1 Schurig, in the 17th century, notes a case of this kind. C.f. his GynÆcologia, where he speaks of a girl being pregnant without losing her virginity. Vide note, p. 100 post, where further details of the life and works of this erudite physician will be found.

2 Sir Richard Burton, (The Thousand Nights and a Night), describes how he measured in Somaliland a negro’s penis, which, when quiescent, was six inches long; this organ, however, would not increase proportionately when in erection.

3 A celebrated Parisian courtesan used to boast, according to Mantegazza, that she had “sold her virginity” on 82 different occasions! Vide Curious Bypaths of History: Carrington: Paris, 1898, for further details on this subject.—Note by Dr. Jacobus X—.

4 C.f. The Thousand Nights and a Night, (Sir Richard F. Burton; the privately printed and uncastrated editions), where the expression is common. “ ... He found her a pearl unpierced.” Again: “ ... went in unto the Princess and found her jewel which had been hidden, an union pearl unthridden, and a filly that none but he had ridden....” Compare, also, the French erotic slang percer (to pierce), signifying the act of sexual intercourse. (Farmer: Slang and its Analogues, p. 25, vol. 6; Vocabula Amatoria, etc.)

5 “The Chinese ... have discovered a way of forming a new virginity when by some accident that object has gone astray. The method consists in astringent lotions applied to the parts, the effect of which so draws them together that a certain amount of vigour is required in order to pass through, the husband—on a nuptial night—being convinced that he has overcome the usual barrier. To make the illusion more complete, a leech-bite is made just inside the critical part, and the little wound is plugged with a minute pellet of vegetable tinder, with the result that the effort made by the husband to overcome the difficulty displaces the pellet and a slight flow of blood ensues.” (Curious Bypaths of History, op. cit. sup.) That this method is by no means peculiar to the Chinese is instanced by BrantÔme in his Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies (Paris: Carrington, 1901: first English translation), where the genial old soldier-philosopher says:—“How clever these doctors be! for they do give women remedies to make them appear virgin and intact as they were afore.... One such especially I learned of a quack these last few days. Take leeches and apply to the privy parts, getting them to drain and suck the blood in that region. Now the leeches, in sucking, do engender and leave behind little blebs or blisters full of blood. Then when the gallant bridegroom cometh on his marriage night to give assault, he doth burst these same blisters and the blood discharging from them; the thing is all bathed in gore, to the great satisfaction of both the twain; for so ‘the honour of the citadel is saved.’”

6 “That this eagerness after virginity is not an original lust, I must, indeed, prove from the opinion of a certain remote people, who esteem the taking of a maidenhead as a laborious and illiberal practice, which they delegate to men hired for that purpose, ere themselves condescend to lie with their wives; who are returned with disgrace to their friends, if it be discovered that they have brought their virginity with them.”—The Battles of Venus: The Hague, 1760, quoted by Pisanus Fraxi in his Index Librorum Prohibitorum. Vide also post in this Study.

7 “Now as to these vows of virginity, Heliogabalus did promulgate a law to the effect that no Roman maid, not even a Vestal Virgin, was bound to perpetuate virginity, saying how that the female sex was over weak for women to be bound to a pact they could never be sure of keeping.” (BrantÔme: Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies.) The author of this edict was not without a knowledge of sexual psychology, for we have ample evidence that some of the Vestals failed in their duty, which was, nominally, to guard the sacred fire and the Holy Things of Rome. “Far up by Porta Pia,” says F. Marion Crawford (Ave Roma Immortalis: London, 1903), “over against the new Treasury, under a modern street, lie the bones of guilty Vestals, buried living, each in a little vault two fathoms deep, with the small dish and crust and the earthen lamp that soon flickered out in the close, damp air.” Vestal Virgins had many privileges denied to other Roman women; they were free for life; they had a right to be present at the Emperor’s games; and they were treated with marked respect by the highest in the land. That the privileges of virginity did not necessarily make for the owner’s happiness is instanced by BrantÔme’s grim story. “Maids and virgins,” he writes (Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies), “would seem in old days at Rome to have been highly honoured and privileged, so much so that the law had no jurisdiction over them to sentence them to death. Hence the story we read of a Roman Senator in the time of the Triumvirate, which was condemned to die among other victims of the Proscription, and not he alone, but all the offspring of his loins. So when a daughter of his house did appear on the scaffold, a very fair and lovely girl, but of unripe years and yet a virgin, ‘twas needful for the executioner to deflower her himself and take her maidenhead on the scaffold, and only then when she was so polluted, could he ply his knife upon her. The Emperor Tiberius did delight in having fair virgins thus publicly deflowered, and then put to death,—a right villainous piece of cruelty, pardy!”

8 C.f. Herodotus, who tells us that in the fifth century before Christ every woman, once in her life, had to come to the temple of Mylitta, the Babylonian Venus, and yield herself to the first stranger who threw a coin in her lap, in worship of the goddess. The money could not be refused, however small the amount, but it was given as an offertory to the temple, and the woman, having followed the man and thus made oblation to Mylitta, returned home and lived chastely ever afterwards. (Havelock Ellis: Studies in the Psychology of Sex: vol. 6: Sex in Relation to Society.) Havelock Ellis has quoted Herodotus in relation to prostitution, holding that its origin is to be found primarily in religious custom. In our opinion, the practice also merits inclusion in a catalogue of virginal folk-lore, and we are further justified in our view by the statement that the woman who so yielded herself lived chastely ever afterwards.

9 “In old times we read of a custom in the isle of Cyprus, which ‘tis said the kindly goddess Venus, the patroness of that land, did introduce. This was that the maids of that island should go forth and wander along the banks, shores and cliffs of the sea, for to earn their marriage portions by the generous giving of their bodies to mariners, sailors and seafarers along that coast. These would put in to shore on purpose, very often indeed turning from their straight course by compass to land there; and so taking their pleasant refreshment with them, would pay handsomely, and presently hie them away again to sea, for their part only too sorry to leave such good entertainment behind. Thus would these fair maids win their marriage dowers, some more, some less, some high, some low, some grand, some lowly, according to the beauty, gifts and carnal attractions of each damsel.” (BrantÔme: Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies.)

