“Mercury’s form has the power to please.
And Apollo’s body sticks out especially.
Lyaeus in pictures has a shapely line,
And Cupid is still finest of the fine.
My body lacks a certain beauty, I confess
But, look, my dick’s a jewel beyond the rest.
Any girl should prefer it to the gods I named,
And if she doesn’t, then a greedy pussy’s to blame.”
Forma Mercurius potest placere,
forma conspiciendus est Apollo,
formosus quoque pingitur Lyaeus,
formosissimus omnium est Cupido.
me pulchra fateor carere forma,
verum mentula luculenta nostra est:
hanc mavult sibi quam deos priores,
si qua est non fatui puella cunni.
Woman painting a statue of Priapus, from a fresco at Pompeii
“You always swear you will come to me, Lygdus, when I ask
And you promise a time and a place.
When I stretch out tense with prolonged excitement,
Often my left hand rushes in to replace you.
Liar! What should I beg for these deeds, these habits?
Lygdus—may you bear the umbrella of a one-eyed lady.”
Venturum iuras semper mihi, Lygde, roganti
constituisque horam constituisque locum.
cum frustra iacui longa prurigine tentus,
succurrit pro te saepe sinistra mihi.
5quid precer, o fallax, meritis et moribus istis?
umbellam luscae, Lygde, feras dominae.
And, to make this all a little more acceptable, here’s Martial on his choice of dicktion:
Epigrams, 3.69
“Because you write all your verses with nice words
There’s never a cock in your songs.
I admire this, I praise this. Nothing is holier than you alone.
But no page of mine lacks, well, lubrication.
Let nasty boys and easy girls read these poems then;
Let the old man who has a girlfriend to taunt him read them.
But, Cosconius, your holy and venerable words
Ought to be read by young boys and virgins.”
Omnia quod scribis castis epigrammata verbis
inque tuis nulla est mentula carminibus,
admiror, laudo; nihil est te sanctius uno:
at mea luxuria pagina nulla vacat.
haec igitur nequam iuvenes facilesque puellae,
haec senior, sed quem torquet amica, legat.
at tua, Cosconi, venerandaque sanctaque verba
a pueris debent virginibusque legi.
This poem reminds me of another where Martial defends himself by explaining that it is hard to write a poem without a penis. Harvesting from the garden of the Muses….
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Français 25526 (Roman de la Rose, France 14th century), fol. 160r.
“Mercury’s form has the power to please.
And Apollo’s body sticks out especially.
Lyaeus in pictures has a shapely line,
And Cupid is still finest of the fine.
My body lacks a certain beauty, I confess
But, look, my dick’s a jewel beyond the rest.
Any girl should prefer it to the gods I named,
And if she doesn’t, then a greedy pussy’s to blame.”
Forma Mercurius potest placere,
forma conspiciendus est Apollo,
formosus quoque pingitur Lyaeus,
formosissimus omnium est Cupido.
me pulchra fateor carere forma,
verum mentula luculenta nostra est:
hanc mavult sibi quam deos priores,
si qua est non fatui puella cunni.
Woman painting a statue of Priapus, from a fresco at Pompeii
He was a man of extreme lust: he used to refer to his endless intercourse as “bed-wrestling”, as if it were a type of exercise. There was a rumor that he used to depilate his concubines himself and that he used to go swimming with street prostitutes. Even though he repeatedly refused a wedding to his brother’s daughter who was offered to him for marriage when she was still a virgin because he was overcome with the Domitia affair, he seduced her not long after she was married to someone else and while Titus was still alive. But, soon, he loved her openly and with the utmost passion once she was deprived of father and husband, to the point that he was the reason for her death when she was forced to abort a child conceived with him.”
XXII. Libidinis nimiae, assiduitatem concubitus velut exercitationis genus clinopalen vocabat; eratque fama, quasi concubinas ipse develleret nataretque inter vulgatissimas meretrices. Fratris filiam adhuc virginem oblatam in matrimonium sibi cum devinctus Domitiae nuptiis pertinacissime recusasset, non multo post alii conlocatam corrupit ultro et quidem vivo etiam tum Tito; mox patre ac viro orbatam ardentissime palamque dilexit, ut etiam causa mortis exstiterit coactae conceptum a se abigere.
May I die, Priapus, if I am not ashamed
To use obscene words and nasty names
But when you, a god, has cast shame down
And show your balls out shaking around
Then a cock must be a cock and a cunt the same.
Obscenis, peream, Priape, si non
uti me pudet improbisque verbis.
sed cum tu posito deus pudore
ostendas mihi coleos patentes,
cum cunno mihi mentula est vocanda
This is a much needed companion piece to our post on the same topic in Greek. Note that many of lexical metaphors for masturbation are shared by the two languages. Much of the following material is drawn from J.N. Adams. The Latin Sexual Vocabulary. 1982. Note, however, that many of the examples are not truly masturbatory.
As an important prefatory note, the Latin word masturbor (whence modern “masturbate”) has unclear and irregular use in Latin (discussed by Adams 209-211 with some rather strong attacks on J. P. Hallet’s 1976 “Masturbator, Mascarpio.” Glotta, vol. 54: 292–308.) The word occurs most prominently in an agentive form in Martial (translated here with considerable license):
Martial, 14.203 Puella Gaditana
“She sways with such curves and oozes sex so deep
That she’d turn Hippolytus himself into a masturbating creep.”
Tam tremulum crisat, tam blandum prurit, ut ipsum
masturbatorem fecerit Hippolytum.
