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- Herausgeber: Charles River Editors
- Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
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SPORTIVE EPIGRAMS ON PRIAPUS
Leonard Smithers
PAPHOS PUBLISHERS
Thank you for reading. In the event that you appreciate this book, please consider sharing the good word(s) by leaving a review, or connect with the author.
This book is a work of poetry; its contents are wholly imagined.
All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission. Thank you for supporting authors and a diverse, creative culture by purchasing this book and complying with copyright laws.
Copyright © 2015 by Leonard Smithers
Interior design by Pronoun
Distribution by Pronoun
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
A Word to the Reader
The Epigrams
1 To Priapus
2 Priapus
3 To Priapus
4 On Priapus
5 Priapus
6 Priapus
7 Priapus
8 Priapus
9 Priapus
10 Priapus
11 Priapus
12 Priapus
13 Priapus
14 Priapus
15 To Priapus
16 Priapus
17 Priapus
18 To Priapus
19 Priapus
20 To Priapus
21 Priapus
22 Priapus
23 Priapus
24 Priapus
25 Priapus
26 To Priapus
27 To Priapus
28 To Priapus
29 To Priapus
30 Priapus
31 Priapus
32 Priapus
33 Priapus
34 To Priapus
35 Priapus
36 Priapus
37 The Interpretation of a Votive Offering[1]
38 Priapus
39 Priapus
40 To Priapus
41 Priapus
42 To Priapus
43 Priapus
44 Priapus
45 Priapus
46 Priapus
47 Priapus
48 Priapus
49 Priapus
50 To Priapus
51 Priapus
52 Priapus
53 To Priapus
54 Priapus
55 Priapus
56 Priapus
57 Priapus
58 Priapus
59 Priapus
60 To Priapus
61 To Priapus
62 Priapus
63 Priapus
64 Priapus
65 To Priapus
66 Priapus
67 Priapus
68 Priapus
69 Priapus
70 Priapus
71 Priapus
72 Priapus
73 To Priapus
74 Priapus
75 Priapus
76 Priapus
77 To Priapus
78 To Priapus
79 Priapus
80 To Priapus
81 To Priapus
82 To Priapus
83 To Priapus
84 To Priapus
85 To Priapus
86 To Priapus
87 Priapus
88 Priapus
89 To Priapus
Additional Epigrams: 90 To Priapus
91 Priapus upon Himself
92 On a Cilician Thief
93 On the Priapus of Hilarus
94 A Wheaten Priapus
95 Priapus
Notes Explanatory and Illustrative and Excursus: A list of terms used in the Priapeia as designations of Priapus
List of terms used in the Priapeia to designate the virile member of Priapus[1]
Alphabetical list of additional terms used by Latin authors in designation of the male sexual organ
List of terms used in the Priapeia to designate the female sexual organ
Alphabetical list of additional terms used by Latin authors in designation of the female sexual organ
Sodomy with Women
Erotic Classical Writers
List of agricultural and horticultural terms used tropically in a venereal sense
Sodomy
Irrumation
The Supine Posture in Coition
Dancing Girls
Masturbation
Depilation by Catamites
Braccae
Bestiality
Postures of Coition
Infibulation
The Cunnilinges
Sportive Epigrams on Priapus
By Leonard Smithers
I have such papers that grim Cato’s wife
May read, and strictest Sabines in their life.
I will this book should laugh throughout and jest,
And be more wicked than are all the rest,
And sweat with wine, and with rich unguents flow,
And sport with boys, and with the wenches too;
Nor by periphrasis describe that thing
That common parent whence we all do spring;
Which sacred Numa once a prick did call.
Yet still suppose these verses Saturnal.
(O my Apollinaris) this my book
Has no dissembled manners, no feign’d look.
—FLETCHER’S Martial
INTRODUCTION
THE PRIAPEIA, NOW FOR THE first time literally and completely translated into English verse and prose, is a collection of short Latin poems in the shape of jocose epigrams affixed to the statues of the god Priapus. These were often rude carvings from a tree-trunk, human-shaped, with a huge phallus which could at need be used as a cudgel against robbers, and they were placed in the gardens of wealthy Romans, for the twofold purpose of promoting fertility and of preventing depredations on the produce.
