if the metre had allowed it, “entering boys.” Seneca’s expression (Letter XCV), “_viros ineunt_,” which was a source of great trouble to the great Justus Lipsius, signifies nothing else: “The women will contest for the crown of lubricity with the men. May the gods confound them! one of their refined lubricities reverses the laws of Nature: they have connection with men!” There you have in plain words the turpitude which Justus Lipsius considered worthy of the infernal regions: tribads pedicating.
Footnote 126:
When women are in rut they pass their water, nature wills it so, Juvenal, VI., 63-65: “Let lewd Bathyllus dance the pantomime of Leda” (representing Leda receiving Jupiter in a dance with wanton gestures:
“Tuscia cannot command her bladder, Appula is sighing as if in amorous trance....”)
The same XI., 166-168:
“The other sex however feels more pleasure, is much sooner fired, and lets the water off, excited through eyes and ears.”
(What Juvenal says here as to this greater enjoyment on the part of the opposite sex is connected with his general opinion that women experience more pleasure in Love than men do. So his words in VI., 254: “For how insignificant is our pleasure!” Tiresias, called upon to arbitrate on this point in Lucian (_Amores_, p. 85), declared women’s enjoyment to be double that of men: “Unless indeed we are to agree with Tiresias’ arbitrement, that the woman’s pleasure is twice that of the man”).
Martial, XI., 17:
“How often will your rigid nerve lift up your tunic, though you be as stern as Curius or Fabricius! You too have to read our pages, be they ever so lascivious, young maiden, though you come from Padua.”
Footnote 127:
There is some ambiguity about the “long syphons.” They are rivulets of urine passed near the statue, or perhaps Juvenal means, to use the expression of Grangé, “Urine spirted right up into the Goddess’ face, which may be done by impudent women compressing with the hands their parts, and thus retaining for some time the water; thus collected it will spurt out with greater force.”
Footnote 128:
Verse 335-339.
“But all the Moors and Indians well know the flute-girl who showed a bigger penis than great Caesar’s two anti-Catos, in that place from which a rat will fly, conscious of possessing testicles....”
Footnote 129:
The “nimble hips” are those of the tribad, who is riding another in the posture of Apuleius’ Fotis, _Metamorph._ II., p. 122, when she gratified Lucius with the joys of a superincumbent Venus.
Footnote 130:
All this was actually represented in Paris, 1791, on the stage of a theatre, where, according to the author of the _Gynaeology_ III., 423, a man completely naked had connection with a woman as naked as himself, both representing savages, accompanied by the plaudits of both sexes. There is however nothing new under the sun. With the Romans it had long been customary, after the public games were finished, to bring prostitutes into the arena, and set them to work, so that the spectators might have an opportunity to perform what they had been looking at with greedy eyes; a herald proclaimed what was to come. Tertullian, _De Spectaculis_, ch. 17: “Prostitutes, the victims of public incontinence, are brought upon the stage, shamefaced with respect to the women only; to the men they were known; they are exposed to the laughter of all, high and low; their dwellings, their prices, even their recommendations were proclaimed by the crier.” Isidorus, _Origines_, XVIII., 42: “The theatre is like a brothel; when the games are over, public women are prostituted there.” The rape of the Sabines described in Livy (II., 18) would seem to have been a not dissimilar form of amusement: “In this year young Sabines in Rome having, in the midst of the games, abducted some prostitutes, the tumult ensuing thereupon degenerated into a riot, in fact nearly into a battle.”
Footnote 131:
Observe the subtlety of the expression adopted by the poet: “offers her buttocks to an ass to get on them.” Juvenal knows that a woman has no chance to have an ass’s mentula in her except by turning her back to the beast.
Footnote 132:
Plato, _Symposium_ (Works, Zweibrücken edition, vol. X., p. 205) imagines another origin; in the passage where he relates the celebrated fable, according to which Jupiter had cut the men in halves, he says: “As to those women who are halves of women, they are not much harassed by desires after men; but are much more given to amuse themselves with women; the hetairistriae descend from their category.”
Footnote 133:
Another use of these leathern engines has been noted in ch. II.