10 “I am not surprised if the Phoenicians, according to St. Athanasius, obliged their daughters, by severe laws, to suffer themselves before marriage to be deflowered by valets, or also that the Armenians, as Strabo relates, sacrificed their daughters in the temple of the Goddess Anaitis, with the object of being eased of their maidenheads, so as to be able afterwards to find advantageous marriages suited to their condition; for one cannot describe what exhaustion and what sufferings a man has to undergo in his first action, at all events if the girl be narrow.... It is far sweeter to have connection with a woman accustomed to the pleasures of love than to caress one who has not yet known a man; for as we ask a locksmith to ease the wards of a new lock he brings us, to save us the trouble we might have the first day, so had the nations of whom we spoke good reason for establishing such laws.” (Nicolas Venette: La GÉnÉration de L’Homme, ou Tableau de L’Amour Conjugal: Paris, 1751.)

11 “According to Festus, Mutinus is a god differing wholly from Priapus, having a public sanctuary at Rome, where the statue was placed sitting with penis erect. Newly mated girls were placed in his lap, before being led away to their husbands, so that the deity might appear to have foretasted their virginity, this being supposed to render the bride fruitful.” (Priapeia: Cosmopoli, 1890.) Schurig (GynÆcologia: op. cit. sup.) instances the Indian custom of deflowering young brides by means of an enormous priapus in the temples.

12 i.e., a legalised defilement or ravishing. Blondeau, in his Dictionnaire Érotique latin-franÇais (Liseux: Paris, 1885), translates stupratio as “a combat in which one forces a beauty to yield to one’s passion ... to take possession of the honour of some pretty woman ... the struggle in which women succumb with pleasure.” Stupro, the verb; stuprator, the noun; and stupratus, the adjective have kindred meanings.

13 An old established practice whereby newly married women are deflowered by others than their husbands, whether by priest, lord, or stranger. To discuss this relic of feudalism would be beyond the scope of a note; it is summed up briefly in the idea that the lord of a domain was entitled to exact tribute from his subjects in the form of intercourse with every bride on the first night of her marriage. Our readers are referred to Dr. Karl Schmidt’s Jus PrimÆ Noctis (The Law of the First Night), the most comprehensive treatise on the subject.

14 BrantÔme, of course, has some pertinent remarks on the subject. In his Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies, he devotes the seventh Discourse to the following topic: Concerning married women, widows and maids,—to wit, which of these same be better than other to love. “One day,” writes the genial philosopher, “when I was at the Court of Spain at Madrid, and conversing with a very honourable lady, ... she did chance to ask me this question following:—’Which of the three had the greater heat of love: widow, wife or maid?’ After myself had told her mine opinion she did in turn give me hers in some such terms as these: ‘That albeit maids, with all that heat of blood that is theirs, be right well disposed to love, yet do they not love so well as wives and widows. This is because of the great experience of the business the latter have, and the obvious fact that supposing a man born blind, ... he can never desire the gift of sight so strongly as he that has sweetly enjoyed the same a while and then been deprived of it.’” Later, quoting Boccaccio, BrantÔme also says:—“The widow is more painstaking of the pleasure of love an hundred fold than the virgin, seeing the latter is all for dearly guarding her precious virginity and maidenhead. Further, virgins be naturally timid, and above all in this matter, awkward and inept to find the sweet artifices and pretty complaisances required under divers circumstances in such encounters. But this is not so with the widow, who is already well practised, bold and ready in this art, having long ago bestowed and given away what the virgin doth make so much ado about giving.... Beside all this, the maid doth dread this first assault of her virginity, ... whereas widows have no such fear, but do submit themselves very sweetly and gently, even when the assailant be of the roughest.”

15 We can supplement these remarks by a further quotation from that curious work already noticed, The Battles of Venus, wherein we read: “This lust, then, after the untouched morsel, I take not to be an original dictate of nature; but consequently to result from much experience with women, which has been demonstrated to lead to novelty of wishes from fastidious impotence.... Yet, in truth, I esteem the fruition of a virgin to be, with respect both to the mind and body of the enjoyer, the highest aggravation of sensual delight. In the first place, his fancy is heated with the prospect of enjoying a woman, after whom he has perhaps long sighed and has been in pursuit, who he thinks has never before been in bed with a man, (in whose arms never before has man laid), and in triumphing in the first sight of her virgin charms. This precious operation, then, of fancy, has been shown in the highest degree to prepare the body for enjoyment. Secondly, his body perceives, in that of a virgin, the cause of the greatest aggravation of delight. I mean not only in the coyness and resistance which she makes to his efforts, but when he is on the point of accomplishing them: when arrived, as the poet sings, ‘on the brink of giddy rapture,’ when in pity to a tender virgin’s sufferings, he is intreated not to break fiercely in, but to spare ‘fierce dilaceration and dire pangs.’ The resistance which the small, and as yet unopened, mouth of bliss makes to his eager endeavours, serves only, and that on a physical principle, to strengthen the instrument of his attack, and concurs, with the instigation of his ardent fancy, to reinforce his efforts, to unite all the co-operative powers of enjoyment, and to produce an emission copious, rapid, and transporting.... ‘In this case, part of the delight arises from considering that ... you feel the convulsive wrigglings of the chaste nymph you have so long adored....’” Our acknowledgements are again due to Pisanus Fraxi, from whose Index Librorum Prohibitorum our extract is taken. The author of The Battles of Venus, it need hardly be said, is in no sense an authority; his work, indeed, is pornographic rather than artistic; at the same time, it is impossible to ignore his flashes of insight into a question which has exercised the minds of the greatest psychologists.

16 BrantÔme, apparently, had a poor opinion of Spartan virginity. “What kind of virtue was it?” he asks. (Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies.) “Why! on their solemn feast-days the Spartan maids were used to sing and dance in public stark naked with the lads, and even wrestle in the open market place,—the which however was done in all honesty and good faith, so History saith. But what sort of honesty and purity was this, we may well ask, to look on at these pretty maids so performing publicly? Honesty was it never a whit, but pleasure in the sight of them, and especially of their bodily movements and dancing postures, and above all in their wrestling; and chiefest of all when they came to fall one atop of the other, as they say in Latin: ‘She underneath, he atop; he underneath, she atop.’ You will never persuade me ‘twas all honesty and purity herein with these Spartan maidens. I ween there is never chastity so chaste that would not have been shaken thereby, or that, so making in public and by day these feint assaults, they did not presently in privity and by night and on assignation proceed to greater combats and night attacks.”

17 Havelock Ellis, op. cit., vol. 6: Sex in Relation to Society, p. 163.

18 C.f. the Latin infibulare=to clasp, buckle, or button together. (Smith’s Latin-English dictionary.) The noun fibula can be translated: (1) a clasp, buckle, pin, latchet, brace; (2) a surgical instrument for drawing together the edges of a gaping wound; (3) a ring drawn through the prepuce to prevent copulation. Celsus, Martial and Juvenal use the word in this sense. “The ancient Romans prevented actors from copulating, with the object of preserving their voices. Martial speaks of singers who sometimes broke the ring, and whom it was necessary to bring back again to the blacksmith.” (Jacobus X—, op. cit.)

19 Kruptadia: Heilbronn, 1883: Henninger FrÈres: vol. 1: Secret Stories from the Russian, No. 32. Also Contes Secrets Russes: Paris: Liseux, 1891.

20 Literally: “put it in pawn.”

21 A verst would be about 1,170 yards. The virtue of the ring was indeed remarkable!

22 Contes Secrets Russes translate: “His yard stretched forth, hurled the driver from his seat, passed beyond the team of horses, and reached out in front of the carriage for a distance of seven versts.”

23 The Kruptadia version says: “As if flies had just tickled his yard.”

24 The main theme of these foregoing contes—the yard which increases to gigantic proportions—is not confined to Russian folk-lore. In Kruptadia, vol. 2: Some Erotic Folk-Lore from Scotland, we find the following:—A man and a woman were in each other’s embraces. The man was succuba. His yard began to enlarge and enlarge and lift the woman. When she was nearly reaching the roof she exclaimed: “Farewell freens, farewell foes, For I’m awa’ to heaven On a pintel’s nose.”

25 Kruptadia: Heilbronn: Henninger FrÈres, 1884: Breton Folk Lore.

26 Frenolle is the word in the text—probably a fantastic term, since Pierre’s “instrument” is not known by that name in Haut Bretagne. Farmer, in his monumental work Slang and its Analogues, (Privately Printed, 1890-1904) and Landes (Glossaire Érotique de la Langue franÇaise—Brussels, 1861) do not include the word in their comprehensive lists of French erotic synonyms for penis. Nor can we find mention of it in Vocabula Amatoria (London, 1896). LittrÉ, even, does not give the word.

27 Kruptadia: Heilbronn: 1883: Henninger FrÈres: vol. 1: Secret Stories from the Russian.

28 Lui donne le mot. “Put him wise” would be the exact modern equivalent.

29 C.f. Excursus to The Tale of Kamar al-Zaman, where the subject is discussed at length.

30 In The Night of Power we have the story of a man who, believing that three prayers would be granted to him, consults his wife as to what he shall ask. She advises him to ask Allah to “greaten and magnify his yard.” He does so, whereupon his yard “became as big as a column, and he could neither sit nor stand nor move about nor even stir from his stead; and when he would have carnally known his wife, she fled before him from place to place.” In distress the husband asks, as his second wish, to be delivered of this burden, and “immediately his prickle disappeared altogether and he became clean smooth. When his wife saw this, she said: ‘I have no occasion for thee now thou art become pegless as an eunuch, shaven and shorn.... Pray Allah the most High to restore thee thy yard as it was.’ So he prayed to his Lord and his prickle was restored to its first estate. Thus the man lost his three wishes by the ill counsel and lack of wit in the woman.” Our brief summary is taken from Sir Richard F. Burton’s translation of The Thousand Nights and a Night.

31 Memoirs of Jacques Casanova: For the first time translated into English and Privately Printed, 1894: 12 vols.: 1000 copies only. Also MÉmoires de J. Casanova de Seingalt: Garnier FrÈres, Paris, N.D. Our text is a blend of the two versions.

32 i.e., naked.

33 Capote Anglaise: in slang terms, a French letter or condom. The French talk about an “English” letter; we say the reverse.

34 “Fleece,” of course, is an accepted erotic term for pubic hair (Farmer: Slang and its Analogues); c.f. also the French term toison. HelÈne’s hirsute adornment is in keeping with psychological precept—that hairiness and sensuality go hand in hand. Havelock Ellis, in his Studies, quotes numerous authorities who are strongly of this opinion, (vol. 5: Erotic Symbolism). Lombroso, he adds, found that prostitutes generally tend to be hairy. In another volume of his Studies, Havelock Ellis relates the history of a man for whom a hirsute mons veneris always had a peculiar attraction. “When accosted by prostitutes,” says the subject of this history, “I would never go with them unless assured that the mons veneris was very hirsute.” That genial old soldier BrantÔme (Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies: Translated by A. R. Allinson: Paris, Charles Carrington, 1901) says: “I have heard speak of a certain great lady, and I have known her myself and do know her still, who is all shaggy and hairy over the chest, stomach, shoulders and all down the spine, and on her bottom, like a savage.... The proverb hath it, no person thus hairy is ever rich or wanton; but verily in this case the lady is both the one and the other, I can assure you....” BrantÔme also speaks of women who “have hair in that part not curly at all, but so long and drooping, you would say they were the moustachios of a Saracen’s head. Nathless they do never remove this fleece, but prefer to have it so, seeing there is a saying: ‘A grassgrown path and a hairy coynte are both good roads to ride.’ ... I have heard speak of another fair and honourable lady which did have the hair of this part so long she would entwine the same with strings or ribbons of silk, crimson and other colours, and have them curled like the curls of a wig, and attached to her thighs. And in such guise would she show her motte to her husband or lover. Or else she would unwind the ribbons and cords, so that the hair did remain after in curl, and looking prettier so than it would otherwise have done.” Elsewhere BrantÔme tells of a gentleman of his acquaintance who, while sleeping with a very beautiful lady, “and one of good condition, and doing his devoir with her, did find in that part sundry hairs so sharp and prickly that ‘twas with all the difficulty in the world he could finish, so sharply did these prick and pierce him....” Abnormal growth of pubic hair is by no means confined to conte and fable. Jahn, says Havelock Ellis in his Studies, delivered a woman whose pubic hair was longer than that of her head, reaching below her knees. Paulini also knew a woman “whose pubic hair nearly reached her knees and was sold to make wigs. Bartholin mentions a soldier’s wife who plaited her pubic hair behind her back.” (Erotic Symbolism). We have no actual evidence that HelÈne’s growth was of these abnormal dimensions, but it was obviously out of the ordinary to provoke comment from a man of Casanova’s experience.

35 Pietro Aretino, author of The Ragionamenti, is generally supposed to have enumerated a variety of postures in which the venereal act might be performed. To the many he is known solely as “the man of the postures.” This particular claim to distinction is, to say the least, a matter much in dispute, but we will reserve discussion of the question for Vol. 2 of Anthologica Rarissima, where lavish excerpts from Aretino’s works will be given.

36 English translation of the Author’s Preface.

37 Masuccio: The Novellino, translated into English by W. G. Waters: London, Lawrence and Bullen, 1895.

38 Masuccio, of course, cannot claim any peculiar virtue in this respect, lust in the guise or under the cloak of religion being a favourite theme of mediÆval and even later novelists. We shall deal at length with the subject in the second volume of Anthologica Rarissima: The Way of a Priest.

39 C.f. The New Metamorphosis, or The Golden Ass of Apuleius altered and improved to Modern Times, by Carlo Socio: London, 1822, extracts from which, exactly germane to Masuccio’s denunciation, will be found in vol. 2 of Anthologica Rarissima: The Way of a Priest.

40 J. S. Farmer: Merry Songs and Ballads: vol. 5: by John Lockman: from Musical Miscellany, (1731). Farmer, of course, is the editor and compiler of Slang and its Analogues, to which we make constant reference.

41 Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles: “now first done into the English tongue by Robert B. Douglas, (One Hundred Merrie and Delightsome Stories)”: Paris, Charles Carrington, 1899 (?): 82nd story. The editors of Anthologica Rarissima have taken slight liberties with Mr. Douglas’ translation, deeming archaic phraseology more fitting to the atmosphere of the narrative.

42 The phrase has passed into use as an accepted slang term for the sexual act.

43 Songs of the Groves: Records of the Ancient World, (The Vine Press: Steyning, Sussex: 1921), has a singularly charming account of a rustic courtship. The Wooing, the poem to which we refer, is a rendering from the Greek of Theocritus, and is remarkable for the vivid picture conjured up before our eyes in a few lines of verse. Daphnis, a young shepherd, and a maiden, discourse of love and marriage; eventually she yields to his passion:—

44 The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio, translated by John Payne, Villon Society, 1884. See Excursus to this story.

45 Kruptadia: Heilbronn, Henninger FrÈres, 1884: vol. 2, Breton Folk Lore.

46 The play on words here is somewhat obscure. Manger un poulet is not a slang term for the sexual act. Interpreting freely, we might read: “Will give thee a chicken to pluck,” i.e.: her virginity. This is borne out by the wife’s subsequent behaviour. On the other hand, the mother may be speaking simply and literally.

47 We make no apology for the frequent extracts from Kruptadia to be found in this volume and those to follow of Anthologica Rarissima. Kruptadia, perhaps the most remarkable recueil of folk lore stories, songs, sayings and proverbs in the world, is a work far too little known to the student and bibliophile. Its rarity may be explained by the fact that comparatively few copies of each volume were struck off. Of Vol. 2, from which “The Wedding Night of Jean the Fool” is taken, only 135 numbered copies were done. A complete 12-volume set, in the original format (the work was begun in Heilbronn by Henninger FrÈres and completed in Paris by Welter) is not often seen, and we count ourselves fortunate in having one before us as we write. Havelock Ellis frequently refers to the collection in his Studies in the Psychology of Sex, while Pisanus Fraxi, the great bibliographer of erotic, prohibited and uncommon books, was just able to notice the first two volumes in his Catena Librorum Tacendorum, (London: Privately Printed: 1885). He pays generous tribute to the production. “Students of folk lore,” he writes, “will hail with delight the appearance of this well-printed and carefully got up little volume, to be followed, let us hope, by many others of the same kind, equally remarkable for talented and faithful rendering, and masterly editing.” Dealing with the tales themselves, he goes on to say that “they reveal to us in an interesting and unequivocal manner the feelings, aspirations, modes of thought, manner of living of the people who tell them, and are possibly one of the most valuable contributions to the study of folk lore which has yet appeared.... They are all characteristic—all good.” Fraxi then gives the pith of “The Enchanted Ring,” which we have already printed at length in this volume. In the concluding pages of his Catena Librorum Tacendorum, Fraxi states that vol. 2 of Kruptadia has reached him in time to mention briefly its contents. Since these words were written, ten other volumes have been issued—a veritable mine of entertaining and instructive information. We even go so far as to say that genuine students of folk lore and collectors of curious literature cannot afford to ignore Kruptadia, even as they should have access to Pisanus Fraxi’s 3-volume work, INDEX LIBRORUM PROHIBITORUM, CENTURIA LIBRORUM ABSCONDITORUM, and CATENA LIBRORUM TACENDORUM. Possession of these works by all is impossible owing to their rarity, cost and small imprint. Not every student can afford to pay £20 to £30 for the complete set of Kruptadia, even if he be lucky enough to chance on such a find, while Fraxi’s amazing bibliography, in the sale room alone, commands about £35; and while the price tends steadily to increase, the appearance of the complete 3-volume set as steadily decreases.

48 Kruptadia: Heilbronn, Henninger FrÈres, 1884: Breton Folk Lore.

49 Peloton is the word in the text, signifying, literally, a ball made of things (thread, silk or wool) wound round it. The play on words is remarkably apt in the last few lines of the story, peloton exactly connoting, in the mind of the simple girl, the youth’s testicles and pubic hair.

50 Fantastic Tales or The Way to Attain: A Book full of Pantagruelism: Now for the first time done into English by Arthur Machen: Privately Printed: Carbonnek, 1890. We shall return to the subject of De Verville’s work in a later page of this volume.

51 The word is ours. Machen translates “honour.”

52 Enfiler une aiguille, more usually, enfiler. The expression is common to most erotic writers. Vide various erotic lexicographers quoted ante.

53 The Thousand Nights and a Night, translated by Sir Richard F. Burton, and printed by the Burton Club for private subscribers only: Lauristan Edition, limited to 1,000 numbered sets. As the story in the original is of considerable length, we have summarised portions of it, retaining in its entirety that part of the text which will appeal most to the bibliophile. The paragraphing, also, is in many cases our own.

54 “The young man,” says Sir Richard Burton, in a footnote, “must have been a demon of chastity.”

55 Carat = one finger-breadth here. The derivation is from the Greek Keration, a bean, the seed of the abrus precatorius.—Note by Sir Richard Burton.

56 ... In hot-damp climates the venereal requirements and reproductive powers of the female greatly exceed those of the male.... In cold-dry or hot-dry mountainous lands the reverse is the case; hence polygamy there prevails whilst the low countries require polyandry in either form, legal or illegal, i.e., prostitution.—Note by Sir Richard Burton. See, also, excursus to this story, where the subject is dealt with at length.

57 “This morning evacuation,” says Sir Richard Burton, in a footnote, “is considered, in the East, a sine qua non of health.... The natives of India ... unlike Europeans, accustom themselves to evacuate twice a day, evening as well as morning. This may, perhaps, partly account for their mildness and effeminacy; for:—’C’est la constipation qui rend l’homme rigoureux.’”

58 “The belief that young pigeons’ blood resembles the virginal discharge is universal,” says Sir Richard Burton, in a footnote; “but the blood most resembling man’s is that of the pig, which in other points is so very human. In our day Arabs and Hindus rarely submit to inspection the nuptial sheet, as practised by the Israelites and Persians. The bride takes to bed a white kerchief with which she staunches the blood and next morning the stains are displayed in the Harem. In Darfour this is done by the bridegroom. “Prima Venus debet esse cruenta” (Love’s first battle should be bloody), say the Easterns with much truth, and they have no faith in our complaisant creed which allows the hymen-membrane to disappear by any but one accident.” The creed, of course, is not peculiar to the East, and realistic descriptions of this “sanguinary combat” will be found in Nicolas Chorier’s Dialogues, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, (op. cit.), and other erotic works. C.f. also the modern custom of including a clean sheet among the bride’s trousseau. Further remarks on this subject will be found in our preliminary essay to this volume, “Human Nature, Tradition, and Virginity.”

59 “i.e., Not the real thing (with a woman),” says Sir R. Burton, in a note. “It may also mean ‘by his incitement of me.’ All this scene is written in the worst form of Persian-Egyptian blackguardism, and forms a curious anthropological study.”

60 i.e., Some men prefer sodomy (figs = anus); others natural intercourse (sycamore = cunnus).

61 Note by Sir Richard Burton: Kiblah = the fronting place of prayer; Mecca for Moslems, Jerusalem for Jews and early Christians.

62 Note by Sir Richard Burton: The Koran says (chap. 2): “Your wives are your tillage: go in therefore unto your tillage in what manner soever you will.” Usually this is understood as meaning in any posture, standing or sitting, lying, backwards or forwards. Yet there is a popular saying about the man whom the woman rides (vulg. St. George; in France, le postillion): “Cursed be he who maketh woman Heaven and himself earth!” Some hold the Koranic passage to have been revealed in confutation of the Jews, who pretended that if a man lay with his wife backwards, he would beget a cleverer child. Others again understood it of preposterous venery; which is absurd: every ancient law-giver framed his code to increase the true wealth of the people—population—and severely punished all processes, like onanism, which impeded it. The Persians utilise the hatred of women for such misuse when they would force a wife to demand a divorce and thus forfeit her claim to dowry; they convert them into catamites till, after a month or so, they lose all patience and leave the house. We do not propose to add to Sir Richard’s note, reserving our remarks on the subject for their proper place in a subsequent volume.

63 Note by Sir Richard: Koran 51, 9, alluding, in the text, to the preposterous venery her lover demands.

64 Note by Sir Richard: Arab “FutÙh,” meaning openings, and also victories, benefits. The lover congratulates her on her mortifying self in order to please him.

65 Vide note to Excursus to this story, p. 100.

66 Note by Sir Richard: “And the righteous work will be exalt.” (Koran 35, 11). Applied ironically.

67 Note by Sir Richard: Easterns still believe in what Westerns know to be an impossibility, human beings with the parts and proportions of both sexes equally developed and capable of reproduction; and Al-Islam even provides special rules for them. ... The old Greeks dreamed, after their fashion, a beautiful poetic dream of a human animal uniting the contradictory beauties of man and woman. The duality of the generative organs seems an old Egyptian tradition; at least we find it in Genesis (1.27), where the image of the Deity is created male and female, before man was formed out of the dust of the ground (2.7). The old tradition found its way to India (if the Hindus did not borrow the idea from the Greeks); and one of the forms of Mahadeva, the third person of their triad, is entitled “ArdhanÁri” = the Half-Woman, which has suggested to them some charming pictures. Europeans, seeing the left breast conspicuously feminine, have indulged in silly surmises about the “Amazons.”

68 Note by Sir Richard: This is a mere phrase for our “dying of laughter”: the queen was on her back. And as Easterns sit on carpets, their falling back is very different from the same movement off a chair.

69 Havelock Ellis is quoting from The Perfumed Garden of The Cheikh Nefzaoui: Cosmopoli, 1886, printed for the Kama Shastra Society of London and Benares.

70 “Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.”

71 The Perfumed Garden of the Cheikh Nefzaoui: Cosmopoli, 1886.

72 “In Russia at all events, a girl, as very many have acknowledged to me, cannot resist the ever-stronger impulses of sex beyond the twenty-second or twenty-third year. And if she cannot do so in natural ways she adopts artificial ways. The belief that the feminine sex feels the stimulus of sex less than the male is quite false.”—Guttceit, Dreissig Jahre Praxis, 1873.

73 The Perfumed Garden. As illustrating our subject, the Cheikh Nefzaoui tells a quaint story of a man who, owing to physical disability, was unable to satisfy the sexual needs of his wife. A wise man gives him a remedy whereby his member grows “long and thick.” The Cheikh continues: “When his wife saw it in that state she was surprised, but it came still better when he made her feel in the matter of enjoyment quite another thing than she had been accustomed to experience; he began in fact to work her with his tool in quite a remarkable manner, to such a point that she rattled and sighed and sobbed during the operation. As soon as the wife found in her husband such eminently good qualities, she gave him her fortune, and placed her person and all she had at his disposal.”

74 Queen Budur’s remark that “Women pray pardon with their legs on high,” (p. 88 ante), finds an echo in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata and The EcclesiazusÆ. In the former play, Athenian women promise Lysistrata that, if forced to intercourse by their husbands, they will not lift their legs in the air; in the latter, we have a woman saying: “How are we going to lift up our arms in the Assembly (i.e., vote), we, who only know how to lift our legs in the act of love?”

Two of the authorities quoted by Havelock Ellis on p. 97 of the foregoing Excursus merit further brief mention. Martin Schurig, author of Parthenologia and numerous other medical works, flourished as a physician in Dresden between 1688 and 1733. Although many of his theories have long since been exploded, his great erudition is much to be admired. His books deal with the most amazing questions; among the many curious passages in Parthenologia will be found the following: “Chastity put to the proof by a hot iron and boiling water”; “Conception without insertion of the penis”; “Andramytes, King of the Lydori, was the inventor of castration of women, and Semiramis of that of men.” Dr. Sinibaldus’ Geneanthropeia, published in 1642, is a very remarkable work on physical love and its aberrations, treating, for example, of “The shape of the Phallus”; “Eunuchism”; “Aphrodisiacs”; “Influence of the Stars on Copulation”; “Effects and manner of Copulation”; “Pleasure of Copulation as enjoyed by man and woman.” Little is known of Sinibaldus’ life beyond that he was a doctor at Rome. His Geneanthropeia, according to Pisanus Fraxi, (Index Librorum Prohibitorum: London, 1877), has been rendered, in a very emasculated form, into English, under the title of Rare Verities. The Cabinet of Venus Unlocked: London, 1658. The volume is rare, but a copy is to be found in the British Museum.

75 Kruptadia: Heilbronn, Henninger FrÈres, 1883: vol. 1, Secret Stories from the Russian, No. 12.

76 Stories of sexual ignorance, amounting in the case of men to veritable imbecility, are numerous in Kruptadia. In Vol. X., Stories of Picardy, we have the tale of a young girl who had been seduced, but had married a half-witted youth, whom she was forced to instruct in the art of love. When they were in bed together, “she showed him how children are made—a business entirely unknown to him. After the explanations had been given in theory, the husband mounted upon his wife, desiring to show that he had learned his lesson well; but the young wife cried out in surprise: ‘’Tis too high! ‘Tis too high!’ An instant later she was forced to say: ‘’Tis too low! ‘Tis too low!’ Several other of his efforts having failed, she told her husband that he did but knock at the side of the door. Whereat the latter, aweary of ‘Too high’ and ‘Too low,’ exclaimed: ‘Since thou knowest the spot so well, put it there thyself!’”

77 J. S. Farmer: Merry Songs and Ballads: Privately Printed, 1897: Words and Music in Pills to Purge Melancholy, (1707), 1, 214.

78 Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles: R. B. Douglas’ translation: Paris, Charles Carrington. C.f. note ante.

79 Obviously a play on words, with reference to the lessons in marital duty given by the mother to the daughter.

80 Mr. Douglas translates simply: ... “stick or instrument.” The word in the text, bourdon, signifies literally “a pilgrim’s staff.” It is followed by the word joustouer, “to tilt or joust,” or “a tilter, a jouster,” which Mr. Douglas ignores. The combination, however, seems to keep more faithfully to the spirit of the story. On the other hand, bourdon is a recognised erotic term for penis. Farmer, (Slang and its Analogues: vol. 5, p. 290), quotes Rabelais as employing the word in this sense. Landes, (Glossaire Érotique de la langue franÇaise: Brussels, 1861), includes it in a list which comprises 212 slang terms for the male organ of generation. Le petit Citateur: Notes Érotiques et pornographiques: Paris, 1881: only 300 printed, a curious and valuable little work dealing with the lesser known expressions and metaphors of venery, and intended to serve as a complement to the ordinary erotic dictionary, describes bourdon as “the virile member, the grand chord which gives the note in the amorous duet.” The Memoirs of Miss Fanny are quoted: “ ... enraptured, split open by the enormous size of my ravisher’s bourdon, my thighs all bloodstained, I remained for some time overwhelmed by fatigue and pleasure....” The French text referred to in the foregoing note is that of Garnier FrÈres, Paris, n.d.

