91.Martial had made use of the same interrogative phrase with the verb in the infinitive and puta put instead of scilicet also in Epigram III., 26. Hoc me puta velle negare? (Can I say nay to this?) Scholars have found occasion for a pile of annotations on the two passages: these need not detain us.

92.Martial’s meaning is: My left hand will console my suffering mentula; the business done, my hand covered with the ejaculation of the sperm, like the fleece on the pubis of Ravola in Juvenal, IX., 4,—if indeed it is the fleece of his pubis that is intended:

“Whilst Ravola with wet beard rubs the groin of RhodopÉ” ... the greedy cinede will be told to go to the deuce, to slink off with drooping head, like the man in Horace (Satires II., 69), who finds:

“Nothing is left to him and his but to weep.”

This moist hand reminds us of the adulterous woman in Juvenal, XI., 186, who:

“Show humid traces in the doubtful pleats of her tunic.”

93.Suidas under the word *****, after Aelius Dionysius apparently.

94.It was not out of voluptuousness, but for decency’s sake that Jews, who had renounced their nation, had their prepuce redressed over the gland, as they did not wish it to be seen that they had been circumcized, so they took means to get their bare gland recovered. “And they made for themselves new prepuces” (Maccabees, I., 1., 15), “Is there anyone that has been brought to believe, circumcized? Let him not recover his gland” (Corinthians, I., vii., 18). Celsus, De Medicina, VII., ch. 25: “If the gland is bare, and it is desired for convenience sake to recover it, this can be effected, but more easily with a child, than with a grown man, more easily with the man born so, than with the man who has been circumcized after the custom of certain people. After having explained the method of cure applicable to men, with whom it is a natural accident,” Celsus continues: “With people that have been circumcized, the skin must be detached behind the crown of the gland. This operation is not very painful as the prepuce being loosened, you can draw it with the hand back to the pubis without any loss of blood.

Then the loosened integument is drawn once more over and beyond the gland. This done the verge is dipped frequently into cold water, and then covered with a plaster, which has a strong tendency to minimize inflammation. As soon as it is quite free from inflammation, the verge is to be bandaged from the pubis to the annular incision; the skin is then drawn over the gland, but kept separate from it by a plaster. In this way the lower part of the skin grows on again, while the upper part heals without adhering.” From this passage it would appear that at the time of Celsus the method of laying bare the gland which afterwards prevailed with the Jews was not discovered yet, by which, according to Buxtorf (Dictionnaire Talmudique), after the prepuce has been cut away, the circumcisor takes hold of the remaining skin between the thin edges of his thumb nails, and draws it forcibly back. If this practice had been customary it would have been superfluous to separate the prepuce with the scalpel. I conjecture from this, that the Jews were called recutiti from having this skin of the gland drawn back, which, not being done, the circumcision was not considered complete; but Celsus makes me doubt this.

95.Julius Caesar Scaliger, Poetica, book I., p. 64:

“One of these infamous dances was the * *** ** meaning wriggling the haunches and thighs, the crissare of the Romans. In Spain this abominable practice is still performed in public.”

96.Do not miss, reader, the motive of this dance, with their buttocks wriggling the girls finally sunk to the ground, reclining on their backs, ready for the amorous contest. Different from this was the LacedÆmonian dance * ** * ** when the girls in their leaps touched their buttocks with their heels. Aristophanes in the Lysistrata, 82:

“Naked I dance, and beat my buttocks with my heels.” Pollux, IV., ch. 24: “As to the * ** * **, this was a Laconian dance. There were prizes competed for, not only amongst the young men, but also amongst the young girls; the essence of these dances was to jump and touch the buttocks with the heels. The jumps were counted and credited to the dancers. They rose to a thousand in the ** *** * ! !”

Yet more difficult was that kind of dance which was called ****, in which the feet had to touch the shoulders. Pollux, ibid.: “The **** were dances for women: they had to throw their feet higher than their shoulders.”

This kind of dance is not unknown in more modern times. J. C. Scaliger, Poetica, book I., p. 651: “To this day the Spaniards touch the occiput and other parts of the body with their feet.”

97.Diogenes LaËrtius, VI., 2, 46: “One day, whilst masturbating himself in the middle of the market he said: “I wish to heaven that I could prevent my stomach from being hungry by rubbing it.” Plutarch, De Stoicorum repugnantiis, 1044, vol. II., of his works: “Chrysippus praised Diogenes for masturbating himself in public, and for saying to the bystanders: “Would to heaven by rubbing my stomach in the same fashion, I could satisfy my hunger.”

98.Mark with what minuteness the Ancients scrutinized nature; with what ingenuity they gave expression to all their sentiments! Who dares nowadays write such a verse describing as a natural thing what might be but a solecism of his mentula.

99.Bassus, who was in the habit of taking his pleasures with young minions, longhaired and slim, set the hands of his wife to work to excite his mentula, when he came back to the conjugal couch fatigued and languid. Martial, XII., 99:

“You tire yourself, oh Bassus, but with minions, paying them from the dowry of your wife; thus when you return to her side, that member bought at the price of many million sesterces, lies languid. In vain her tender thumb tries to excite it, vain are her tender words, it will not stand.”

100.The women of Aristophanes (Lysistrata, v. 227) threatened their husbands with a similar rigidity of body:

“Though you may have your way, I shall be crabbed and never move.”

101.He had a hand of no less experience (Juvenal, VI., 422-23), that cunning shampooer who put his fingers to the lady’s clitoris.

“And made his mistress’s thigh resound beneath his hand high up.”