VARIETIES AND OCCASIONS OF POTIONS
Alciphron, an Athenian writer who flourished during the second century
A.D., composed a number of light, unpretentious letters dealing with
simple daily occupations and subjects and characters of everyday life:
farmers, courtesans, barbers, fishermen, parasites.
They deal with all sorts of intimate and personal matters, and are a
marvelous reflection of the lower strata of antiquity. In one of these
letters the girl Myrrhina writes to her friend Nikippe. Myrrhina
complains that her lover Diphilus has abandoned her. He has been on a
drinking spree for four days. To make matters worse, he has fallen for
the jade Thessala.
Hence Myrrhina pleads with Nikippe to aid her in her perplexity.
Nikippe, it appears, has a love-potion, that she has often used
successfully on young but hesitant lovers. That is what Myrrhina now
wants. It will banish Diphilus’ interest in drink and rid him of his
infatuation with Thessala.
Myrrhina is going to write an endearing, enticing letter to Diphilus.
When, as a result, he comes to visit her, she will use the love-potion
on him. She admits, however, that these love philtres are uncertain in
their effects. Sometimes, she adds, they cause sudden death. But what
does Myrrhina care? Diphilus must either live for Myrrhina or die for
his Thessala.
* * * * *
Gestures and action, lascivious and lewd in intent, may be virtual
potions in their immediate provocations. So Ovid, the arch-counsellor in
amatory diversions, suggests in Book 3 of the _Amores_. Archness
assumed, prudery, coyness, and an air of hesitation in acquiescence will
prove all the greater stimulants:
Be more advised, walk as a puritan,
And I shall think you chaste, do what you can.
Slip still, only deny it when ’tis done,
And, before folk, immodest speeches shun.
The bed is for lascivious toyings meet,
There use all tricks, and tread shame under feet.
When you are up and dressed, be sage and grave,
And in the bed hide all the faults you have.
Be not ashamed to strip you, being there,
And mingle thighs, yours ever mine to bear.
There in your rosy lips my tongue entomb,
Practice a thousand sports when there you come.
Forbear no wanton words you there would speak,
And with your pastime let the bedstead creak;
But with your robes put on an honest face,
And blush, and seem as you were full of grace.
Deceive all; let me err; and think I’m right,
And like a wittol think thee void of slight.
Why see I lines so oft received and given?
This bed and that by tumbling made uneven?
Like one start up your hair tost and displaced,
And with a wantons tooth your neck new-rased.
Grant this, that what you do I may not see;
If you weigh not ill speeches, yet weigh me.
* * * * *
The erotic power, the essential property that possessed the virtue of
enflaming desire and exciting sensual emotions, was believed, anciently
and in later ages, to reside in growing things, in the produce of the
earth, in the teeming abundance of the ocean, in metals, in essences,
and in intricate and cunningly contrived combinations, mixtures, and
amalgams of such matter.
The common onion, that normally was a part of a simple daily meal,
acquired, among the Greeks, amatory virtues. The onion, in fact, rose
from its lowly status as a gastronomic item to a mystically-endowed
root, that could inspire and direct erotic sensations. Alexis, a writer
of comedies who flourished in the third century B.C., dwells on its
highly effective nature.
Another Greek comic writer, Diphilus, of the third century B.C.,
likewise says of onions: They are hard to digest, though nourishing and
strengthening to the stomach. They are cleansing also, but they have a
weakening effect on the sight. In addition, they stimulate sexual
desire.
The pungency of pepper is relished gastronomically. But pepper had
another use apart from its function as a condiment. It was pounded, then
mixed with nettle-seed, and in this form it was regularly taken by the
Greeks as a means of promoting intercourse.
Wine has for ages been lauded poetically and convivially, and a vintage
meant, as a rule, a matter for gastronomic appreciation. But old wine,
with the addition of ground pyrethron—which is botanically feverfew or
pellitory, was known to the Hellenic people as a particularly powerful
erotic potion.
Such draughts, however, had then more sinister applications as well, and
not infrequently they were considered injurious physiologically. This
was, in fact, the considered view of the Roman poet Ovid, of the first
century B.C. In contrast to such a potion, he asserts, there are quite
innocuous aphrodisiac stimulants, among them: eggs, wild cabbage,
stone-pine apples, and honey.
To discover a plant that, unexpectedly and arousingly, ‘kindles the
flame of love,’ must have been a revelation to the ancient Greeks. Such
a plant was pyrethron, so named because it was such an inflammatory
stimulant.
It was also known as pyrethrum parthenium, and was largely used for
medicinal purposes.
In modern terminology, this plant is identified with pellitory.
In Arab countries pyrethrum was pounded and mixed with lilac ointment
and ginger: and the resultant compound served to produce erotic
stimulation in the genital area.
* * * * *
In his determined search for amatory satisfactions, man has probed
deeply into the material world and also into conceptual zones. Thus
erotic stimulation may be produced by an inspired dream. This is the
situation in a comedy by the Greek poet Aristophanes, who flourished in
the fifth century B.C. The play has survived in fragments only, but may
be pieced together into some degree of cohesion, the theme being the
problem of an old man who has a young wife. The aged husband makes a
pilgrimage to the oracle of Amphiaraus. As a result of his visit, the
solution of the marital perplexity is revealed in a dream, and the
virility of the elder is restored. In the scattered fragments, there is
a suggestion of the means adopted by the husband. It took the form of a
dish of lentils.
* * * * *
A visual spectacle may virtually act as a potion. This is the view of a
physician named Theodorus Priscianus. He flourished in the fourth
century A.D., and was the author of a medical handbook, still extant, in
which he gives realistic advice for a cure of incapacity. Let the
patient, he counsels, in Book 2, be surrounded by beautiful girls or
boys. Also, give him books to read that arouse lust and in which love
stories are insinuatingly treated.
Virtually, such treatment approximates a visual love-potion.
* * * * *
Physical therapy may be as affective as a potion. Hence local massage,
in the inguinal area, was often performed as an aid in inducing
virility. This was a highly popular manipulation. It is alluded to in
ancient writers, and particularly so in the Greek comic poet
Aristophanes. Petronius, too, the author of the Latin novel entitled the
_Satyricon_, describes such an operation performed by an old beldam on
one of the characters, named Encolpius.
* * * * *
Blood has sinister and calamitous implications: yet it is also
associated with erotic deviations. Blood, the mere visual presentation
of it, may produce strong amatory symptoms. The public brothels in
ancient Rome, for instance, were established over the Circus in which
gladiatorial contests were on view. The sight of the violent scenes
enacted in these conflicts manifestly bestirred the blood lust, and
equally the sexual urge of the masses of spectators, who subsequently
thronged the lupanaria. Similarly, in Spain, brothels were built in
close proximity to the bull-rings. There was, here too, a manifest
association between the frenzy of the tauromachia and the resultant
lustful esurgence among the spectators.
Again, the perversion of flagellation involves blood. The resultant flow
of blood, after whippings and lashings had been inflicted upon more or
less willing victims by perverts and sadists, produced extraordinary
erotic excitations. Scenes of this type are the stock in trade of the
novelists the Marquis de Sade and Sacher-Masoch.
* * * * *
Describing an amorous intrigue with the maid Fotis, Lucius, the
protagonist of the _Metamorphoses_, Apuleius’ Roman novel, adds, in
respect of the effect of wine;
We would eftsoones refresh our wearinesse and provoke our
pleasure, and renew our venery by drinking of wine.
* * * * *
The primary, uncomplicated fact of life is its continuity through
physiological relationships. But on this basis man has erected and
developed ponderous and multiple ramifications of such functional
associations, involving more than the primary purpose and activity of
procreation. He has, in addition, an instinctual urge toward affection,
love, desire, and lust. And these emotional manifestations have, in the
course of time, become refined or coarsened or diverted into abnormal
channels. In his efforts to achieve love or desire or lust and its
consummations, he has exposed himself to the natural progressive
degradation and impairment of his physiological capacities: and he has
no less abused, weakened, or destroyed this force or energy.
Hence his febrile search for some undefined amelioration of his
condition or some method or contrivance, however insecure, unwarranted,
or barbaric, for recovering his instinctual erotic sensuality.
Gullibly and trustingly man has proceeded in this quest to restore the
erosions and defects consequent on time and excess. What direction does
this quest take? It is ubiquitous. It leaves no stone unturned, no faint
possibility untested. It is prepared to make a trial of every novel
fantasy, or any inspired scheme, any exploded myth, or every remote and
fragile clue. In temples dedicated for the purpose he will repeat
cryptic supplications to unknown, foreign, forbidding gods. Or he
assumes on his person, in constant hope, periapts and amulets, inscribed
with awesome symbols, gateways to the Mysteries. There arise occasions
when he urgently consults aged and knowledgeable enchantresses, who
reputedly possess the secrets of life and love. Or he is encouraged to
drink certain fertilizing waters, drawn from mystic founts, from
underground rivers. He may make silent prayers at wishing wells. Appeals
to the deities associated with love or frantic lust, with prostitution
and sexual deviations are his constant practices, in all countries, in
Boeotia as well as in Bactria, in Egypt no less than in Mesopotamia.
Erotic stimuli sometimes sprang from the human figure itself, without
the intrusion of contrived philtres or other adventitious aids. The
Greeks, in particular, in drama and comedy, in poetry and sculpture,
lavished endless praise on the seductiveness of various areas of the
feminine person. The callipygian Greek girl was the subject of exultant
erotic paeans. Contests were held in which callipygian rivals vied for
public recognition and acclamation. There was no sense of shamefulness,
no prudish primness, and, equally, there was no stimulated prurience,
for beauty per se had no restrictions, no taboos, no amorality attached
to it.
The theme of callipygia, in fact, runs through Greek life. The
encyclopedist Athenaeus mentions two young country girls whose
attractions in marriage rested with their callipygian forms. The
citizens actually called these women _callipygoi_. Even Aphrodite, in
her temple at Syracuse, was called Aphrodite Kallipygos. In one of the
lively, revealing letters of Alciphron, two girls, Myrrhine and
Thryallis, dispute over their own personal charms in this respect, while
a number of poems, including one in the Greek anthology, laud the same
area.
Sculptors and poets dwelt with an appreciative eye, free from personal
lustfulness, on the rhythmic flow and alluring harmony of hip and thigh,
of neck and ankles. The female breasts were figuratively described as
apples, or the fruit of the strawberry tree. In the pastoral poet
Theocritus, who belongs in the third century B.C. a young lover,
Daphnis, speaks of the heaving apples of his girl friend.
There is the story of the famous Athenian courtesan Phryne, who was
condemned to death in a court of law. Her life was saved, however, when
her counsel, who was also her lover, Hyperides, exposed her beautiful
bosom before the overwhelmed judges.
The term potion was in itself so closely associated with amatory
proficiency or, on occasion, as a medicinal remedy for some other
physiological condition, that its use was rarely questioned. The potion,
however, might be deadly and might be concocted as a rapid means for the
elimination of a rival, or a husband, or some enemy. Such a situation
occurs in Book 10 of Apuleius’ _Metamorphoses_:
The woman having lost the name of wife together with her faith,
went to a traiterous Physitian, who had killed a great many
persons in his dayes, and promised him fifty peeces of Gold, if
he would give her a present poyson to kill her Husband out of
hand, but in presence of her husband, she feined that it was
necessary for him to receive a certaine kind of drink, which the
Maisters and Doctours of Physicke doe call a sacred potion, to
the intent he might purge Choller and scoure the interiour parts
of his body. But the Physitian in stead of that drinke prepared
a mortall and deadly poyson, and when he had tempered it
accordingly, he tooke the pot in the presence of the family, and
other neighbors and friends of the sick young man, and offered
it to his patient.
* * * * *
To further the efficacy of potions, and also to act as indirect yet
acknowledged reinforcements, aischrological and scatological allusions
and references were frequent accompaniments of the actual act of
imbibing the philtre.
* * * * *
Omar Khayyam, the wise old tentmaker, eulogized, in the Rubaiyat, food
and love and wine in the memorable lines:
A loaf of bread,
A jug of wine
And thou, beneath the bough,
Were paradise enow.