81 This story, the 86th of Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, is singularly lacking in climax when compared with the majority of old fabliaux. The opening is very promising; but once the husband has stated his case, the fabric seems to fall to pieces, and the wife’s final speech is as silly as it is unjustified. The author has tried to round off the story by dragging in the ages-old tag about the woman who, from hating the pleasures of love, becomes a veritable glutton for them. Compared with “Beyond the Mark,” which is artistic and dramatic from the first to the last line, “Foolish Fear” is a poor thing. Nevertheless, we have thought fit to include it in this anthology because its opening is as characteristic as its finish is uncharacteristic of this type of fabliaux.

82 Kruptadia: Henninger FrÈres, Heilbronn, 1883: Stories of Picardy.

83 Kruptadia: Heilbronn, Henninger FrÈres, 1883, vol. 1: Secret Stories from the Russian.

84 A priest of the Greek Church.

85 French PoupÉe, which, in the slang phraseology of that language, properly denotes a harlot. On the other hand, we have the term dolly as a synonym for penis. (C.f. Farmer: Slang and its Analogues.) This use of poupÉe, which, of course, is literally translated by doll, is peculiar; our French lexicographers do not include it in their lists of synonyms for the membrum virile.

86 “Already in the thirteenth century, Albert Bollstoedt, Bishop of Ratisbonne, better known as Albertus Magnus, had, in spite of his clerical profession, furnished much scabrous matter concerning the opposite sex in his work De Secretis Mulierum.”—Centuria Librorum Absconditorum: Pisanus Fraxi (Ashbee): London: Privately Printed, 1879. The compiler of this monumental work and the two companion volumes, Index Librorum Prohibitorum and Catena Librorum Tacendorum, would seem to be at variance with Havelock Ellis. A further reference to Albertus Magnus by Fraxi is worth giving: “Shall a bishop, raised to the See of Ratisbonne, (exclaims the erudite James Atkinson) and (still more monstrous) shall a canonised man, an ‘in coelum sublevatus,’ undertake a natural history of the most natural secret, inter secretalia foeminea? Is the natural and divine law at once to be expounded, inter Scyllam et Charybdim, of defailance and human orgasm?”—— Medical Bibliography, p. 72.

87 We have already referred to Schurig’s work.

88 “Nor shall the nurse at orient light returning, with yester-e’en’s thread succeed in circling her neck.”—The Carmina of Catullus: Englished into verse and prose by Sir R. F. Burton and L. C. Smithers: London, 1894. Burton and Smithers, apparently, were unaware of the medical significance of the test, for they add in a note: “The ancients, says Pezay, had faith in another equally absurd test of virginity. They measured the circumference of the neck with a thread. Then the girl under trial took the two ends of the magic thread in her teeth, and if it was found to be so long that its bight could be passed over her head, it was clear she was not a maid. By this rule all the thin girls might pass for vestals, and all the plump ones for the reverse.”

89 Havelock Ellis is writing in 1914.

90 The Dialogues of Luisa Sigea: Translated from the Latin of Nicolas Chorier: Paris: Isidore Liseux, 1890. Our extract is from the opening lines of the first dialogue; the phraseology, at times, is our own.

91 Erotic terms in English, French and Latin slang, respectively, for the penis and female pudendum. (C.f. Farmer, op. cit.).

92 We are quoting from the English translator’s “Notice of Nicolas Chorier” in the Liseux edition already mentioned.

93 The Sotadical Satire is so-called after Sotades, who lived three centuries before Christ, and whose erotic poems are unfortunately lost.—English Translator’s note. According to a note in Priapeia (Cosmopoli, 1890, Privately Printed), Sotades, the Mantinean poet, was the first to treat of Greek love, or dishonest and unnatural love. He wrote in the Ionian dialect, and according to Suidas he was the author of a poem entitled CinÆdica (Martial, 2. 86). The title would leave us in no doubt as to the trend of the work. (CinÆdus = he who indulges in unnatural lust; CinÆdicus = pertaining to one who is unchaste.—Smith’s Latin English Dictionary.) C.f. also Sir Richard Burton’s “Sotadic Zone” in the Terminal Essay to The Thousand Nights and a Night (op. cit. sup.).

94 The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio: Englished by John Payne: Villon Society, 1886. This is the fourth story of the fifth day, the actual title being: “Ricciardo Manardi, being found by Messer Lizio da Valbona with his daughter, espouseth her and abideth with her father in peace.”

95 Kruptadia: Heilbronn: Henninger FrÈres, 1883: vol. 1: Secret Stories from the Russian.

96 The text says: ce cher petit, which may be interpreted as referring to the wife’s pudendum. C.f. Le petit je ne sais quoi (“My~little~what’s~its~name”), a common erotic term for the parts concerned. (Farmer: Slang and its Analogues; Landes: Glossaire Érotique; and Le petit Citateur: Notes Érotiques et Pornographiques.) The last authority considers that the word trou (hole) would be understood in the text. Trou, of course, is a common French erotic term for the feminine pudendum. On the other hand, the word jeu (game) may be understood, which would be equally applicable. C.f. Farmer (Slang, etc., vol. 3, p. 110): “The first game ever played,” i.e., copulation. Also Landes (Gloss. Érot.): “Game: employed in an obscene sense to denote the sexual act.”

97 AlÈne is the word in the text. Not an erotic term for penis in French and English slang, though we have the verb “to bore.” C.f. Farmer: Slang and its Analogues, for his amazing list of synonyms denoting the sexual act under the heading “Ride.” Blondeau, in his Dictionnaire Érotique (Isidore Liseux: Paris, 1885), gives no word in his collection of Latin terms for penis which approximates exactly to the sense of awl. Landes, Delvau (Dictionnaire Érotique), and Le petit Citateur (op. cit. supra) make no mention of the word. In our story Danilka, in his very primitive fashion, has used an expression which explains in the simplest way his actions in the sleigh.

98 Memoirs of Jacques Casanova: Privately Printed, 1894. Also MÉmoires de J. Casanova de Seingalt: Garnier FrÈres: Paris, n.d. Our text is a blend of the two versions.

