“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
“For the sake of Zeus, allow me to interrogate the tragedians and the storytellers who came before them as to what they had in mind when they pour so great an ignorance on Laios’ son who joined that terrible journey with his mother and on Telephos who, although he did not pursue sex, also laid next to the one who bore him and would have done the same things if a serpent had not interrupted him by divine command. How can these things happen when nature even allows the mindless animals to recognize the nature of this union from simple touch—they do not need special signs or anything from the man who exposed Oedipus on Mt. Cithairon.
The camel, indeed, would certainly never have sex with its own mother. There was a herdsman, who tried to force this, and, by covering up a female as much as possible and hiding all of her except for her genitals, drove the child to its mother. The ignorant animal, thanks to its excitement for sex, did the deed and then understood it. While biting and trampling the man who was responsible for this unnatural union, it killed him terribly by kneeling on top of him. Then it threw him off a cliff.
In this, Oedipus was ignorant in failing to kill himself and just putting out is eyes: for, he did not know that it was possible to escape his troubles by getting rid of himself and not curing his home and family, and as such to try to cure evils which had passed with an incurable evil.”
“The male organ has differences akin to those throughout the whole body. For some animals are completely sinewy, others are not. And this is the only one of the appendages which experiences increase and decrease in size without any disease. The first of these qualities is useful for copulation; the second is good for the use of the rest of the body. For it would impede the rest of the body if it were always distended.
By nature, then, it is made up of those kinds of materials which are able to do both of these things. For it has both sinew and cartilage and for this reason it can contract and expand and can admit air into itself.”
20 “Sexual excitement is also due to an exiting of breath. If its rush finds some exit while arousal is ongoing then it does not make the semen ejaculate. But instead, it cools. Then, it ruins the rigidity of the penis.”
4.23 “Why does rigidity and increase happen to the penis? Is it for two reasons? First, is it because that weight develops on the bottom of the testicles, raising it—for the testicles are like a fulcrum? And is it because the veins become full of breath [pneuma]? Or does the mass become bigger because of an increase in moisture or some change in position or from the development of moisture itself? Extremely large things are raised less when the wight of the fulcrum is far away.”
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.
The Suda calls Phormisios a “reckless and bold wannabe general” (ὁ Φορμίσιος αὐθάδης καὶ θρασὺς στρατηγιῶν, Phi 606). But then, there is this from Aristophanes.
Suda, Phi 605
“Phormisios: “She will pull up [her skirt] and show her Phormisios”*: for this man was hairy. This is an indirect reference to female genitalia.”
Dio Chrysostom, The Sixth Oration: On Diogenes or Tyranny (16-20)
“On behalf of that very thing which men make the most effort and waste the most money—through which many cities have been overturned and for whose sake many people have perished pitiably—for [Diogenes] this was the easiest and cheapest thing. For he didn’t have to go anywhere for sexual satisfaction, since, as he used to joke, Aphrodite was near him everywhere, and for free. He used to say that the poets slandered the goddess because of their own lack of control when they called her “all golden”. Since many did not believe this, he proved it out in the open while everyone was watching. And he used to say that if people did this, then Troy would not have fallen, nor would have Priam, the Phrygian king of the line of Zeus, bled out on Zeus’ altar.
He added that the Achaeans were so witless as to imagine that even corpses needed women and so slaughtered Polyxena on the tomb of Achilles. So he used to explain that fish proved themselves to be almost more prudent than men—for whenever they needed to expel their seed, the went out and rubbed up against something with friction. Diogenes was amazed at the unwillingness of men to spend money to have their foot, hand, or any other part of the body rubbed, and how the very rich would not waste even a drachma on this. But they [all] lavished many a talent on that single member often and that some even still endangered their lives too. He used to joke that this kind of intercourse was Pan’s discovery: when he was lusting after Echo but couldn’t overtake her, he was wondering in the mountains night and day until that point when Hermes taught him how to do this, because he pitied his helplessness and he was his son. And, after he learned this, he got a break from his great suffering. Apparently, shepherds learned this from him.”
No one, Kharidêmos, can keep screwing his wife
And enjoy it deep in his soul.
Our nature is so fond of novelty, of foreign flesh,
That it is always seeking exotic pussy on the side.