Other words and terms
Frico, “to rub, chafe”, cf. cont. vulg: “rub one out”
Petronius 91.11
“it is that much more advantageous to rub your groin rather than your genius”
tanto magis expedit inguina quam ingenia fricare
Sollicito, “to shake, stir, rouse, agitate, excite, urge” etc.
Despite Adam’s assertion, the primary examples he cites are about the manipulation of genitals by another party.
Ovid, Amores 3.7.73-4
“Despite this, my girl was not reluctant
To stroke me gently once she moved her hand down…”
Hanc etiam non est mea dedignata puella
molliter admota sollicitare manu;
Martial, 11.22.4
“Who denies this? This is too much. But let it be enough
Stop urging on their groins with that fucker of a hand.”
quis negat?—hoc nimium est. sed sit satis; inguina saltem
parce fututrici sollicitare manu.
Petronius 20.2
“She stirred up my groin which was cold already because of a thousand deaths.”
Sollicitavit inguina mea mille iam mortibus frigida
Cf. Maximianus 5.58 “she began to handle my dirty parts with her hand / and to excite me too with her fingers.” contrectare manu coepit flagrantia membra / meque etiam digitis sollicitare suis
“I don’t need a finger: handle me like this, Phyllis”
nil opus est digitis: sic mihi, Phylli, frica
Priapea 80.1-2
“But this limp dick is not long enough nor does it stand up strong enough,
Even if you play with it, do you think it can grow?”
At non longa bene est, non stat bene mentula crassa
et quam si tractes, crescere posse putes?
Adams 1982, 208:
(de)glubo: “to skin, flay, peel” cf. “skin off”
Ausonius, Epigram 79 “Inscribed Beneath the Picture of a Lusty Lady”
Beyond the genial joining of authorized sex
Sinful lust has discovered unnatural modes of love:
What the Lemnian lack posited to the heir of Herakles,
Or what the plays of Afranius in Roman garb presented
Or the total depravity that marked the Nolan people.
Somehow, in a single body, Crispa practices all three!
She masturbates, fellates, and rides with either hole—
So that she might not die frustrated, leaving anything untried.
LXXIX.—Subscriptum Picturae Mulieris impudicae
Praeter legitimi genialia foedera coetus
repperit obscenas veneres vitiosa libido:
Herculis heredi quam Lemnia suasit egestas,
quam toga facundi scaenis agitavit Afrani
et quam Nolanis capitalis luxus inussit.
Crispa tamen cunctas exercet corpore in uno:
deglubit, fellat, molitur per utramque cavernam,
ne quid inexpertum frustra moritura relinquat.
“Phyllis, when you begin to stroke my flaccid pieces
with your wrinkled hand, I am just wrecked by your thumb.
Oh, when you say I am your “mouse” or “your shining lights”,
I don’t think I can be firm again for ten hours.
You’re ignorant of pillow-talk. Say, “I will give you a hundred thousand
acres of good Setine land
Here, have some wine, a home, boys, gold dishes and tables.
You don’t need your fingers at all–turn me on like this, Phyllis.”
Languida cum vetula tractare virilia dextra
coepisti, iugulor pollice, Phylli, tuo.
iam cum me murem, cum me tua lumina dicis,
horis me refici vix puto posse decem.
blanditias nescis: ‘dabo’ dic ‘tibi milia centum
et dabo Setini iugera certa soli;
accipe vina, domum, pueros, chrysendeta, mensas.’
nil opus est digitis: sic mihi, Phylli, frica.
11.64
“Faustus–what you write to so many girls, I do not know.
I do see that no girl writes to you though.”
Nescio tam multis quid scribas, Fauste, puellis:
hoc scio, quod scribit nulla puella tibi.
Last year, I was alerted to this poem by a friend. I won’t out him to the world. This is some tasteless stuff.
Greek Anthology 5.105 [Attributed to Marcus Argentarius]
“The lusty ladies claim that Menophila’s universe is different,
Since it contains a taste of every kind of vice.
Come here and check her out, Astrologers, for her sky
Can fit both the dog and the twins inside.”
The joke (and the filth) depends on a double entendre. The Dog and the Twins are celestial bodies [Sirius, the Dog-star and Gemini, the twins]. But “dog” (κύων) and “twins” (διδύμοι) can also mean “cock and balls”. ὄρχεις is the more clinical word for “testicles”. The “sky” here may be euphemistic for Menophila’s mouth (As our friend below notes, “Aristotle (at least) uses “ouranos” for “the roof of the mouth,” so this is definitely about fellatio.”)
A Facebook correspondent (S. C. Stroup) has suggested some useful improvements to this post. First, “the name “Menophila” (Μηνοφίλα) can be read as “month” / “moon” lover (from μήνη, “moon”); so her name is an astronomical pun, as well.” This adds a nice, though mind-bending visual possibility, which Stroup picks up on:
“I would render the second line as “Hers is different, as it tastes of all mixtures.” The joke, I think, is that the Twins and the Dog—Gemini and Sirius—don’t appear right next to each other. So she mixes it up.”
So, here is Stroup’s full translation:
“Ladies of luxury claim that Moongirl’s delights are different;
Different (they say) because she enjoys all mixtures.
Come, Astrologers: and check her out:
Her vault of heaven holds both cock and balls.”
Plato the Comic Poet, fr. 43 [=Athenaeus 9. 367c-d]
[1] A woman who is asleep is boring
[2] I am learning this.
[1] But there are, uh, side-dishes when she is awake
And these alone are much more useful for pleasure than anything else
[2] What are fucking’s sidedishes, may I ask you?