99 Badinage in the French text; i.e., playfulness, frolic, sport, etc., which is hardly in keeping with the context.

100 Literally, according to French text: “Her caresses quench a fire which would kill me did I not weaken its force by this make-belief.”

101 i.e., to the grating.

102 Referring to a salacious incident shortly before related. Further details would be out of place in this volume.

103 Somewhat obscure. This rendering, that of the English translation, is not in accord with the French text, nor does it seem to us to represent what happened as described in the English translation.

104 J. S. Farmer: Merry Songs and Ballads: Privately Printed, 1897: vol. 3: from Pills to Purge Melancholy (1719). A similar ballad, John and Jone, from Merry Drollerie (1661) is given by Farmer in the second volume of his work.

105 John and Joan, strictly speaking, is a variant of three stories quoted earlier on in this volume, (The Instrument, The Timorous FiancÉe and The Enchanted Ring), inasmuch as all contain the same idea—the possibility of purchasing a membrum virile. At the same time, our ballad has a totally different setting, the maid in this case obtaining her first knowledge from the actions of others.

106 Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles: Translated for the first time into English by Robert B. Douglas (One Hundred Merrie and Delightsome Stories), Paris: Charles Carrington. Also French Text, Paris: Gamier FrÈres, n.d.

107 Probably Picardy or Lorraine.—Note by R. B. Douglas.

108 Faire la bÊte À deux dos. A recognised slang term for the venereal act, used by Rabelais and Shakespeare. C.f. Farmer: Slang and its Analogues (op. cit. supra), and Landes: Glossaire Érotique de la langue franÇaise: Brussels, 1861.

109 DenrÉe d’aventure. A recognised erotic term for the male genital parts. C.f. Farmer and Landes (op. cit. supra). DenrÉe, properly, means a “commodity,” which is not far removed from the English slang term “concern.” (Farmer.)

110 The text here is somewhat obscure. Mr. Douglas translates “No need to go so fast.”

111 Touzle or Tousle, in its original sense, meant “to rumple”—“to pull or mess about,” but came in time to signify, in erotic slang, the act of “mastering a woman by romping.” (Vide Farmer: Slang and its Analogues.) It belongs to that class of word connoting the sexual act which may be described as energetic, as implying a sense of lively action and movement. Farmer, under his key-word Ride, gives a number of similar terms, among them:—to belly-bump; to bounce; to cuddle; to ferret; to frisk; to fumble; to hug; to hustle; to jiggle; to jumble; to muddle; to niggle; to plough; to rummage; to shake; and to tumble. Touzle is Fielding’s term for the venereal act.

112 Kruptadia: Heilbronn: Henninger FrÈres, 1883: Secret Stories from the Russian.

113 Masuccio: The Novellino: Translated into English by W. G. Waters: Lawrence and Bullen: London, 1894: vol. 2, Forty-first Novel.

114 St. Matthew, 27, 46: “Why hast thou forsaken me?”

115 Kruptadia: Heilbronn: Henninger FrÈres, 1883: vol. 1: Secret Stories from the Russian.

116 Les Faceties de Pogge (Poggio) Florentin: Translated by Pierre des Brandes: Paris: Gamier FrÈres, n.d. The English rendering is, of course, our own.

117 “The text has a play upon words,” says the translator, “which could be translated if the French words had the same meaning as the Latin:—Dixit (puella) se non amplius dolere caput. Tum ille: ‘At ego nunc doleo caudam.’ (The girl said that she no longer had a pain in the head. Said the husband: ‘But I have a pain in my tail.’)” This note, we must confess, is a source of some mystification to us, since the relationship between the French and Latin words is both simple and direct. Cauda, of course, is the Latin word for tail: in the erotic sense it designates the penis. (C.f. Blondeau: Dictionnaire Érotique latin-franÇaise: Liseux: Paris, 1885.) The Italians use the word coda in a similar sense. Tail, in French, is queue; in erotic literature it is also a highly common term for the membrum virile. (C.f. Landes: Glossaire Érotique de la langue franÇaise, and Farmer: Slang and its Analogues.) Again, in English, tail is a slang synonym either for the penis or the female pudendum. C.f. Farmer: Slang and its Analogues, who gives numerous examples of the use of the word in this sense. We append a few of his quotations:—(1) Chaucer, Cant. Tales, 6047-8: “For al so siker as cold engendreth hayl, A likerous mouth must han a likerous TAYL.” (2) Rochester, Poems: “Then pulling out the rector of the females, Nine times he bath’d him in their piping tails.” (3) Motteux, Rabelais, V., xxi.: “They were pulling and hauling the man like mad, telling him that it is the most grievous ... thing in nature for the TAIL to be on fire....”

118 Kruptadia: Heilbronn: Henninger FrÈres, 1883: vol. 1: Secret Stories from the Russian.

119 The young people are obviously nervous, and are making conversation.

120 BÉroalde de Verville: Le Moyen de Parvenir: Paris, Gamier FrÈres; also Fantastic Tales or The Way to Attain: translated by Arthur Machen: Carbonnek, 1890. Our extract is a blend of both versions, though we have adhered more closely than Machen to the original text. Vide also Excursus to this story.

121 An infusion of cinnamon bark, soft almonds, and a little musk and amber, in wine sweetened with sugar. The word is probably derived from Hippocrates, the famous Greek doctor.

122 We omit the two interjections to be found here in the original text, not because they are highly flavoured, but simply because they have no bearing on the narrative. Nor do they merit translation in a note.

123 Dissertation de Bernard de la Monnoye sur Le Moyen de Parvenir.

124 An experienced auctioneer of books recently told us that until December last he had never met with a copy. Strangely enough, two copies were sold in a week of that month, one, in every respect as clean and perfect as when printed over thirty years ago, realising £4.15s. We believe that a few extra copies on large paper still exist, but the booksellers ask a prohibitive price for them.

125 Our excerpts are drawn chiefly from Machen’s translation.