Hermès. Attendez, étant en fiançailles, il vouloit prendre le cas de sa fiancée; elle ne le vouloit pas: il faisoit le malade, et elle lui demandoit: “Qu’y a-t-il, mon ami?” “Hélas, ma mie, je suis si malade, que je n’en puis plus; je mourrai si je ne vois ton cas.” “Vraiment voire?” dit-elle. “Hélas! oui, si je l’avois vu, je guérirois.” Elle ne lui voulut point montrer; à la fin, ils furent mariés. Il advint, trois ou quatre mois après, qu’il fut fort malade; et il envoya sa femme au médicin pour porter de son eau. En allant, elle s’avisa de ce qu’il lui avoit dit en fiançailles. Elle retourna vitement, et se vint mettre sur le lit; puis, levant cotte et chemise lui présenta son cela en belle vue, et lui disoit: “Jean, regarde le con, et te guéris.”[80]
Sir William Hamilton writes to Richard Payne Knight from Naples in the year 1781, as follows:
“Having last year made a curious discovery, that in a province of this kingdom, not fifty miles from its capital, a sort of devotion is still paid to Priapus, the obscene divinity of the ancients (though under another denomination), I have thought it a circumstance worth recording; particularly as it offers a fresh proof of the similitude of the Popish and Pagan religion, so well observed by Dr. Middleton in his celebrated Letter from Rome; therefore I mean to deposit the authentic proofs of this assertion in the British Museum when a proper opportunity shall offer.” Sir William goes on to relate how he found many phallic amulets, charms, etc., in the possession of the people, and then describes the votive offerings laid upon the altar at a feast given in honor of Saints Cosmus and Damianus, in a church called by their names. The offerings were waxen images of the phallus. “The vows are chiefly presented by the female sex,” continues he, “and they are seldom such as represent legs, arms, etc., but most commonly the male parts of generation. A person who was at this fête in the year 1780, told me that he heard a woman say, at the time she presented a vow, ‘Santo Cosimo benedetto, cosi lo voglio.’”[81]
This church was in Isernia, a little village about fifty miles from Naples, and away from the direct line of travel, hence its inhabitants saw little of the world, and therefore kept to their old customs longer than their more favored neighbors. Thus it happened that, even in the latter half of the eighteenth century, Priapus had his votaries almost within the shadow of the Vatican! These phallic rites were finally abolished by episcopal command.
One of the most common amulets or charms against jettitura, or the “evil eye,” the bête noire of every Italian, is a little coral hand. The middle finger of this hand is extended, thus representing the penis, while the other fingers are closed on the palm, thus representing the testicles. In ancient times, when a man extended his hand, closed in this manner, it was a gesture of insult and anger; to-day this gesture is only made in derision and contempt. The hand closed in this way, or, rather, with the thumb projecting between the first and second fingers (another very common phallic symbol or sign), was called a “fig”; hence, the old expression of contempt and indifference, “a fico for you, sir,” now modernized into “I don’t care a fig.”[AB]
France, as well as Italy, had her phallic charms and her phallic saints. Priapus was a god to the ancients—to the people of the Middle Ages he was a saint. According to M. Dulaure, in the south of France, Provence, Languedoc, and the Lyonnais, he was worshiped under the name of St. Foutin. This name is derived from that of the first bishop of Lyons, Fotinus, to whom the people had transferred (as they have done to many other sainted individuals) the distinguishing characteristics of a god; in this instance, Priapus. At Lyons there was an immense wooden phallus, and the women were in the habit of scraping this image, and then steeping the wood-dust in water, which they drank as a remedy against barrenness. Sometimes they gave it to the men in order to stimulate sexuality or sensuality. At Varailles, in Provence, waxen images of the male and female sexual organs were offered to St. Foutin, and, since these images were suspended from the ceiling and moved by every vagrant current of air, the effect was sometimes very astonishing. “Témoin Saint Foutin de Varailles en Provence, auquel sont dédiées les parties honteuses de l’un et de l’ autre sexe, formées en cire; le plancher de la chapelle en est fort garni, et, quand le vent les fait entrebattre, cela débauche un peu les dévotions à l’honneur de ce Saint.”[82]
This worship at Varailles was identical with that of Isernia; the votive offerings were waxen images or models of the genital organs, while the saints differed only in name, not in character. At Embrun the worship of St. Foutin was a little different. The women at this last mentioned place poured wine on the phallus; this wine was collected in a bucket, and, when it became sour, it was used as a medicine for barrenness.
