(To Lesbia.—As oft as you rise from your chair, Lesbia, I have many a time noticed the fact, _your undergarments, poor lady, play the paederast with you. You endeavour to pluck them away first with the right, anon with the left hand; finally you release them with tears and groaning_. So drawn together are the twin Symplegades of your fundament, and enter in between Minyan and Cyanean buttocks. Would you fain cure _this ungraceful defect_? I will tell you how: I think, Lesbia, you’d better not get up, nor yet sit down!) Usually indeed the Pathic tried to conceal his complaint, and to make it pass under some other name, as does Charisianus: DE CHARISIANO[270]. Multis jam, Lupe, posse se diebus Paedicare negat Charisianus. Caussam cum modo quaererent sodales: _Ventrem_, dixit, _habere se solutum_. (On Charisianus.—Charisianus says, Lupus, that for many days he has been unable to indulge in paederastia. When his comrades asked the reason; _his bowels_, he said, _were relaxed_!) But most frequently of all are the fig-like swellings on the fundament (Ficus, Mariscae,—figs, large figs) mentioned by Ancient authors as a consequence of paederastia. DE SE PRIAPUS[271]. Non sum de fragili dolatus ulmo; Nec quae stat rigida supina vena, De ligno mihi quolibet columna est, Sed viva generata de cupresso.— Hanc, tu quisquis es, o malus, timeto: Nam si vel minimos manu rapaci Hoc de palmite laeseris racemos: _Nascetur_, licet hoc velis negare, _Inserta tibi ficus a cupresso_. (Priapus on Himself.—I am not hewn of fragile elm, nor is my pillar that stands bent back with penis stiffly erect of any chance wood, but born of the living cypress.—Beware this image, thief, whoe’er thou art; for should you damage with plundering hand the tiniest clusters of this stem, _there shall grow a fig_, deny it if you will, _of cypress-wood inserted up your fundament_.) DE LABIENO[272]. Ut pueros emeret Labienus, vendidit hortos, Nil nisi _ficetum_ nunc Labienus habet. (On Labienus.—To buy boys Labienus sold his gardens; nought but a _fig-garden_ does Labienus now possess.) AD CAECILIANUM[273]. Cum dixi _ficus_, rides quasi barbara verba. Et dici _ficos_, Caeciliane, iubes. Dicemus _ficus_, quas scimus in arbore nasci, Dicemus _ficos_, Caeciliane, _tuos_. (To Caecilianus.—When I have said _ficus_, you laugh, Caecilianus, as though I had committed a solecism, and declare _ficos_ should be the word. We will say _ficus_, meaning the figs that we know grow on the tree, but your figs, Caecilianus, we will call _ficos_). Now too we shall understand the _medico ridente_ (the doctor grinning) in the following passage of _Juvenal_ (II. 12): Sed podice laevi Caeduntur _tumidae_, medico ridente, _mariscae_.