Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction Part 10

Qu'un cadenas, de la structure nouvelle Fut le garant de sa fidelite, A la vertu par la force a.s.servie, Plus ne sera l'amant favorise.

En un moment, feux, enclumes, fourneaux Sont prepares aux gouffres infernaux; Tisiphone, de ces lieux, serruriere, Au cadenas met la main, la premiere, Elle l'acheve et des mains de Pluton Proserpine recut ce triste don, Or ce secret aux enfers invente Chez les humains tot apres fut porte Et depuis ce temps dans Venise et dans Rome Il n'est pedant, bourgeois, ou gentilhomme Qui pour garder l'honneur de sa maison De cadenas n'ait sa provision.[219]

This sage advice, a loud applause From all the d.a.m.ned a.s.sembly draws; And straight, by order of the State, Was registered on bra.s.s by fate; That moment, in the shades below, They anvils beat and bellows blow.

Tisiphoned, the blacksmith's trade Well understood; the locks she made: Proserpina, from Pluto's hand Receiving, wore it by command.

This lock, which h.e.l.l could frame alone, Soon to the human race was known; In Venice, Rome, and all about it, No gentlemen or cit's without it.[220]

We shall close this our third essay with the amusing summary of anti-aphrodisiacal remedies, as given by Rabelais.

"You say," said the physician Rondibilis to Panurge, "that you feel in you the p.r.i.c.king stings of sensuality, by which you are stirred up to venery. I find in our faculty of medicine, and we have founded our opinion therein upon the deliberate resolution and final decision of the ancient Platonics, that carnal concupiscence is cooled and quelled five several ways:--

"_Firstly_. By the means of wine. I shall easily believe that quoth Friar John, for when I am well whittled with the juice of the grape, I care for nothing else, so I may sleep.

When I say, quoth Rondibilis, that wine abateth l.u.s.t, my meaning is, wine immoderately taken; for by intemperance, proceeding from the excessive drinking of strong liquor, there is brought upon the body of such a swill-down bouser, a chillness in the blood, a slackening in the sinews, a dissipation of the generative seed, a numbness and hebetation of the senses, with a perversive wryness and convulsion of the muscles, all which are great lets and impediments to the act of generation. Hence it is that Bacchus, the G.o.d of bibbers, tipplers, and drunkards, is most commonly painted beardless and clad in a woman's habit, as a person altogether effeminate, or like a libbed eunuch.

Wine, nevertheless, taken moderately worketh quite contrary effects, as is implied by the old proverb, which saith,--That Venus taketh cold, when not accompanied by Ceres and Bacchus.[221] This opinion is of great antiquity as appeareth by the testimony of Diodorus the Sicilian, and confirmed by Pausanias, and it is usually held among the Lampsacians, that Don Priapus was the son of Bacchus and Venus.

"_Secondly_. The fervency of l.u.s.t is abated by certain drugs, plants herbs and roots, which make the taker cold, maleficiated, unfit for, and unable to perform the act of generation; as hath often been experimented by the water-lily, Heraclea, Agnus-Castus, willow-twigs, hemp-stalks, woodbine, honeysuckle, tamarisk, chastetree, mandrake, bennet keebugloss, the skin of a hippopotamus, and many other such, which, by convenient doses proportioned to the peccant humour and const.i.tution of the patient, being duly and seasonably received within the body--what by their elementary virtues on the one side, and peculiar properties on the other, do either benumb, mortify and beclumpse with cold, the prolific s.e.m.e.nce, or scatter and disperse the spirits which ought to have gone along with, and conducted the sperm to the places destined and appointed for its reception,--or lastly, shut up, stop and obstruct the way, pa.s.sages, and conduits, through which the seed should have expelled, evacuated, and ejected. We have, nevertheless, of those ingredients, which, being of a contrary operation, heat the blood, bind the nerves, unite the spirits, quicken the senses, strengthen the muscles, and thereby rouse up, provoke, excite and enable a man to the vigorous accomplishment of the feat of amorous dalliance. I have no need of those, quoth Panurge, G.o.d be thanked and you, my good master. Howsoever, I pray you, take no exception or offence at these my words; for what I have said was not out of any ill-will I did hear to you, the Lord, he knows.

"_Thirdly_. The ardour of lechery is very much subdued and mated by frequent labour and continual toiling. For by painful exercises and laborous working so great a dissolution is brought upon the whole body, that the blood which runneth alongst the channels of the vein thereof for the nourishment and alimentation of each of its members, had neither time, leisure, nor power to afford the seminal resudation or superfluity of the third concoction, which nature most carefully reserves for the conservation of the individual, whose preservation she more heedfully regardeth than the propagation of the species and the multiplication of human kind. Whence it is that Diana is said to be chaste, because she is never idle, but always busied about hunting.

For the same reason was a camp, or leaguer of old called--Castrum,[222] as if they would have said--Castum; because the soldiers, wrestlers, runners, throwers of the bar, and other such like athletic champions, as are usually seen in a military circ.u.mvallation, do incessantly travail and turmoil, and are in a perpetual stir and agitation. To this purpose, also, Hippocrates writeth in his book, _De Aere, Aqua et Locis_:--That in his time there were people in Scythia as impotent as eunuchs in the discharge of a venerean exploit; because that, without any cessation, pause or respite, they were never from off horseback, or otherwise, a.s.siduously employed in some troublesome and molesting drudgery.

"On the other part, in opposition and repugnancy hereto, the philosophers say, that idleness is the mother of luxury.

When it was asked Ovid, why aegisthus became an adulterer? he made no other answer than this, Because he was idle.[223]

Who were able to rid the world of loitering and idleness might easily disappoint Cupid[224] of all his designes, aims, engines and devices and so disable and appal him, that his bow, quiver, and darts should from thenceforth be a mere needless load and burthen to him; for that it could not then lie in his power to strike or wound any of either s.e.x with all the arms he had. He is not, I believe so expert an archer as that he can hit the cranes flying in the air, or yet the young stags skipping through the thicket, as the Parthians knew well how to do; that is to say, people moiling, stirring, and hurrying up and down, restless and without repose. He must have those hushed, still, quiet, lying at a stay, lither and full of ease, whom he is able to pierce with all his arrows. In conformation thereof, Theophrastus being asked on a time, What kind of beast or thing he judged a toyish, wanton love to be? he made answer, That it was a pa.s.sion of idle and sluggish spirits.[224]

From which pretty description of tickling-tricks, that of Diogenes, the Cynic, was not very discrepant when he defined lechery--The occupation of folk dest.i.tute of all other occupation. For this cause the Sicyonian sculptor Canachus,[225] being desirous to give us to understand that slowth drowsiness, negligence, and laziness, were the prime guardians and governesses of ribaldry, made the statue of Venus, not standing, as other stone-cutters had used to do, but sitting.

"_Fourthly_. The tickling p.r.i.c.ks of incontinency are blunted by an eager study; for from thence proceedeth an incredible resolution of the spirits, that oftentimes there do not remain so many behind as may suffice to push and thrust forwards the generative resudation to the places thereto appropriated, and therewithal inflate the cavernous nerve, whose office is to e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e the moisture for the propagation of human progeny. Lest you should think it is not so, be pleased but to contemplate a little the form, fas.h.i.+on, and carriage of a man exceeding earnestly set upon some learned meditation and deeply plunged therein, and you shall see how all the arteries of his brains are stretched forth, and bent like the string of a cross-bow, the more promptly, dexterously and copiously to suppeditate, furnish and supply him with store of spirits, sufficient to replenish and fill up the ventricles, seats, tunnels, mansions, receptacles and cellules of common sense--of the imagination apprehension, and fancy--of the ratiocination, arguing, and resolution--as likewise, of the memory, recordation, and remembrance; and with great alacrity, nimbleness, and agility, to run, pa.s.s and course from one to the other, through those pipes, windings, and conduits, which to skilful anatomists are perceivable at the end of the wonderful net, where all the arteries close in a terminating point; which arteries taking their rise and origin from the left capsule of the heart, bring, through several circuits, ambages, and anfractuosities, the vital spirits, to subtilize and refine them in the aetherial purity of animal spirits. Nay, in such a studiously meditating, musing person, you may espy so extravagant raptures of one, as it were out of himself, that all his natural faculties for that time will seem to lie suspended from each their proper charge and office, and his exterior senses to be at a stand. In a word, you cannot choose than think, that he is by an extraordinary ecstasy quite transported out of what he was or should be; and that Socrates did not speak improperly when he said, That philosophy was nothing else but a meditation upon death. This possibly is the reason why Democritus[226] deprived himself of the sense of seeing, prizing, at a much lower rate, the loss of his sight, than the diminution of his contemplation which he had frequently found disturbed by the vagrant flying-out strayings of his unsettled and roving eyes.[227] Therefore is it that Pallas, the G.o.ddess of wisdom, tutoress and guardianess of such as are diligently studious and painfully industrious, is and hath been still accounted a virgin. The Muses upon the same consideration are esteemed perpetual maids: and the Graces, for the same reason, have been held to continue in a sempiternal pudicity.

"I remember to have read that Cupid,[227] on a time, being asked by his mother Venus, why he did not a.s.sault and set upon the Muses, his answer was, that he found them so fair, so neat, so wise, so learned, so modest, so discreet, so courteous, so virtuous, and so continually busied and employed,--one in the speculation of the stars,--another in the supputation of numbers,--the third in the dimension of geometrical quant.i.ties,--the fourth in the composition of heroic poems,--the fifth in the jovial interludes of a comic strain,--the sixth in the stately gravity of the tragic vein,--the seventh in the melodious disposition of musical airs,--the eighth in the completest manner of writing histories and books on all sorts of subjects, and--the ninth in the mysteries, secrets, and curiosities of all sciences, faculties, disciplines and arts whatsoever, whether liberal or mechanic,--that approaching near unto them he unbent his bow, shut his quiver, and extinguished his torch, through mere shame and fear that by mischance he might do them any hurt or prejudice. Which done, he thereafter put off the fillet wherewith his eyes were bound, to look them in the face, and to hear their melody and poetic odes. There took he the greatest pleasure in the world, that many times he was transported with their beauty and pretty behaviour, and charmed asleep by their harmony, so far was he from a.s.saulting them or interrupting their studies. Under this article may be comprised what Hippocrates wrote in the afore-cited treatise concerning the Scythians, as also that in a book of his int.i.tuled, Of Breeding and Production, where he hath affirmed all such men to be unfit for generation as have their parotid arteries cut--whose situation is behind the ears--for the reason given already, when I was speaking of the resolution of the spirits, and of that spiritual blood, whereof the arteries are the sole and proper receptacles; and that likewise he doth maintain a large portion of the parastatic liquor to issue and descend from the brains and backbone.

"_Fifthly_. By the too frequent reiteration of the act of venery. There did I wait for you, quoth Panurge, and shall willingly apply it to myself, whilst any one that pleaseth may, for me, make use of any of the four preceding. That is the very same thing, quoth Friar John, which Father Scyllion,[228] Prior of St. Victor, at Ma.r.s.eilles, calleth maceration and taming of the flesh. I am of the same opinion, and so was the hermit of Saint Radegonde, a little above Chinon; for, quoth he, the hermits of Thebade can no way more aptly or expediently macerate and bring down the pride of their bodies, daunt and mortify their lecherous sensuality, or depress and overcome the stubbornness and rebellion of the flesh, than by dufling and fanfreluching five and twenty or thirty times a day."

FOOTNOTES

[1] For a representation of the Egyptian "Phallus" see Plate I., figures 1, 2, and 3. These are taken from the "_Recueil d'Antiquites Egyptiennes_" by the Comte De Caylus, who, speaking of the first of them, observes: "Cette figure represente le plus terrible Phallus qu'on ait vu, proportion gardee, sur aucun ouvrage. On n'ignore point la veneration que les Egyptiens avaient pour cet embleme, il est vrai; mais je doute que cette nation sage et peu outree dans sa conduite eut consacre dans les premiers siecles, c'est a dire, avant le regne des Ptolemees, une pareille figure."

[2] Historia de los Incas. Cap. VI.

[3] In the church of St. Peter's at Rome, is kept, _en secret_, a large stone emblem of the creative power, of a very peculiar shape, on which are engraved [Greek: Zeus Soter]. Only persons who have great interest can get a sight of it. Is it from this stone having some peculiar virtue that those _preux chevaliers_, the cardinals, keep it so closely? Perhaps they choose to monopolize the use of it? I never saw it, but I know that it was at St Peter's.--HIGGINS.

[4] See Plate II., figure 1. This figure of the Lingham presents a kind of Trinity, the vase represents Vishnu, from the middle of which rises a column rounded at the top representing Siva, and the whole rests upon a pedestal typifying Brahma. From the _Voyage aux Indes Orientales et a la Chine_, par M. Sonnerat, depuis 1774 jusqu'en 1781. Tom. I., p. 179.

[5] _Voyage aux Indes et a la Chine_, par Sonnerat, depuis 1774 jusqu'en 1781; Tom. I. liv. 2.

[6] See plate III., figures 1, 2, 3, and 4.

[7] Henry O'Brien, Round Towers of Ireland. London, 1834.

Chapter viii.

[8] See Plate IV., figure 1.

[9] Samuel II., chap. vi., v. 20, 21, 22, 23.

[10] The indispensable and inseparable appendages to the male organ have thus been eulogized by Giov. Francesco Lazzarelli in his poem ent.i.tled, La Cicceide, p. 120.

LE PREROGATIVI DE'TESTICOLI.

Gran sostegni dei mondo, almi C ......

Del celeste Fattor, opre ingegnose; Da caricare i piccoli cannoni, Ond' armata va l'uom, Palle focose: Robusti, anch.o.r.e teneri Palloni, Con cui guiocan tra lor, mariti e spose; Del corpo uman spermatici Embrioni; De' venerei piacer fonti amorose; Magazzini vitali, ove Natura L'uman seme riposto, a' figli suoi D' a.s.sicurar la succession procura! etc.

[11] Genesis, chap. xxiv. v. 2, 3.

[12] Genesis, chap. xlvii. v. 29.

[13] Memoires sur l'Egypte, publies pendant les Campagne de _Bonaparte_, Partie, 2, p. 193.

[14] The Latin text of the law is as follows:--"Si mulier stuprata lege c.u.m illo agere velit, membro virili _sinistra prehenso et dextra reliquos sanctorum imposita, juret, super illas quod is per vim se, isto membro, vitiaverit_."--Voyage dans le Departement du Finisterre, Tom. iii., p. 233.

[15] Hunc loc.u.m tibi dedico consacroque, Priape, Quae domus tua, Lampsaei est, quaque silva, Priape.

Nam te praecipue in suis urbibus colit, ora h.e.l.lespontia, caeteris ostreosior oris.--Catullus, Carm. xviii.

[16] See Plate II., figure 2.

[17] From possessing such an article of VIRTU, his Eminence must surely have been of the opinion of Cardinal Bembo--_that there is no sin below the navel_.

[18] Falce minax et parte tui majore, Priape, Ad fontem quaeso, dic mihi, qua sit iter.--Priapeia Carm.

[19] See note [21], p. 11.

[20] See S. Augustine, Civ. Dei., lib. 6, cap. 9, and Lactantius _De falsa religione_. lib. I.

[21] See Plate I., figure 4. This phallus was found at Pompeii over a baker's door.

[22] Thus his statue was placed in orchards as a scare-crow to drive away superst.i.tious thieves, as well as children and birds.

Pomarii tutela, diligens _rubro_ Priape, furibus minare mutino.--Priapeia Carm. 73.

[23] Ind. Antiq. ii., p, 361.

[24] Ind. Antiq., vol. I., p. 247.

[25] Voyage dans la Chine par Avril, Liv. iii., p. 194.

[26] Higgins, Anacalypsis, vol. i., p. 269.

[27] Wors.h.i.+p of Priapus.