The medieval Latin songs of the Goliards, the wandering students of the
European universities, are full of paeans to drink and its amatory
effects. Love and wine are inextricably mixed together in riotous and
rollicking friendship. Everyone, exclaims one chant, is drinking: man
and maid, master and serf, the sick and the healthy, young and old:
Bibit hera, bibit herus,
Bibit miles, bibit clerus,
Bibit ille, bibit illa,
Bibit servus cum ancilla,
Bibit velox, bibit piger,
Bibit albus, bibit niger,
Bibit constans, bibit vagus,
Bibit rudis, bibit magus,
Bibit pauper et aegrotus,
Bibit exsul et ignotus,
Bibit puer, bibit canus,
Bibit praesul, et decanus,
Bibit soror, bibit frater,
Bibit anus, bibit mater,
Bibit ista, bibit ille,
Bibunt centum, bibunt mille.
The intimate association between wine and love, as if by a chain of
causality, has been established since proto-historical times. All
ancient records, chronicles, supplications, ceremonials abundantly
exemplify this thematic synthesis. Especially so in poetry, of all
nations, and at all times.
Drink to me only with thine eyes
and I will pledge with mine
is merely a transposed symbolic formula for the same theme.
* * * * *
All kinds of foods have in the course of history been subjected to
scrutiny and experiment for the purpose of extracting therefrom any
indications of amatory incitements. Thus, out of the welter of magic
undercurrents and legendary beliefs, superstitious rites and alchemical
offerings, there arose a body of miscellaneous knowledge, largely orally
transmitted but in time consolidated into a permanently durable form,
dealing with periapts and panaceas that would bring back or conserve
manly vigor and genesiac capacities.
Among such potential means were anchovies, credited with provoking lust,
onion soup and herring roe, milk pudding. Angel water also was so
considered. It was shaken together with rose water, myrtle water, orange
flower water, distilled spirit of musk, and spirit of ambergris. To the
genitalia of the stag were attributed amatory qualities. Rockets, cakes
and pastries of phallic and genital design, chocolate and ices, pills
compounded of vegetable extracts, burgundy and richly garnished game
came under the same energizing category.
* * * * *
In South East Asia, particularly in what was formerly Cambodia, annual
spring festivals were held during which a gigantic lingam was carried
processionally through the streets. At the ghats in the holy cities of
India, notably at Benares, the sacred lingam was displayed publicly by
the Brahmin priests. Around these symbols clustered Hindu women on
pilgrimage, wreathing the phallic shape in flowers, smearing it with
ghee. And among the throngs strode the priests, bearing phallic forms
for the adoration and prostration of the people. Temple girls, bedecked
with tinkling anklets, and with beringed fingers, advanced, swaying and
writhing voluptuously. In similar ceremonies there was food to be
consumed, and drink flowed; followed, on the part of the initiates, by a
general indiscriminate promiscuity that was intended to represent
spiritual identification with the Hindu deities. The erotic urgencies
never rested, never rest: and the act becomes a sublimation.
* * * * *
The phallic cult, as the basic recognition of the creative potency, is
pervasively manifest, in every continent, throughout all distinctions of
society. In New Guinea, huts are adorned with a phallus. In the South
Sea Islands huge monolithic columns testify to the indigenous worship of
the generative force. In some areas of Arabia tombs are adorned with the
phallus and are treated with sacrosanct adoration by the women. The
Druses, in ceremonial chants at night, pay honor and homage to the yoni,
and particularly to the consummation on the sacred Friday, as enjoined
by Islam. In Tahiti, secret rites are held, in a corresponding sense, in
honor of the physiological act.
Greece had its processional mystai, male and female votaries of Bacchus,
leading asses or goats, while young maids carried baskets of
first-fruits and genital-shaped cakes. And a sequence of men, their
heads wreathed in ivy or acanthus, bore a fig-wood triple phallus of the
god.
From Phrygia the cult had anciently spread to Etruria, where the obscene
deity, according to Augustine and Arnobius, was the phallic Mutunus with
his consort Mutuna.
From Etruria the cult extended riotously to Rome and its far-flung
frontiers, from Lambaesis to Dacia, from Bithynia to Pannonia.