Footnote 134:
This sort of snake served also to amuse men. Suetonius, _Tiberius_, ch. 72: “He kept for amusement a snake; one day, when he went as usual to feed it, he found it devoured entirely by ants, which he took as a warning to guard against being attacked by a mob.” Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ XXIX., ch. 4: “The Aesculapian serpent was brought to Rome from Epidaurus; it was kept in the public edifices, and also in private houses.” Seneca, in the _De Ira_, II., ch. 31, speaks of: “Those snakes that glide harmlessly amid the cups and into the bosoms of the guests.” They were not of a small size; this appears from what Philostratus says in his _Heroics_, VIII., 1: “Ajax had a tame snake of five cubits length, which kept close to him, guided him on his way, and followed him about like a dog.” This kind of snake was very common at Pella, in Macedonia, as Lucian says in a passage quoted in the text: “There are many such in their country.” They are still to be found in Italy, according to Justus Lipsius in his Notes to Seneca.
Footnote 135:
“Sabina, or the Morning Toilette of a Roman Lady at the end of the First Century,” translated into French by Clapier, 1813, 8vo.
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## CHAPTER VII
OF INTERCOURSE WITH ANIMALS
IT will not be out of place to say something here of the incontinence of those who have carried out carnal intercourse with animals. It appears that in Egypt the Mendesians, who paid divine honors to a he-goat[136], prostituted to him publicly women, even against his inclination, in celebrating his rites. Herotodus II., 46:
“A monstrous affair was connected with this district (viz., the Mendesian) in my time; a he-goat covered a woman in public.”
Strabo, XVII., p. 802:
“Mendes, where they worship Pan, and a live he-goat; the latter in that place have intercourse with women[137].”
The Jews also knew something of the practice; as we know from the law of Moses, Leviticus xx., 15-16:
“And if a man lie with a beast, he shall surely be put to death: and ye shall slay the beast. And if a woman approach unto any beast, and lie down thereto, thou shalt kill the woman, and the beast: they shall surely be put to death” ...
How should Juvenal have come to tell us, Satire VI., 332-33:
“... no more delay is there; she hastens to make a donkey ride her from behind,” if it had not been known that women sometimes submitted themselves to asses? Would Apuleius have thought of describing to us with no less minuteness than wit the scene in which Lucius, changed into an ass by a mistake of Fotis, effects intercourse with a matron? _Metamorphoses_, book X., p. 249:
“But I was a prey to grave apprehensions; I asked myself how I, with my long and coarse legs, could mount a delicate woman, clasp with my hard hoofs her soft and tender limbs that looked like milk and honey; how could I with my enormous mouth, furnished with teeth as big as tomb-stones, kiss those small, rosy, scented lips; how lastly this lady, although in rut to her very finger nails, could take in such a big genital verge.... She, however, doubled her tender allurements, her endless kisses, her sweet murmurings, interspersed with sweet glances like stings: ‘I hold you at last,’ she cried, ‘I hold my dove, my sparrow!’ and having said this, she showed me how vain my fears had been for embracing me as closely as she could, she received me inside entirely, out and out. Even more than that, whenever I drew back in order to spare her, she pushed closer to me, and clasping my backbone like mad, she clung to me so closely that, by Hercules, I began to think that I was not well enough furnished to assuage her passion completely.”
A young girl of Tuscany got herself covered by a dog in the time of Pius V., the Roman Pope, as reported by Venette II., iv., ch. 3; and according to a note of Elmenhorst on the above quoted passage of Apuleius, a woman was discovered in Paris, in October, 1601, to have had connection with a dog. The law was appealed to, and in conformity with the unanimous verdict pronounced by the parliament, the adulterous woman and the dog were both burnt alive. Nay! more, a woman has been known to submit to a crocodile, if we may believe Plutarch, who reports in his treatise _On the Sagacity of Animals_ (p. 976, vol. II., of the complete Works):
“Quite lately our excellent Philinus, on returning from a long voyage to Egypt, told me that he had seen at Antaeopolis an old woman sleeping with a crocodile stretched comfortably beside her on her pallet.”
Nor have men despised the vulva of animals. Plate III of the _Monuments du Culte Secret des Dames Romaines_, shows the picture of a man working away in a goat, though the annotator ought not to have quoted in illustration of it a passage of Virgil (_Bucolics_ III., 8.), which has nothing whatever to do with this matter:
“We know who (pedicated) you, while the he-goats looked at you askance.”
In our countries legal cases show that not only goats, but also sheep, cows, and mares, have sometimes charmed shepherds and other people of low breeding.
FOOTNOTES - OF INTERCOURSE WITH ANIMALS
-----
Footnote 136:
Plutarch, _Of Animals that have Reason_, p. 989, vol. II., of his works: “It is reported in Egypt the he-goat Mendes, shut up with a great number of women, all of them beautiful, refused to have anything to do with them, and prefers goats by far.”
Footnote 137:
If we may believe Venette (II., iv. 3), there is nothing more common in Egypt at the present day than for young women to have intercourse with he-goats.
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## CHAPTER VIII
OF SPINTRIAN POSTURES
IN the sundry kinds of voluptuous enjoyment which we have studied so far, there are almost always only two persons in action. It happens, nevertheless, that more than two, three or even more, may enjoy themselves together; this is what we call after Tiberius, the spintrian kind. Suetonius, _Tiberius_, ch. 43:
“In his retreat at Capri he had a _sellaria_, the scene of his secret debaucheries, in which chosen groups of young girls and worn-out voluptuaries, the inventors of monstrous conjunctions, called by him _spintries_, formed a triple chain, surrendered themselves to mutual defilements in his presence, so as to reanimate by this spectacle his languishing desires.”
This _sellaria_, by the etymology of the word, was evidently a room furnished with seats; those who prostituted each other on these seats were called “_sellarii_,” from the place, and “_spintriae_,” from the chain they formed. Spinter, according to Festus, p. 443, signified, “a kind of bracelet worn by women on the upper part of the left arm.” The word is probably a corruption of _sphincter_, the Greek **** from ****, “I clasp,” as for instance, a band surrounding the arm. Tacitus, _Annals_, VI., ch. 1:
“Then there were invented names never known before, as for instance, _sellarii_ and _spintriae_, names taken from the turpitude of the place or from the complicated infamies undergone.”
Spintries then are those who, linked like the rings of a bracelet, thus accomplish the pleasures of Venus. Three can link themselves thus, two and two, in such a way that while the middle one is a fornicator or a pedicon, in front is a woman or a cinede, behind a pedicon. Such was the chain formed by those Ausonius (_Epigram_ CXXIX.) describes[138]:
“Three in one bed; two submit to the infamous act, two perform it.—Four there are, I suppose.—Wrong! to the outermost ones give a villainy apiece; count the man in the middle twice, for he both acts and submits.”
Do you want to see the one in the middle working a woman? Plate XL. of the _Monuments de la Vie Privée des douze Césars_ shows you an example. Do you wish to see the middle one pedicating? Look at plate XXVII.
There is, however, no need that the middle actor should fornicate or pedicate. He may be placed between his two companions in such a way that while he is enduring the assault of a pederast behind, he may in front irrumate, suck a member or lick a vulva. Hostius whose mind was so fertile in inventing obscenities that he was held up as an example to future ages, has tried all these postures and even added fresh variations. Seneca (_Nat. Quaest._, I., 16) has inveighed against him more vehemently than is perhaps fit for a philosopher. It seems to me as though some secret voluptuousness has been acting here on the sense of this rigid guardian of virtue; he says:
“I will tell you here a story which will show you that lust will not disdain any artifice which is calculated to rouse desires, and to stimulate its own fury. The lasciviousness of Hostius was of the extremest kind. It was this rich miser, this slave of a hundred million sesterces, whose death, when he had been assassinated by his slaves, Augustus would not avenge, although he would not say that they were right to kill him. His lewdness was not contented with one sex; he was as passionate for men as for women. He had mirrors made which magnified the reflections so much that a finger appeared as big as an arm. These mirrors were placed in such a manner that when he had a man under him he could watch every movement of his accomplice, and enjoy as it were the fictitious size of his member. He chose his men carefully, the measuring tape in hand, and still had to deceive his insatiable passion. It would be too outrageous to report everything which this monster, that ought to have been torn into pieces, dared to say and do with his mouth; when surrounded on all sides by his mirrors he was the spectator of his own turpitudes, and those secret infamies which every man would deny, if accused of them, of such he took his fill not with his mouth only, but also with eyes. And, by Hercules, generally speaking crimes shun their own reflection; men who are bare of every feeling of honor and exposed to every insult, still have some sense of shame, and do not appear as they are. But he feasted his eyes on unheard of and unknown infamies, and, not content to see simply how he dishonored himself, he surrounded himself with mirrors, for the sake of multiplying and grouping his lubricities. As he could not see unaided everything distinctly when, pedicated by one man, he had his head between the thighs of another, he saw by his mirrors what he was doing and how. He saw the lewd work of his mouth, and watched himself absorbing men by every orifice. Sometimes placed between a man and a woman, playing both ways the passive part, he was able to see the greatest abominations. Darkness was not for him! So far from being afraid of the light of day, he wanted it for his monstrous copulations, and was proud to have them illuminated by it. Nay, more, he even wanted to be painted in these attitudes. Even prostitutes have a certain reserve, and those that abandon themselves to the outrages of all, veil to some extent their poor complaisances, and the very brothel keeps some relics of decency; but this monster turned his obscenities into a spectacle for himself.
“Yes,” he said, “I submit myself to a man and a woman at the same time; but nevertheless with the organs which are left free to me I am still able to commit a worse ignominy. All my limbs are polluted; then shall my eyes also take part in my enjoyments, they shall be witnesses and judges. What I cannot see in a natural way let me see by the help of art, so that I may not be ignorant of what I am doing. No matter to me that Nature has provided man with such insignificant organs of voluptuousness, the same nature which has furnished animals so well; I find means to deceive my passion, and to satisfy myself. Where is the harm, if I try to imitate nature? I will have mirrors which shall reflect images of incredible dimensions. If I could, I would make these images real; as I cannot, I must be satisfied with phantoms. Let me see these objects of obscenity larger than they are in reality, and surprise myself by the sight of them!”
Plate XXI. of the _Monuments de la Vie Privée des douze Césars_ shows the picture of Tiberius in a very strange spintrian posture, which, however, is not without charm; the emperor, half reclining on his back, licks one girl’s privates who is kneeling over him, while he offers his penis to be sucked by another.
There are also arrangements where more than three can join, making thus a longer chain. Let a man put his member into a woman while both of them are being pedicated at the same time, and you have four people forming a triple chain, like those of Tiberius in the passage of Suetonius quoted above. Suppose then another pedicon on each end, and then you have a group of five, forming a quadruple interweaving. Martial, XII., 43:
“There are to be found novel figures of Love, such as the impassioned fornicator may try, such as experienced libertines perform and keep the secret of; how five can copulate in a group, how more still may be connected in a chain.”
Look at Plate XXXVI. of the _Monuments de la Vie privée des douze Césars_, with a group of five copulators artistically diversified. Nero, lying face downwards, enters one girl who is on her back, at the same time licking the privates of another who is standing; he himself is being pedicated, while the girl standing also submits her behind to a pedicon. That such a chain may be extended infinitely, is self evident.
FOOTNOTES - OF SPINTRIAN POSTURES
-----
Footnote 138:
Translation by Ausonius of a Greek Epigram of Strata, to be found in Brunck’s _Analecta_, II., 380.
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ENUMERATION
OF THE
EROTIC POSTURES
1. The man face downwards taking between his thighs the woman, who lies on her back with her legs stretched out straight.
2. The man face downwards taken between her thighs by the woman, who lies on her back with the legs apart.
3. The woman lying on her back taking only one leg of her cavalier between her thighs.
4. The woman lying on her back with her feet crossed over the loins of the man.
5. The woman lying on her back with one of her legs stretched out, and the other over the man’s loins.
6. The woman lying on her back with the cavalier mounted on her with his back towards her face.
7. The woman lying on her back, with the cavalier mounted athwart her.
8. The man lying with the woman half couched on her side with the legs stretched out.
9. The man lying with the woman half couched on her side, one leg stretched out, the other one over the man’s loins.
10. The woman half couched, the man mounted with his back to her.
11. The man on his knees, the woman on her back with her legs open.
12. The woman on her back with her legs resting on the man’s loins, who is kneeling.
13. The woman on her back, one leg stretched out, the other one resting on the loins of the man, who is kneeling.
14. The woman on her back with her legs on the shoulders of the man, who is kneeling.
15. The woman on her back with one leg resting on the loins of the man, who is on his knees, and the other one on his shoulder.
17. The man kneeling gets into the woman, who is in a sitting position with her thighs open.
18. The woman sitting with one leg stretched out, and the other resting on the loins of the man, who is kneeling.
19. The woman sitting, with her two legs resting on the loins of the kneeling man.
20. The woman sitting with one leg stretched out, and the other on the shoulder of her cavalier on his knees.
21. The woman sitting with her two legs on the shoulders of her cavalier on his knees.
22. The woman sitting, one of her legs on the shoulder of the man on his knees, the other one stretched out.
23. The man on his knees, the woman with her back to him.
24. The man on his back, the woman facing him.
25. The man on his back with the woman turning her back to him.
26. The man on his back, the woman athwart him.
27. The man on his back, with the woman lifted up.
28. The man sitting with the woman facing him.
29. The man sitting, the woman facing him, with her legs in the air.
30. The man sitting with the woman turning her back upon him.
31. Man and woman standing.
32. Man and woman standing, with one leg of man or the woman lifted up.
33. The man standing, with the woman on her back, her legs open.
34. The woman lying on her back, with her legs lifted on the loins of the man, who is standing.
35. The woman lying on her back, one leg stretched out and the other lifted on the loins of the man, who is standing.
36. The woman on her back, with her two legs on the shoulders of the man, who is standing.
37. The woman on her back, one leg stretched out and the other one on the shoulder of the man, who is standing.
38. The woman on her back, with one of her legs on the shoulder of the man, who is standing, the other over his loins.
39. The man standing, the woman half lying on her side.
40. The man standing, getting into the woman who is sitting with her legs open.
41. The man standing, getting into the woman sitting with her legs in the air.
42. The man standing, the woman sitting with one leg stretched out and the other one lifted up.
43. The man standing and the woman lifted up.
44. The woman lifted up, with her legs on the shoulders of the man, who is standing.
45. The man standing, the woman on her knees, with her back towards him.
46. The man standing, the woman crouching down, with her back towards him.
47. The man standing, the woman with her back towards him, the lower part of the body elevated, and the upper part resting on the bed.
48. The man standing, the woman turning her back to him with the lower part of the body artificially raised.
49. A man lying down and being pedicated.
50. A man pedicated standing.
51. A man on his knees being pedicated.
52. A man pedicated crouching down.
53. Irrumator lying down.
54. Irrumator sitting.
55. Irrumator standing.
56. Irrumator kneeling.
57. Irrumator crouching.
58. Cunnilingue lying down.
59. Cunnilingue sitting.
60. Cunnilingue standing.
61. Cunnilingue kneeling.
62. Cunnilingue crouching.
63. Fellatrix and cunnilingue.
64. Masturbator.
65. The helping hand.
66. A third hand helping.
67. The finger helping.
68. The assistance of a leathern _godemiche_.
69. Coitus with a male animal.
70. Coitus with a female animal.
71. Tribad at work on a woman.
72. Tribad pedicating.
73. Three spintries: a fornicator pedicated.
74. Three spintries: a pederast pedicated.
75. Three spintries: a fellator being pedicated.
76. Three spintries: a fellator entering a woman.
77. Three spintries: a fellator pedicating.
78. Three spintries: a fellator irrumating.
79. Three spintries: a fellatrix entered by a man.
80. Three spintries: a fellatrix pedicated.
81. Three spintries: a fellatrix offers her vulva for licking.
82. Three spintries: a cunnilingue fornicating.
83. Three spintries: a cunnilingue pedicating.
84. Three spintries: a cunnilingue irrumates.
85. Three spintries: a cunnilingue being pedicated.
86. Three spintries: a female cunnilingue is entered by a man.
87. Three spintries: a female cunnilingue is pedicated.
88. Four spintries forming a double chain.
89. Four spintries forming a triple chain.
90. Group of five copulators.
THE END
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● Transcriber’s Notes: ○ Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected. ○ There are numerous places where text is missing (marked with “*”) and unresolved page references (see p. ?) which are not corrected. ○ Unbalanced quotation marks were left as the author intended. ○ Typographical errors were silently corrected. ○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant form was found in this book. ○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).