When Embrun was besieged and taken by the Protestants in 1585, this phallus was found among the other sacred relics, and its head “was red with the wine which had been poured upon it.”[83] In the church of St. Eutropius, at Orange, a large phallus covered with leather was seized and burnt by the Protestants in 1562. Dulaure says that the sexual organs were objects of worship at Porighy, Viviers, Vendre in the Bourbonnais, Cives, Auxerre, Puy-en-Velay, and at hundreds of other places. Some of these phalli were recreated as fast as they were worn away by zealous devotees. They were so arranged in the walls of the churches that, “as the phallic end in front became shortened (by scrapings), a blow from a mallet from behind thrust it forward, so that it was restored to its original length.”[84]
In the public square of Batavia there was formerly kept a bronze cannon which had been captured from the natives. The touch-hole of this piece of ordnance was made in the shape of a phallic hand or “fig,” which I have described elsewhere. The barren Malay women were in the habit of seating themselves on this hand in order that they might become pregnant.[AC] An analogous custom was prevalent in France and elsewhere in Europe during the Middle Ages. This habit led to sexual abuses, and was finally condemned by the ecclesiastical authorities. Indeed, the Church inflicted severe penances on the women who were guilty of using phalli: “Mulier qualique molimine aut se ipsam aut cum altera fornicans tres annos poeniteat, unum ex his pane et aqua. Cum sanctimoniali per machinam fornicans, annos septem poeniteat, duos ex his in pane et aqua.”[85] We see by this that nuns were more severely punished than were other women.
This use of the phallus is mentioned in the Bible, where it is bitterly condemned by one of the prophets: “Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and madest to thyself images of men, and didst commit whoredom with them.”[86] Finally, it was the custom of the young girls of France during the Middle Ages (like the maidens of certain savage races), who were on the eve of marriage, to offer up to St. Foutin their last maiden robes. From the evidence here adduced, we see that phallic worship existed in some parts of Europe as late as the latter half of the eighteenth century, and that it was almost universal during the Middle Ages. According to Becan,[87] Golnitz,[88] and other historians, there were several other phallic saints besides St. Foutin who were worshiped in Belgium, Spain, Germany and other European countries; but, since their adoration was similar to that of St. Foutin, I do not think it necessary to give a description of it here. It has been shown conclusively that worship of the generative principle was in vogue among the Latins, the Greeks, the ancient Germans, the Saxons, the Danes, the Gauls, the Iberians, the Picts, the Celts and the Britons. It has been demonstrated, also, that vestiges of phallic worship existed in England, France, Italy, Spain and Germany during the Middle Ages. As late as the latter part of the eighteenth century wax images of the phallus were used as votive offerings in the town of Isernia, not many miles from Naples; the beribboned Maypole of our Mayday festival is but the flower decked phallus of the Roman matrons; charms against jettitura, “the evil eye,” little coral hands with the middle finger extended (in ancient days one of the most common symbols of Priapus) can still be purchased in the streets of Rome.[AD] “This worship” (that of Priapus) “which was but part of that of the generative powers, appears to have been the most ancient of the superstitions of the human race, and has prevailed more or less among all known peoples before the introduction of Christianity; and, singularly enough, so deeply it seems to have been implanted in human nature that even the promulgation of the gospel did not abolish it, for it continued to exist, accepted and often encouraged by the medieval clergy.”[89]