Most of these facetiae are by unknown authors. Although they appear in early editions of Vergil, and are attributed to that writer by J. M. Catanaeus, it is, to say the least, doubtful that he played any part in their authorship. Politian attributes them to Ovid; others, such as François Guiet, hold Domitius Marsus to be their author. The general opinion is that they are the collective work of a group of beaux esprits who formed a reunion at the house of Maecenas (the well known patron of Horace), and who amused themselves by writing these verses in a garden-temple consecrated to Priapus. Subsequently Martial and Petronius added several imitative epigrams, and eventually the whole were collected in one volume by the writer of the opening verses. Catullus, Tibullus, Cinna and Anser are also credited with a share in the work. The cento consists chiefly of laudatory monologues by Priapus himself, jocosely and satirically written, in praise of his most prominent part—the mentule—and of fearful warnings to thieves not to infringe upon the Garden God’s domains under pain of certain penalties and punishments, obscene and facetious. At times a witty epigram sparkles from the pages, notably numbers 2, 14, 2 5, 37, 47, 69 and 84, the Homeric burlesque in number 69 being merum sal, whilst numbers 46 and 70 show a degree of pornography difficult to parallel.
That the Priapeia has not hitherto been translated into the English tongue is to be expected: the nature of the work is such that it cannot, be included in a popular edition of the classics. But to the philological and anthropological student this collection is most valuable, and the reason for omitting it from the list of translations is not applicable to a version produced for private circulation and limited to an edition of five hundred copies. Putting aside conventionalities, the translators have endeavoured to produce a faithful reflection of the original Latin, shirking no passages, but rendering all the formidably plain-spoken expressions in a translation as close as the idioms of the two languages allow. Indeed the keynote to the volume will be found in Epigrams 1 and 46, on pages 33 and 70, verses probably scrawled on the temple walls of Priapus or scribbled upon the base of his statue by some libertine poet.
Although the value of the work in illustrating the customs of the old Romans may be small per se, yet when read in conjunction with the legacies of certain writers (Catullus, Petronius, Martial, Juvenal and Ausonius, for example), it explains and corroborates their notices of sundry esoteric practices, and thus becomes a supplement to their writings. With the view of making the work an explanatory guide to the erotic dicta of the authors above-mentioned, the bulk of the notes and the excursus explaining and illustrating the text and exceeding its length by some five times is devoted to articles on pederasty with both sexes, irrumation, the cunnilinges, masturbation, bestiality, various figurae Veneris (modes and postures of coition, particularly that in which the man lies supine under the woman); excerpts from the Latin erotic vocabulary, including exhaustive lists of Latin terms designating the sexual organs, male and female; a list of classical amatory writers, and a host of miscellaneous matters, e.g. the habits of the Roman dancing-girls, eunuchism, tribadism of the Roman matrons, the use of phalli, religious prostitution, aphrodisiacs, the ‘infamous’ finger, tabellae or licentious paintings, the fibula as a preventive of coition, the crepitus ventris, etc., etc., illustrated by poetical versions of many of the epigrams culled from various sources, by parallel elucidatory passages (many hitherto untranslated) from classical writers, and by quotations from authors, ancient and modern.
English literary students have good reason to congratulate them selves on the collaboration of a certain talented littérateur, the mere mention of whose name would be a sufficient guarantee for the quality of the work. He has most kindly enriched the volume with a complete metrical version of the epigrams, and this is, indeed, the principal raison d’être of this issue. I have also gratefully to acknowledge obligations of no small weight, not only for his careful and thorough revision of the prose portion of the translation, but also for the liberal manner in which I have availed myself of his previous labours in the preparation of my notes and excursus. The name of Sir Richard F. Burton, translator of The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, has been inadvertently connected with the present work. It is, however, only fair to state that under the circumstances he distinctly disclaims having taken any part in the issue.
And here I may state that a complete and literal translation of the works of Catullus, on the same lines and in the same format as the present volume, is now in preparation. Catullus is, of all the Latin poets, the one who has been oftenest paraphrased and traduced, and even yet, in the year of grace 1890, we have no version of him in our tongue which can be regarded by the student as definitive. Of the merits of Catullus’s poesy and the desirability of a trustworthy translation there is no need to speak.
A long dissertation on Priapic worship, the Linga-pújá of the Hindus, considered as an ancient and venerable faith, would be out of place in this recueil; consequently that subject is merely glanced at in the next few pages, most of the information here presented being drawn from modern volumes which contain a digest of the writings of well-known authorities and specialists.
In the earliest ages the worship of the generative Energy was of the most simple and artless character, rude in manner, primitive in form, chaste in idea, the homage of man to the Supreme Power, the Author of Life, the Sun, as symbolised by the reproductive force.
