“You never, Ponticus, enter a woman, but use your left-hand whore, making your hand the mistress for your pleasure; think you this is nothing? Believe me, it’s a crime, yes! a crime, and worse than you can imagine. Old Horatius copulated once at any rate to beget his three sons; Mars once to get chaste Ilia with twins. Neither of them could have done it, if by masturbation they had procured by the use of their own hand pleasures so shameful. Believe me, that nature’s voice confirms it,—what escapes ’twixt your fingers, Ponticus, is a human being.”
To the same subject also Epigr., XI., 74 refers:
“Oftentimes, Lygdé, you swear you will grant my prayer, even appointing the place, even appointing the hour. Longtime I lay consumed with longing, till often my left hand comes to help in your stead.”
And this passage of the VIth. book of Ramusius, p. 62 of the Paris edition:
“What are you to do? Is your left hand safe and sound? Well use it, then you will not want a whore. Why pay for what your left hand gives you gratis?”
There were of course also people who used their right hand; the same Ramusius of Rimini, book IV., p. 61, tells us:
“I suffer, dear Donatus, from so frightful an erection, I am fearful for my member, if you do not help me. My right hand, being wounded, can do nothing; I have no money; Hylas is not here; no vulva opens for me—no chance of fornication, appease my desire, that I may live, and you can do it cheaply.”
Pacificus Maximus, Elegy XII., p. 126, Paris edition:
“What shall I do? I am so stiff—I’m bursting, and I could easily fill three or four large bottles. It is long since my member has known a vulva, long since it has stirred the entrails of a man. It is stiff day and night, and will never relax,—night and day it lifts its head. No youth, no girl will listen to my prayer, no help—my right hand must then do the service!”
We have seen just above, with what severity Martial reproached Ponticus, a masturbator, for losing between his fingers the substance of a man. Nevertheless this fine moralist did not hesitate to put his own hand to similar use under the pressure of erection, Epigr. 43, book II.: