Manual of Classical Erotology (De figuris Veneris)
General
Manual of Classical Erotology (De figuris Veneris)
Erotic literature; Sex customs -- Greece; Sex customs -- Rome
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:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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