Even in our own days[[56]] the taste for the male Venus has not disappeared, witness the Persians, who are very much addicted to this kind of pleasure, as is related by those who have travelled in their country. Amongst others there is Adam Lhuilier, chapter 15, book V., of his Itinerary. If we may trust to Aloysia Sigaea, the Italians and Spaniards did it; also the Dutchmen, with whom towards the middle of the XVIIIth. Century, as J. David Michaëlides tells us in his Treatise on the Law of Moses (in Dutch), §258, this habit was so much in vogue, that the punishment of death was hardly of avail against it; also the Parisians, according to the Author of the Gynaeology (in German, vol. II., p. 427), a fully competent authority, who adds that in almost all the great cities of Europe there are to be found plenty of people who, either being satiated with the ordinary pleasure, or afraid of infectious diseases, prefer the posterior to the anterior Venus,—the English always excepted, who abominate this practice. Not to be for ever talking generalities and never giving definite instances, the cases of Gonzalvo of Cordova[[57]] and of Vendôme[[58]], both of them excellent Generals, have been made notorious enough by historical documents; to these we could add other still more illustrious examples, taken from our own time and made known by a heedless fame; that of a great author, of a great king, the father of his country, and of a man, who during his life gained general admiration by the penetration of his intellect, and the splendour of his language, and whose knowledge embraces all branches of knowledge, not only the ordinary ones, but the profoundest and most abstruse[[59]],—a man that might well propose the riddle of the Sphinx to his eminent confrère in whom we delight to admire the power of a truly Ciceronian eloquence, unknown in Germany since the death of the great Ernesti. These examples, I say, we could easily allege, were we not apprehensive of raising, quite contrary to our purpose and intention, a feeling of odium against the pious memory of most distinguished men.
Do you wish for any more? Pacificus Maximus offers a goodly number, both of the active and the passive parties. Elegy I., p. 107. of the Paris edition:
“The sole cause of my badness was my master,—the man my father and mother incautiously entrusted me to. He was the king of pedicons; not one escaped his lust, so artful and winning was he. Many a thing I learned, I had better have left unknown; much did I absorb through my rectum, much through my lips.”
Elegy II., to Ptolemy (p. 110):
“For you, ungrateful boy, I keep my treasures all, and no one shall enjoy them but yourself; my mentula is growing: while it used to measure seven inches, now it measures ten.”
Elegy IV., to Marcus (p. 113):
“You could not, Marcus, find a better, a more convenient, place, in which to meet me; not a spy is here nor witness, neither man nor woman can tell tales. Let’s do it under the willows in this verdant meadow; the drooping boughs will hide us with their foliage. The rivulet will lull us to sleep with its pleasant murmur, and the bird that warbles mid the boughs. Hither come, and glide into my lap, thou that art torment at once and remedy of my desires!”
Elegy XIV (p. 128):
“One day Etruscus brought to me a youth, so fair as is seldom seen at Jupiter’s board: “I give him up to you”, he said, “lay hold of him, that he may cling to you both day and night. May the gods grant you love him well; he will be wise if you but pedicate him.”
And I: “I like this liberty conceded to my passion; I shall always be obliged to you. Be sure this child, good as he is, will be better still in future; he will suck my wisdom in through many places.”