(_Manneius was a husband with his tongue, a fornicator with his mouth, a more polluted wretch than the big-cheeked wenches of the suburbs._ When a vile bawd saw him naked from a window in the Suburra, she shuts her brothel up, and had rather kiss his middle than his head. The man who but now could _penetrate every vessel of the inwards_, and say with assured voice and certain knowledge whether it were a boy or a girl in the mother’s belly,—rejoice, rejoice, organs of women, for your business is done for you,—the same _cannot erect a fornicating tongue_. For at the very moment _he is plunged tight in the swollen vulva_, and hears the babes whimpering within, lo! _a shocking disease paralyses his greedy tongue. Now can he be neither clean, nor yet unclean_). The Commentators, in particular _Farnabius_, refer the complaint spoken of in the passage just quoted to paralysis of the tongue. Farnabius says in fact: “Paralysisne ἀπὸ τῆς ἀφέδρου καὶ τῶν ἐμμηνιῶν, quorum malefico humore marcescunt segetes, apes moriuntur etc., Plin. c. 15 Lib. V., an sideratio?” (Is paralysis intended, _resulting from the menstruation and menstrual_ discharges, the poisonous humour of which will wither up crops, kill bees, etc.—Pliny ch. 15. Bk. V., or a sudden stroke?) Even supposing us willing to admit the possibility of menstrual blood bringing on paralysis of the tongue, there can at any rate be no question of such a thing here, inasmuch as it was with a pregnant woman Manneius carried out his vicious practises, and women in pregnancy do not _usually_ menstruate,—a fact about which the Philologist naturally enough was only imperfectly posted. Of course the possibility is always there, although the Poet says nothing about it; and the expression _vulva tumens_ (swollen organ) evidently stands here, as is clearly shown by what follows, for _uterus gravidus_ (pregnant womb)[81]. The _solvere_ (to loose, destroy) points in any case to a destruction, a dwindling, of the part, brought about by the _indecens morbus_ (shocking disease),—which disease might very likely find its explanation in the _scelerata lues_ (noxious contagion) mentioned on page 258 above. As a result of this, naturally enough not only did _arrigere_ (to erect—the tongue) become impossible, but the _impurus_ (_Cunnilingus_) (unclean cunnilingue) grew generally incapable of practising his vice. Nor yet was he _purus_ (clean)[82] altogether, for was he not a _cunnilingue_?—and now he was even less _purus_, because he suffered from the _indecens morbus_ (shocking disease), which even Farnabius has so far rightly understood, that he explains _nec purus_ (nor yet clean) by _morbo illo contaminatus_ (because contaminated by the said disease). Rather more doubtful and difficult is the interpretation of the following passage of _Martial_[83], which would yet appear to be pertinent here: