frequent, fathers and husbands had recourse, even in Europe, to a
mechanical contrivance for the purpose of preserving intact the honour
of the family. This was a kind of padlock, which shut up all access to
the seat of voluptuousness. The invention is attributed to one Francesco
di Carrera, an imperial judge of Padua, who lived about the close of the
15th century. The machine itself was called the _Girdle of Chastity_.
Francesco's acts of cruelty brought him to the scaffold, where he was
strangled in 1405, by a decree of the Senate of Venice. One of the
principal accusations brought against him was the employment of the
_Girdle of Chastity_, for his mistresses, and it is said by Misson[217]
that a box filled with these articles was for a long time preserved in
the palace of St. Mark, at Venice. Rabelais speaks of these girdles,
which he calls _Ceintures_ á la Bergamasque, "Nay," says he, Pantagruel,
"may that Nick in the dark cellar, who hath no white in his eye, carry
me quiet away with him, if, in that case, whenever I go abroad from the
palace of my domestic residence, I do not, with as much circumspection
as they use to ring mares in our country, to keep them from being
saillied by stoned horses, clap a Bergamesco lock upon my wife."
Brantome has the following notice of these chastity preservers. "Des
temps du roi Henri il yeut un certain Quinquallier qui apporte une
douzaine de certains engins à la foire de St. Germain pour brider le cas
des femmes. Ces sortes de cadenas estoient en usage à Venise dès devant
l'année 1522, estoient faites de fer et centuroient comme une ceinture,
et venoient à se prendre par le bas, et se fermer à clef, si subtilement
faites, qu'il n'estoit pas possible que la femme en estant bridée und
fois, s'en peust jamais prévaloir pour ce doux plaisir, n'ayant que
quelques petits trous menus pour servir à pisser."[218]
An endeavour was made to introduce these Bernasco padlocks into France
during the reign of Henry II., and a shop was opened by an Italian at
the fair of St. Germain, where they were publicly sold, and in such
numbers, that the French gallants, becoming alarmed, threatened to
throw the vendor into the Seine, if he did not pack up his merchandise
and decamp, which he immediately did for fear that the menace might be
put in execution.
Voltaire describes the Cadenas as originating with Pluto, who, jealous
of his wife Proserpine, was advised:
Qu'un cadenas, de la structure nouvelle
Fut le garant de sa fidélité,
A la vertu par la force asservie,
Plus ne sera l'amant favorisé.
En un moment, feux, enclumes, fourneaux
Sont préparés aux gouffres infernaux;
Tisiphone, de ces lieux, serrurière,
Au cadenas met la main, la première,
Elle l'achève et des mains de Pluton
Proserpine reçut ce triste don,
Or ce secret aux enfers inventé
Chez les humains tôt après fut porté
Et depuis ce temps dans Venise et dans Rome
Il n'est pédant, 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 damned assembly draws;
And straight, by order of the State,
Was registered on brass 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 hell 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 pricking 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 lust, 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 god 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 lust 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 constitution 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 semence, 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,
passages, 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, God 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 circumvallation, 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, assiduously 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 Ægisthus 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 sex 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 passion 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 destitute 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 pricks 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 ejaculate 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,
fashion, 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, pass 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 ætherial 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 goddess 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 assault 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 quantities,--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
assaulting 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 intituled, 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 Marseilles, 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 Thebaïde 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'Antiquités Egyptiennes_" by the Comte De
Caylus, who, speaking of the first of them, observes:
"Cette figure représente le plus terrible Phallus qu'on
ait vû, proportion gardée, sur aucun ouvrage. On
n'ignore point la vénération que les Egyptiens avaient
pour cet emblême, il est vrai; mais je doute que cette
nation sage et peu outrée dans sa conduite eût consacré
dans les premiers siécles, c'est a dire, avant le régne
des Ptolemées, 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 Sôtêr]. 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 à la Chine_, par M. Sonnerat, depuis 1774
jusqu'en 1781. Tom. I., p. 179.
[5] _Voyage aux Indes et à 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 entitled, 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, anchorè 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' assicurar la succession procura! etc.
[11] Genesis, chap. xxiv. v. 2, 3.
[12] Genesis, chap. xlvii. v. 29.
[13] Mémoires sur l'Egypte, publiés pendant les Campagne de
_Bonaparte_, Partie, 2, p. 193.
[14] The Latin text of the law is as follows:--"Si mulier
stuprata lege cum 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 Département du
Finisterre, Tom. iii., p. 233.
[15] Hunc locum tibi dedico consacroque, Priape,
Quæ domus tua, Lampsaei est, quaque silva, Priape.
Nam te præcipue in suis urbibus colit, ora
Hellespontia, cæteris 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 quæso, 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 superstitious 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] Worship of Priapus.
[28] _Ibid._, p 48.
[29] For some ingenious and learned observations on the Tau
or Crux Ansata see Classical Journal, No. 39, p. 182.
[30] Chap. ix., v. 3. "And the Lord said unto him: Go
through the midst of the city, through the midst of
Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the forehead of the men
that sigh and cry for the abominations that be done in
the midst thereof."
[31] For a description of some of the above-mentioned
Crosses, see Plate V., also "_Voyage dans la basse et
la haute-Egypte pendant les campagnes de Bonaparte_,
1802 et 1829," par Denon--Planches 48, 78.
[32] This city was the birth place of the deity Priapus,
whose orgies were there constantly celebrated.
Alexander the Great, in his Persian expedition,
resolved to destroy Lampsacus on account of its many
vices, or rather from a jealousy of its adherence to
Persia; but it was saved by the artifice of the
philosopher Anaxamenes, who, having heard that the king
had sworn to refuse whatever he should ask him, begged
him to destroy the city.
[33] Journal d'Henri III. par l'Etoile. Tom. 5.
[34] Historie Religieuse du Calendrier, p. 420.
[35] Johannis Goropii Becani, Origines Antwerpianæ, 1569,
lib. i., p.p. 26 and 101.
[36] The foreskins, still extant, of the Saviour, are
reckoned to be twelve in number. One was in the
possession of the monks of Coulombs; another at the
Abbey of Charroux; a third at Hildesheim, in Germany; a
fourth at Rome, in the Church of St. Jean-de-Latran; a
fifth at Antwerp; a sixth at Puy-en-Velay, in the
Church of Notre Dame, &c., &c. So much for relics!
[37] Dulaure, Singularités Historiques de l'Historie de
Paris, p. 77. Paris, 1825.
[38] Letter of Sir W. Hamilton prefixed to Payne Knight's
"Worship of Priapus."
For a representation of the ancient, _Ex voto_, in
silver, the size of the original see Plate VI., figure
1. It is copied from an additional plate inserted by M.
Panizzi, late librarian of the British Museum, in the
fly-leaf of Payne Knight's "_Worship of Phallus_."
[39] To these the canon law adds sorcery, ligature or
point-tying.
[40] Zachais, Quæst. medico. leg. lib. II., tit. I, quæst.
I.
[41] See _Lectures on Comparative Anatomy_ by Sir Everard
Home, Bart. Vol. III., p. 166. London 1823.
[42] Lib. I., Epigram. 91.
[43] Juvenal Sat. I., vv. 204, 105.
[44] Orlando Furioso, Can. I, stanz. 49, 60.
[45] Rapport, Tom. I., p. 335.
[46] Sir Charles Morgan, Philos. of Morals, p. 25.
[47] Nosographie philosophique.
[48] Medical Essays published by a society in Edinburgh,
vol. I., p. 270. Case reported by W. Cockburn, M.D.
[49] Rapport, tome II., p. 422.
[50] Essays, Book I., chap. xx. Cotton's translation.
[51] Hippocrates de Aer: aqua et loco, 210.
[52] Treatise on the Venereal Disease.
[53] Comment. de Aer: aqua et loco, 210.
[54] Voltaire, Pucelle d'Orléans, Chant. xii.
[55] Bigarrures du Seigneur des Accords.
[56] Herodotus Enterpe clxxxii.
[57] De Legibus, lib. ii.
[58] Ecologa viii.
[59] Amor., lib. iii., Eleg. 6.
[60] De Asino Aureo, lib. ii., v. 3.
[61] Tacitus Annal., lib. iv., 22.
[62] Lib. v., Sentent, tit. 23.
[63] De rebus gestis Francorum, lib. 4. cap. 94.
[64] Histoire des Français.
[65] Nominated to the Bishopric of Evreux by Henry IV. of
France. His favourite authors were Rabelais and
Montaigne.
[66] Demonologie, 1603, Book I., Chap. III., p. 12.
[67] "Hercules, puer, L. Virgines, una nocte, gravidus
reddit."--Cœlius, lib. 14, cap. 8.
[68] Traité premier de la dissolution de Mariage pour
l'impuissance et froideur de l'homme, ou de la Femme,
par Antoine Hotman, p. 63.
[69] Tableau de l'Amour considéré dans l'état du Mariage,
par II., chap. 2, art. 3.
[70] Art. Portugal. rem. F.
[71] Boileau Despréaux, Satires, Satire VIII.
[72] Willick's Lectures on Diet and Regimen, p. 538, et seq.
[73] From [Greek: mandra], relating to cattle, and [Greek:
agaron], baneful, injurious.
[74] Genesis, Chap. xxx., v. 14, 15, 16, 17. The last verse must
be considered as decisive of the efficacy of the mandrake.
[75] Solomon's Song, chap. vii. v. 13.
[76] See the word _Dudaïm_, in Dr. Kitto's Cyclopædia
of Biblical Literature. The learned doctor has given a
sketch of the plant Mandragora, a copy of which the
reader will find in plate VI.
[77] Onkelos was a celebrated rabbin contemporary with St.
Paul, and to whom the Targum, that is, a translation or
paraphrase of the Holy Scriptures, is attributed.
[78] Lib. IV., cap. 76.
[79] Quoted by Oct. Celsius in his "_Hierobotanicon_," Part
I., par. 5. art. _Dudaim_, from Epiphan: Physiolog. c. 4.
[80] Pliny's "Natural History," Vol. IV., p. 397 (Bohn's
Classical Library).
[81] Columella _De hortorum Cultu._, v. 19, 20.
[82] See a manuscript Interrogatory still preserved in the
"Bibliothèque Nationale," Fonds de Baluze, Rouleau 5.