Afterwards the cult became depraved, a religion of feeling, of sensuousness, corrupted by a priesthood who, not slow to take advantage of this state of affairs, inculcated therewith profligate and mysterious ceremonies, union of gods with women, religious prostitution and other sexual rites. Thus it was not long before the emblems lost their real and original meaning, and became licentious statues and debased art.[1] Hence we have the debauched ceremonies at the festivals of Bacchus, who became, not only the representative of the creative
[1. Sir R. F. Burton, in his paper read before the Anthropological Society on ‘Certain Matters connected with the Dahoman’, describes the Dahoman Priapus as ‘a clay figure of any size between a giant and the pigmy, crouched upon the ground as if contemplating its own attributes. The head is sometimes a wooden block, rudely carved, more often dried mud, and the eyes and teeth are supplied by cowries. A huge penis, like a section of a broomstick, projects horizontally from the middle.’]
Energy, but the god of pleasure and licentiousness.
This corrupted religion readily found eager votaries, captives to a pleasant bondage compelled by the impulse of physical luxury: such was the case in India and Egypt, and among the Phoenicians, Babylonians, Hebrews and other Eastern races.
Sex-worship once personified became the supreme and governing deity, enthroned as the ruling god over all; and monarchs, complying with the prevailing faith, became willing devotees to the cult of Isis and Venus on the one hand, and on the other of Bacchus and Priapus, appealing, as they did, to the most tyrannical passion of human nature.
The worship of Priapus amongst the Romans was derived from the Egyptians, who, under the form of Apis, the Sacred Bull, adored the generative Power of Nature; and as the syllable pri or pre signifies (we are assured) principle, production, natural or original source, the word Priapus may be translated principle of production or of fecundation of Apis. The same symbol also bore among the Romans the names of Tutenus, Mutinus [1] and Fascinum.[2] According to Macrobius, the corresponding deity amongst the Egyptians was called Horus—a personification of the sun. This Horus is painted as a winged youth, with a quoit lying at his feet, a sceptre in his right hand, and in his left a Phallus[3] equal in size to the rest of his body. The Phallus was the ancient emblem of creation, and representative of the gods Bacchus, Priapus, Hercules, Siva, Osiris, Baal and Asher, who were all Phallic deities, the symbols
[1. According to Festus, Mutinus or Mutenus 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. In Primitive Symbolism we read, ‘The Romans named Mutinus or Tutenus, the isolated Phallus, and Priapus, the Phallus affixed to a Hermes.’
2. Fascinum primarily means a bewitching, an enchantment. It gained its topical meaning from a custom practised by the ancients of hanging a Phallus round the neck of children as a charm or preventive against witchcraft, and hence the word became synonymous with penis.
3. Phallus, or privy member (membrum virile), signifies ‘he breaks through or passes into’; German (pfahl); English (pole); of Phoenician origin, the Greek word, pallo—’to brandish preparatory to throwing a missile’; in Sanskrit, phal—’to burst, to produce, to be faithful’, ‘a ploughshare’, and also the names of Shiva and Mahadeva, who are Hindu deities of destruction. The kteis, or female organ, as the symbol of the passive or reproductive powers of nature, generally occurs on ancient Roman monuments as the concha Veneris, a fig, barley, corn and the letter delta.]
being used as signs of the all-creative Energy or operating Power of the Demiurgos, from no consideration of mere animal appetite but in token of the highest reverence.[1] The tortoise, believed to have been androgynous, was chosen to accompany statues of Venus. The fig was a still more common symbol, the statue of Priapus being made of that tree, and the fruit being carried with the Phallus in the ancient processions to the honour of Bacchus. In conformity with the religious ideas of the Greeks and Romans, Vergil describes the products of the globe as the result of the conjugal act between Jupiter (the sky) and Juno (the earth). Among the Greeks, the membrum virile was borne in procession to the temple of Bacchus and was there crowned with a garland by one of the most respectable matrons of the city. According to St Augustine the sexual organ of man was consecrated in the temple of Liber, that of women in the sanctuaries of Liberia, these two divinities being named father and mother. Payne Knight states that Priapus, in his character of procreative deity, is celebrated by the Greek poets under the title of Love or Attraction, the first principle of Animation, the father of gods and men, the regulator and dispenser of all things. He Is said to pervade the universe with the motion of his wings, bringing pure light, and thence to be called ‘the splendid, the self-illumined, the ruling Priapus’. According to Natalis Comes, the worship of Priapus was introduced into Athens by express order of an oracle.
