[348]. Mirza preceding the name means Mister and following it Prince. Addison’s “Vision of Mirza,” (Spectator, No. 159) is therefore “The Vision of Mister.”
[349]. And women. The course of instruction lasts from a few days to a year and the period of puberty is fêted by magical rites and often by some form of mutilation. It is described by Waitz, Réclus and Schoolcraft, Péchuel-Loecksa, Collins, Dawson, Thomas, Brough Smyth, Reverends Bulmer and Taplin, Carlo Wilhelmi, Wood, A. W. Howitt, C. Z. Muhas (Mem. de la Soc. Anthrop. Allemande, 1882, p. 265) and by Professor Mantegazza (chapt. i.) for whom see infra.
[350]. Similarly certain Australian tribes act scenes of rape and pederasty saying to the young, If you do this you will be killed.
[351]. “Báh,” is the popular term for the amatory appetite: hence such works are called Kutub al-Báh, lit. = Books of Lust.
[352]. I can make nothing of this title nor can those whom I have consulted: my only explanation is that they may be fanciful names proper.
[353]. Amongst the Greeks we find erotic specialists (1) Aristides of the Libri Milesii; (2) Astyanassa the follower of Helen who wrote on androgenization; (3) Cyrene the artist of amatory Tabellæ or ex-votos offered to Priapus; (4) Elephantis the poetess who wrote on Varia concubitus genera; (5) Evemerus whose Sacra Historia, preserved in a fragment of Q. Eunius, was collected by Hieronymus Columna; (6) Hemitheon of the Sybaritic books; (7) Musæus the lyrist; (8) Niko the Samian girl; (9) Philænis, the poetess of Amatory Pleasures, in Athen. viii. 13, attributed to Polycrates the Sophist; (10) Protagorides, Amatory Conversations; (11) Sotades the Mantinæan who, says Suidas, wrote the poem “Cinædica”; (12) Sphodrias the Cynic, his Art of Love; and (13) Trepsicles, Amatory Pleasures. Amongst the Romans we have Aedituus, Annianus (in Ausonius), Anser, Bassus Eubius, Helvius Cinna, Lævius (of Io and the Erotopægnion), Memmius, Cicero (to Cerellia), Pliny the Younger, Sabellus (de modo coeundi); Sisenna, the pathic Poet and translator of Milesian Fables and Sulpitia the modest erotist. For these see the Dictionnaire Érotique of Blondeau pp. ix. and x. (Paris, Liseux, 1885).
[354]. It has been translated from the Sanscrit and annotated by A.F.F. and B.F.R. Reprint: Cosmopoli: mdccclxxxv: for the Kama Shastra Society, London and Benares, and for private circulation only. The first print has been exhausted and a reprint will presently appear.
[355]. The local press has often proposed to abate this nuisance of erotic publication which is most debasing to public morals already perverted enough. But the “Empire of Opinion” cares very little for such matters and, in the matter of the “native press,” generally seems to seek only a quiet life. In England if erotic literature were not forbidden by law, few would care to sell or to buy it, and only the legal pains and penalties keep up the phenomenally high prices.
[356]. The Spectator (No. 119) complains of an “infamous piece of good breeding,” because “men of the town, and particularly those who have been polished in France, make use of the most coarse and uncivilised words in our language and utter themselves often in such a manner as a clown would blush to hear.”
[357]. See the Novelle of Bandello the Bishop (Tome I; Paris, Liseux, 1879, small in 18), where the dying fisherman replies to his confessor “Oh! Oh! your reverence, to amuse myself with boys was natural to me as for man to eat and drink; yet you asked me if I sinned against nature!” Amongst the wiser ancients sinning contra naturam was not marrying and begetting children.