Cornelius Gallus, the friend of Virgil, Horace, Tibullus, and Catullus, and who, according to Pliny, died the most delightful of deaths by expiring in the embraces of the fondest object of his affections,[172] was solely indebted for the delicious transports he enjoyed with her to the scourge with which her severe father chastised her for the faults that originated in too warm a temperament, a punishment which, instead of counteracting, furthered the wishes of the voluptuous Roman.
Jean Pic de Mirandole relates[173] the case of a person known to him who, being a great libertine, could not consummate the act of love without being flagellated until the blood came, and that, therefore, providing himself for the occasion with a whip steeped in vinegar, he presented it to his inamorata, begging her not to spare him, for "plus on le fouettait, plus il y trouvait des délices, la douleur et la volupté marchant, dans cet homme, d'un pas egal."
Meibomius mentions the case of a citizen of Lubeck who, being accused and convicted of adultery, was sentenced to be banished. A woman of pleasure with whom this man had
been for a long time intimate, appeared before the judges as a witness on his behalf. This woman swore that the man was never able to consummate the act of love with her unless he had been previously flogged,—an operation which it was also necessary to repeat before each successive indulgence.
That this was a means employed by Abelard in his commerce with Heloisa, appears from the following passages in two of his letters to her;
"Verbera quandoque dabat amor non furor, gratia non ira quæ omnium unguentorum suavitatem transcenderent."[174]
"Stripes which, whenever inflicted by love, not by fury but affection, transcended, in sweetness, every unguent."
"Nosti quantis turpitudinibus immoderata mea libido corpora nostra addixerat et nulla honestatis vel Dei reverentia in ipsis diebus Dominicæ passionis vel quantarumque solemnitatem ut hujus luti volutabro me revocavit. Sed et te nolentem aut dissuadentem quæ natura infirmior eras, ut sæpius minis ac flagellis ad consensum trahebam.[175]"
"Thou knowest to what shameful excesses my unbridled lust had delivered up our bodies, so that no sense of decency, no reverence for God, could, even in the season of our Lord's passion, or during any other holy festival, drag me forth from out that cesspool of filthy mire; but that even with threats and scourges I often compelled thee who wast, by nature, the weaker vessel, to comply, notwithstanding thy unwillingness and remonstrances."