The Priapi were of different forms, some having only a human head and the Phallus, some with the head of Pan or of a faun—that is, with the beard and ears of a goat. Among the paintings found in Pompeii there are several representations of hircine sacrifices and offerings of milk and flowers to Priapus. The god is represented as a Hermes on a square pedestal, with the usual characteristic of the deity, a prominent Phallus. Similar Hermae or Priapi were placed at the forkings of two or three roads, and were confounded with the divinities Mercury and Terminus presiding over boundaries. When furnished with arms, in his character of ‘Terminus’, Priapus held with one hand a reaping hook and, like Osiris, grasped with the other the characteristic feature of his divinity which was always of a monstrous size and in a state of statant energy. One of the paintings discovered at Pompeii represents a sacrifice or offering to Priapus, made by two persons. The first is a young man with a dark skin, entirely naked, except for the animal’s skin
[1. Survivals of this worship may be seen in our maypole, the steeple, the ecclesiastical cross, etc.]
which is wrapped round his loins, his head being encircled with a wreath of leaves. He carries a basket wherein are flowers and vegetables, the first offerings of his humble farm; and he bends to place them at the foot of a little altar, on which there is a small statue in bronze representing the god of gardens. On the other side is a woman, also wearing a wreath, and dressed in a yellow tunic with green drapery; she holds in her left hand a golden dish and in her right a vase and she appears to be bringing an offering of milk:
Sinium lactis et haec te liba, Priape, quotannis
Expectare sat est; custos es pauperis horti.
VERGIL, Eclogues
Offerings were made to Priapus according to the season of the year:
Vere rosa, autumno pomis, oestate frequentor
Spicis: una mihi est horrida pestis hiems
Epigram 86
In another painting Priapus is represented as placed on a square stone, against which rest two sticks. His head is covered with a cap, he has a small mantle on his shoulder, and exhibits his usual prominent characteristic.[1] According to Herodotus and Pausanias statues of Mercury were represented as ithyphallic,[2] and the latter mentions one in particular at Cyllene.
In the towns Priapus had public chapels, whither devotees suffering from maladies connected with his attributes repaired for the purpose of offering to him ex-votos figuring the parts afflicted; these ex-votos being sometimes paintings and, at others, statuettes made of wax or of wood, and occasionally of metal, stone and marble. Females as superstitious as they were lascivious might be seen offering in public to Priapus as many garlands as they had had lovers. These they would hang upon the enormous phallus of the idol, which was often hidden from sight behind the number suspended by one woman alone. Others presented to the god as many phalli, made of willow-wood, as the men whom
[1. The statue is evidently placed by the roadside, and holds a stick in its hand to point out the way to travellers.
2. Ithyphallus, a piece of wood shaped like the erect virile member, which was carried about in the festivals of Bacchus. Hence, applied to Priapus, who was represented with an erect member. Priapus was also called Triphallus (triphallos), a threefold phallus, an immense phallus, on account of the extraordinary size of his member.]
they had vanquished in a single night. St Augustine informs us that it was considered by the Roman ladies a very proper and pious custom for young brides to seat themselves upon the monstrous member of Priapus; and Lactantius says, ‘Shall I speak of that Mutinus, upon the extremity of which brides are accustomed to seat themselves in order that the god may appear to have been the first to receive the sacrifice of their modesty?’
These facts prove that the worship of Priapus had greatly degenerated amongst the Romans since, losing sight altogether of the object typified, they attached themselves to the symbol alone, in which they could see only what was indecent; and hence religion became a pretext for libertinism. Respected so long as Roman manners presented their pristine simplicity, but degraded and vilified in proportion as the morals of that people became corrupted, the very sanctuary itself of Priapus failed to protect him from the biting sarcasm of the poets, and the obloquy and ridicule of the wits. Thus his statue[1] was placed in orchards as a scarecrow to drive away superstitious thieves, as well as children and birds.
The ‘personal’ history of Priapus represents him as the son of Dionysus and Aphrodite. It is said that Aphrodite, who was in love with Dionysus, went to meet him on his return from India, but soon abandoning him, made for Lampsacus, and there gave birth to her child by the god. Hera, who was dissatisfied with her conduct, caused her to bear a babe of extreme ugliness, who was presently named Priapus. The earliest Greek poets, as Homer and Hesiod, do not mention this divinity, and it was only in later times that he was honoured with divine worship. He was adored more especially at Lampsacus on the Hellespont, whence he is sometimes called Hellespondiacus.[2] By some writers Priapus is said to have been the son of Dionysus and a nymph called Chione. He was regarded as the promoter of fertility both in vegetation and in all animals connected with an agricultural life, and in this capacity he was addressed as the protector of sheep and goats, of bees, of the vine, of all garden produce and even of fishing. Like other divinities presiding
[1. The statue of Priapus was generally chopped roughly out from the trunk of a standing tree. It was usually shaped from fig-tree wood, dry oak or cypress; sometimes of marble or even of wheaten dough.
2. The enormous size of his member so endeared him to the women of Lampsacus that their husbands banished him from the city, whereupon a fell disease attacked their pudenda and continued until, by the oracle’s command, he was recalled and crowned as the garden god.]
over agricultural pursuits, he was believed to be possessed of prophetic powers and he is sometimes mentioned in the plural. As Priapus had many attributes in common with other gods of fertility, the Orphics identified him with their mystic Dionysus, Hermes, Helios and others. The Attic legends connect Priapus with such sensual and licentious beings as Conisalus, Orthanes and Tychon; in like manner he was confounded by the Italians with Mutunus or Muttunus, the personification (as has been shown) of Nature’s fructifying power. The sacrifices offered to him consisted of the firstlings of gardens, vineyards and fields; of milk, honey, calves, rams, asses and fishes. He was represented by carved images, mostly in the form of Hermae, carrying fruit in the sinus of the garment and either a sickle or cornucopia in the hand; the statues of Priapus in Italy, like those of other rustic divinities, were usually painted red, whence the god is called ruber or rubicundus.[1] A chief seat of the worship of this god was Priapus, a city of Mysia, on the Propontis, a colony of the Milesians; in Spain he was worshipped under the name of Hortanes, and in Slavonia under the appellation of Pripe-gala.
Antwerp was the Lampsacus of Belgium, Priapus being the tutelary god of that city; Ters was the name given to him by the inhabitants, who held this divinity in the highest veneration. Females were accustomed to invoke him on the most trivial occasions, a custom which, Goropius informs us, continued as late as the sixteenth century; and in order to eradicate or replace that superstition by the ceremonies of the Christian Church, Godefroy de Bouillon, the illustrious leader of the First Crusade, sent from Jerusalem, as a present of inestimable value, the foreskin of Jesus Christ, of which no less than twelve are still said to be extant.
Sir W. Hamilton’s account of the worship paid to St Cosmo and St Damiano is very curious:
On the 17th September, at Isernia, one of the most ancient cities of the kingdom of Naples, situated in the Contado di Molise, and adjoining the Abuzzo, an annual fair is held which lasts three days. In the city and at the fair, ex-votos of wax, representing the male parts of generation, of various dimensions, sometimes even of the length of a palm, are publicly exposed for sale. There are also waxen vows that represent other parts of the body; but of these there are few in comparison with the Priapi.
The distributors of these vows carry a basket full of them in one
[1. The Hindus follow a similar custom of painting their gods with vermilion.]
hand, and hold a plate in the other to receive the money, crying out, ‘Saints Cosmos and Damiano!’ If you ask the price of one, the answer is ‘Più ci metti, più meriti‘—the more you contribute, the more the merit The vows are chiefly purchased by the female sex and they are seldom such as represent legs, arms, etc., but most commonly the male parts of generation. The person who was at the fête in the year 1780, and who gave me this account (the authenticity of which has since been confirmed to me by the Governor of Isernia), told me also he heard a woman say, at the time she presented a vow, ‘Santo Cosmo, benedetto, cosi lo voglio!‘—’Blessed St Cosmo, let it be like this!’ The vow is never presented without being accompanied by a piece of money, and is always, kissed by the devotee at the moment of presentation.
But, as might naturally be expected, this ghostly voluptas does not suffice to fructify barren women; and, consequently, another ceremony, doubtless more efficacious, was required. The votaries who resorted to this fair slept there for two nights, some in the Church of the Capuchin friars and the others in that of the Cordeliers; when these two were insufficient to contain all the devotees, the Church of the Hermitage of St Cosine, received the overflow.
In the three edifices the women during the two nights were separated from the men, the latter lying under the vestibule, and all the others in the chapels. These, whether in the Church of the Capuchins, or in that of the Cordeliers, were under the protection of the father guardian, the vicar, and a monk of merit. In the Hermitage it was the hermit himself who watched over them. From this it may easily be imagined how the miracle was effected without troubling St Cosmo and St Damiano, as well as that the virtue possessed by these two saints extended to young maidens and widows.
