Although a disreputable, rustic minor divinity, Priapus in the first-century GC poem collection Songs of Priapus {Carmina Priapea} provides a recondite literary critique of gender. Poets exemplifying both Callimachean and Neoteric aesthetics, known for their sophistication, appreciated Priapus’s seminal potential. The extraordinary prominence of Priapus’s penis and its purported instrumental use contrasts with a man as a fully human being with intrinsic value. The third-century BGC Alexandrian poet Herodas in his Mimiambs depicted women craving dildos and sexually objectifying men. The Carmina Priapea associates such crudeness with its own crudeness and contrasts it with tasteful, wise women sympathetically engaging in sexual intercourse with men.
Carmina Priapea begins with a humble authorial voice that associates the shamelessness of its verse with the shamelessness of Priapus’s penis. The eminent Roman orator Cicero in his handbook for orators advised that we win goodwill “if we use prayers and entreaties with a humble and submissive spirit {si prece et obsecratione humili ac supplici utemur}.” The highly cultured Roman historian Tacitus thus claimed to have an “unpolished and crude voice {inconditus ac rudis vox}.”[1] Carmina Priapea adheres to that elite practice of self-deprecation in its first poem:
My unpolished verses’ impudent jests you are about to read.
Put down that raised eyebrow fitting for the old Latin world.
The sister of Phoebus doesn’t inhabit this shrine, nor Vesta,
nor the goddess who was born from her father’s head,
but a ruddy guardian of gardens, with a larger penis than is equitable,
and who has a groin covered by no clothing.
Therefore either extend a tunic over the part that should be hidden,
or using the eyes with which you gaze on that, read this.{ Carminis incompti lusus lecture procaces,
conveniens Latio pone supercilium.
non soror hoc habitat Phoebi, non Vesta sacello,
nec quae de patrio vertice nata dea est,
sed ruber hortorum custos, membrosior aequo,
qui tectum nullis vestibus inguen habet.
aut igitur tunicam parti praetende tegendae,
aut quibus hanc oculis aspicis, ista lege. }[2]
This poem figures Carmina Priapea as a shrine of Priapus with his large, uncovered penis. Gazing on Priapus’s penis represents men being sexually objectified. Despite intense concern about the male gaze, almost no one has sought to end the sexual objectification of men. Carmina Priapea directs that oppressive, sexually objectifying gaze to its subversive poems.
Statues of Priapus sexually objectify him by depicted him with an uncovered, large, and fully erect penis. Priapus is distinctively identified with that penis. Moreover, since the statue is solitary, his erect penis has no relation to any specific person. A poem in the Carmina Priapea represents such sexual objectification:
When a sacred festival was held for the salacious god,
a young woman offered herself for a small price,
one sufficiently low to be available to all.
Just as many men as she went through in a single night,
that many willow-wood erect dicks she dedicated to you.{ Cum sacrum fieret deo salaci,
conducta est pretio puella parvo
communis satis omnibus futura:
quae quot nocte viros peregit una,
tot verpas tibi dedicat salignas. }[3]
The salacious god is Priapus. A sacred festival for Priapus suggests appreciation for men’s sexual desire. The young woman prostituted herself at that festival. She thus exploited men’s sexuality for her own monetary interest. The verb “to go through {perago}” associates her actions with brutalizing figures of a man’s penis in sexual engagement. The wooden, erect dicks that she dedicated to Priapus objectify as dildos the men with whom she had sex. Making those dildos out of willow wood, a soft, relatively pliant wood, subtly disparages sexually the men whom she sexually objectified.
Carmina Priapea critiques the sexual objectification of men’s penises in Herodas’s Mimiambs. Herodas’s Mimiambs are highly sophisticated Alexandrian poetry drawing upon the literary tradition of mimes, most influentially those of Sophron of Syracuse. Sophron apparently alluded to solitary women seeking consolation with dildos:
Whatever are they, my dear woman, these big male mussels? — Surely these ones are tubes, a sweet-fleshed little shell, licking for solitary women.
{ τίνες δ᾿ ἐντί ποκα, φίλα, τοίδε τοὶ μακροὶ κόγχοι; — σωλῆνές θην τοῦτοί γα, γλυκύκρεον κογχύλιον, χηρᾶν γυναικῶν λίχνευμα }[4]
In his Mimiamb 6, “Women in a friendly or private situation {Φιλιάζουσαι ἢ ἰδιάζουσαι},” Herodas refigured dildos as sexually better than men. He depicted dildos as a superior commodity available from the skilled and well-intentioned shoe-maker Kerdon. The woman Koritto told her woman-friend Metro about Kerdon and his dildos:
He works at home and sells secretly,
for every door now shudders at the tax-collectors.
But his work, what work it is! You would think
you were seeing Athena’s own handiwork, not Kerdon’s.
And one — for he came with two, Metro —
when I saw it, my eyes bulged out with contending desire.
Men don’t make — we are speaking privately —
erections that stand so straight! Not only that,
but its softness is sleep, and its dear little straps
are wool, not leather straps. A shoe-maker more considerate
to a woman you couldn’t find even if you searched everywhere.{ κατ᾿ οἰκίην δ᾿ ἐργάζετ᾿ ἐμπολέων λάθρη,
τοὺς γὰρ τελώνας πᾶσα νῦν θύρη φρίσσει.
ἀλλ’ ἔργ’, ὁκοῖ ἐστ’ ἔργα· τῆς Ἀθηναίης
αὐτῆς ὀρῆν τὰς χείρας, οὐχὶ Κέρδωνος,
δόξεις. ἐγὼ μὲν — δύο γὰρ ἦλθ’ ἔχων, Μητροῖ —
ἰδοῦσ’ ἀμίλλη τὤμματ’ ἐξεκύμηνα·
τὰ βαλλί᾿ οὔτως ἄνδρες οὐχὶ ποιεῦσι
— αὐταὶ γάρ εἰμεν — ὀρθά· κοὐ μόνον τοῦτο,
ἀλλ᾿ ἠ μαλακότης ὔπνος, οἰ δ᾿ ἰμαντίσκοι
ἔρι᾿, οὐκ ἰμάντες. εὐνοέστερον σκυτέα
γυναικὶ διφῶσ᾿ ἄλλον οὐκ ἀνευρήσει. }[5]
Koritto was willing even to have sex with Kerdon to acquire both of his dildos. Within a fashionable academic myth of “historically contingent hegemonic patriarchal constructions of female sexuality,” a scholar has interpreted Mimiamb 6 as providing a “female centering dildo-joke” with an important gender implication:
Koritto takes the premise of the female centering dildo-joke to its logical extreme. Herodas has upended the male oriented male centering dildo-joke; his women do not resort to dildoes because men are not available. His women do not need men for sexual pleasure. In fact, men are so incidental to their sexual pleasure that they treat having sex with a man as merely the means to an end. As in the female-centering vibrator-jokes of Sex and the City, women do not need men if they have a well-made dildo.[6]
In Herodas Mimiamb 7, Metro and her woman-friends visit Kerdon at his shop. Kerdon discusses with the women various features and styles of shoes. Those shoes plausibly represent dildos in a materially inverted form. With realistic characters, circumstances, and dialog, Herodas depicts female-centering (gynocentric) objectification and commodification of men’s sexuality. He doesn’t celebrate or promote these ideological constructions. His material inversion of dildos in Mimiamb 7 in fact suggests a critical perspective on gender.[7] In contrast, the narrow-minded, acutely bigoted anti-meninism that now dominates academia promotes devaluing and dehumanizing men.
With its immodest words, Carmina Priapea transgressively affirms the value of men to women. Carmina Priapea was a book that both women and men read. Most of the surviving literary texts from the ancient Mediterranean world were written by men for men. The Carmina Priapea ironically pretended to be such a text:
“Morally pure married women, depart far from here.
It’s shameful for you to read immodest words.”
They make not a bit of that warning and come straight on.
Of course married women also have taste
and gaze eagerly upon a large penis.{ Matronae procul hinc abite castae:
turpe est vos legere inpudica verba. —
non assis faciunt euntque recta:
nimirum sapiunt videntque magnam
matronae quoque mentulam libenter. }[8]
Defying gyno-idolatry, Carmina Priapea forthrightly recognized the female gaze that sexually objectifies men. The book itself, however, isn’t literally a large penis. This poem asserts that married women, like others, “have taste {sapio}.” The Latin verb used means both taste in the sense of stimulating a particular bodily sensation and being discerning or wise. Carmina Priapea recognizes wisdom in the female and male gaze.
Moreover, Carmina Priapea recognizes that a woman’s vagina has wisdom beyond desiring superficial beauty. In a poem of Carmina Priapea, the rustic, minor god Priapus outrageously boasts:
By his beauty Mercury is able to please,
by his beauty Apollo is distinguished,
beautiful also is Dionysus as painted, yet
most beautiful of all is Cupid.
As for me, I confess to lack a lovely beauty,
but my penis is truly splendid.
Young women prefer it over more important gods —
if a young woman doesn’t have a foolish cunt.{ Forma Mercurius potest placere,
forma conspiciendus est Apollo,
formosus quoque pingitur Lyaeus,
formosissimus omnium est Cupido.
me pulchra fateor carere forma,
verum mentula luculenta nostra est:
hanc mavult sibi quam deos priores
si qua est non fatui puella cunni. }[9]
Mercury (Hermes), Apollo, Dionysus, and Cupid (Eros) are important gods in ancient Greco-Roman religion. None of them has a sexually objectified penis as Priapus does. None of them seems as superficially foolish as Priapus. In the ancient cultural circumstances of Carmina Priapea, being foolish was associated with bodily weakness as well as stupidity. With shocking bodily specificity, Carmina Priapea asserts that a woman with a strong, smart, and prudent cunt values a man’s cock more than a man’s beautiful appearance. That’s actually wise. Crude language doesn’t change the mechanism of the seminal blessing.
Within the Carmina Priapea, a young woman desires to encompass sexually Priapus and seems to affirm men as fully human beings bearing a gender-specific blessing. The poignant, ironic poem addresses you:
For what, would you say, she desires my spear, although I’m wooden,
if a young woman gives kisses to my groin?
No diviner is required. “Within me,” she said, believe me,
“your crude spear will encounter true strength.”{ Velle quid hanc dicas, quamvis sim ligneus, hastam,
oscula dat medio si qua puella mihi?
augure non opus est: “in me” mihi credite, dixit
“utetur veris viribus hasta rudis.” }[10]
Priapus is foolish and bewildered. He figures his own penis as a brutalizing weapon: a wooden “spear {hasta}.” The young woman, however, kisses his groin. That kissing powerfully rejects the figure of his penis as a brutalizing weapon. It also rejects the objectification and commodification of his penis as merely a piece of wood. The young woman understands that her vagina gives his penis “true strength {vera vis}.” That’s the unitive joy and incomparable fecundity possible through sexual intercourse. You might doubt this. Priapus asks you to believe. The poem leaves open for its men and women readers the crucial, reflexive question of a man’s sexual dignity: “For what, would you say, she desires his penis?”
In the third-century BGC, the learned poet Herodas wrote about women’s desires for dildos. About four centuries later, Carmina Priapea transgressively affirmed the dignity of men’s sexuality against sexually objectifying and commodifying men’s penises. The sophisticated voice of the Carmina Priapea deserves to be heard and understood.[11] It can help to liberate men and women from today’s oppressive gender ideology.
As long as you live, one can hope. You, rustic guardian,
may you come here, erect Priapus, and be favorable to my nerve.{ dum vivis, sperare licet: tu, rustice custos,
huc ades et nervis, tente Priape, fave. }[11]
* * * * *
Read more:
- mutilation of herms in context of Actaeon, Tiresias & masturbation
- penal systems: Ovid on Silenus’s ass braying at Priapus
- female gaze, gender oppression, and men putting meat on the table
Notes:
[1] Cicero, About rhetorical construction {De inventione} 1.22, Latin text and English translation from Hubbell (1949); Tacitus, About the Life and Death of Julius Agricola {De vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae} 1.3, Latin text via Perseus, my English translation. For a helpful notes on Tacitus’s Agricola, Damon (2016). On the “winning of goodwill {captatio benevolentiae}” more generally, Andoková (2016).
[2] Songs of Priapus {Carmina Priapea} 1, Latin text from Porter (2021a), my English translation, benefiting from that of Porter (2021b) and notes in Gua, Hayes & Nimis (2017). Here are English translations by Leonard C. Smithers and Sir Richard Burton. For detailed analysis of this poem, Elomaa (2015) pp. 17-26. Compare v. 2 to Martial, Epigrams 1.4.2:
Put down that eyebrow of the ruler of lands
{ terrarum dominum pone supercilium }
The poem collection Carmina Priapea belongs to the same elite literary culture as does Martial.
Carmina Priapea 1 is closely connected to Carmina Priapea 2. Both functioning together as an introduction to the poem collection. This dual introduction invokes the playfulness of Catullus. Elomaa (2015) p. 47. Specific intertexts for the dual proem of Carmina Priapea are other sophisticated volume introductions: “Catullus’ dedication to Cornelius Nepos, Martial’s introduction to Domitian, and two introductions in Strato.” Id. p. 20.
Only recently has the Carmina Priapea started to be adequately appreciated:
To appreciate, however, the true sal {taste} of the CP {Carmina Priapea} one also needs to be attuned to the book’s Hellenistic and Neoteric allusions and nuances. It humors us, titillates us, but ultimately subverts notions of literary taste and style that are standard to Hellenistic and Neoteric poets.
Elomaa (2015). p. 139. Elomaa deserves to be regarded as a leading interpreter of the Carmina Priapea.
Subsequent quotes from Carmina Priapea are similarly sourced. Porter (2021b) provides English translations of all the poems in the collection. My translations tend to follow the Latin more closely.
[3] Carmina Priapea 34. Within the context of this poem, the woman apparently sought many customers individually. Porter observed:
In charging only a pittance for her services, the woman in effect proclaims her intention to take on as many customers as possible, without discrimination.
Porter (2021a) p. 66. A graffito from Pompeii tells of several customers for a single woman sex-worker:
11 days before the Kalends of December, for 15 copper coins
Epaphra, Acutus, and Auctus
led for sex to this place
the woman Tyche. The price
per person was 5 copper coins.
In the year when Marcus Messalla and Lucius Lentulus were consuls.{ A(nte) d(iem) XI K(alendas) Decembr(es) a(ssibus) XV
Epap(h)ra Acutus Auctus
ad locum duxserunt(!)
mulierem Tychen pretium
in singulos a(ssibus) V f(uit?)
M(arco) Messalla L(ucio) Lentulo co(n)s(ulibus) }
Graffito from Pompeeii, Corridor of the Theaters (VIII.7.20), Latin text and English translation (modified) graffito AGP-EDR167788 in the Ancient Graffiti Project, also cataloged as CIL IV.2450.
Richlin translated the second and third verses of Carmina Priapea 34 in a way that denies the woman sex-worker agency. Her translation is also inconsistent with the individually contracted, per-person fee that typically characterizes prostitution:
a girl was hired for a small fee
to be shared as enough for all
Richlin (1992) p. 126. Richlin’s tendentious translation served her poor-dear interpretation of women honoring Priapus: “The women who venerate Priapus are women in the service of men.” As wise clients of lawyers and other professionals understand, persons commercially serving clients are also serving themselves.
[4] Sophron, Mimes, Fragment 23, perhaps from the women’s mime A Bride’s Labor / Nymphoponos {Νυμφόπονος}, ancient Greek text and English translation from Rusten & Cunningham (2003). For some analysis of this fragment, Kutzko (2012) p. 381. Another fragment also apparently alludes to dildos:
See the fine shrimps, see the lobsters, see my dear. Look how red they are and smooth-haired.
{ ἴδε καλᾶν κουρίδων, ἴδε καμμάρων, ἴδε φίλα· θᾶσαι μὰν ὡς ἐρυθραί τ᾿ ἐντὶ καὶ λειοτριχιῶσαι }
Sophron, Mimes, Fragment 25, sourced as previously. Rusten & Cunningham (2003) notes, “Dildos again.”
[5] Herodas, Mimiamb 6, vv. 63-73, ancient Greek text (modified) and English translation (modified) from Rusten & Cunningham (2003). For vv. 65-70, I use the reading of the ancient Greek from Kutzko (2012) p. 382, following that of Kutzko (2000) p. 35. For an alternate English translation of all of Mimiamb 6, Murray (2021) pp. 280-3.
Upon entering Koritto’s home, Metro immediately raises her urgent concern:
Dear Coritto, who was it who stitched for you the scarlet
dildo?{ φίλη Κοριττοῖ, τίς κοτ᾿ ἦν ὄ σοι ράψας τὸν κόκκινον
βαυβῶνα }
Mimiamb 6, vv. 18-9, sourced as previously. The color “scarlet {κόκκῐνος}” is associated both with blushing and Priapus’s penis. “Statuettes of Priapus, but esp. the statue’s phallus, were painted a reddish-purple color with ochre.” Porter (2021a) p. 15, note to Carmina Priapea 1, v. 5. On scarlet / red being a color for ancient Greek dildos, Sumler (2019) pp. 471-2.
The word that Herodas uses for dildo, βαυβών, is unique to his work among surviving ancient Greek texts. The ancient Greek word ὄλισβος is also attested to mean dildo. On the word for dildo in Herodas, Murray (2021) pp. 283-4.
[6] Murray (2021) p. 287. I’ve corrected “as a mere the means” to the apparently intended “as merely the means,” but have kept Murray’s idiosyncratic hyphenation elsewhere in the text.
“Hegemony” and “patriarchy” are prominent, ambiguously specified shibboleths in Murray (2021). For “historically contingent hegemonic patriarchal constructions of female sexuality,” id. p. 279. The “hegemonic patriarchal constructions of female sexuality” is not specified as historically contingent at id. p. 280. Hegemonic patriarchy apparently constructs femininity as well as female sexuality. For “hegemonic patriarchal construction of femininity,” id. pp. 278, 279 (twice), 290, 294 (five instances total). Whether hegemonic patriarchy has more than one construction of femininity isn’t clear in Murray’s article. For “hegemonic patriarchal constructions of femininity,” id. pp. 280, 283.
Aristophanes’s Lysistrata figures men as better than dildos. The woman Kalonike laments the absence of husbands, lovers, and even inferior consolation from dildos:
Even lovers have vanished without a trace.
Ever since the Milesians revolted from us,
I haven’t even seen a six-inch dildo,
which might have been just a small leather aid to us.{ ἀλλ᾿ οὐδὲ μοιχοῦ καταλέλειπται φεψάλυξ.
ἐξ οὗ γὰρ ἡμᾶς προὔδοσαν Μιλήσιοι,
οὐκ εἶδον οὐδ᾿ ὄλισβον ὀκτωδάκτυλον,
ὃς ἦν ἂν ἡμῖν σκυτίνη ᾿πικουρία. }
Lysistrata vv. 107-10, ancient Greek text and English translation (modified slightly) from Henderson (2000). Subsequently, Lysistrata suggests that dildos are available and should be used, but Kalonike dismisses a dildo as a grossly inferior substitute for a man:
(Lysistrata): As Pherecrates said, skin the skinned dog.
(Kalonike): Facsimiles are nothing but poppycock.
{ (Λυσιστρατη): τὸ τοῦ Φερεκράτους, κύνα δέρειν δεδαρμένην.
(Καλονικη): φλυαρία ταῦτ᾿ ἐστὶ τὰ μεμιμημένα. }
Lysistrata vv. 158-9, sourced as previously.
Murray claims that in the “male-dominated Athenian worldview that Aristophanes exploited in his comedies, all women and girls are always eager to be penetrated by a man, any man.” Murray (2021) p. 275. That’s ridiculous. Such a worldview obliterates the complex characters of the important ancient Greek women-characters Penelope, Clytemnestra, and Aspasia.
[7] Women placing their feet in new shoes differs significantly in physical-sexual figuration from a man placing his foot in a shoe. Cf. Sumler (2010), which misses this important point. For an example of a relevantly structured metaphor, consider a quip in which a sandal belongs to a man’s wife. A shoemaker is asked to loosen it:
Another husband says this to a shoemaker,
a virile one sporting no boyish cock:
“Shoemaker, about my wife’s tootsy:
the thong is squeezing her pinky winky, where she’s tender.
So why don’t you drop in on her some lunchtime
and loosen it up so there’s more play down there?”{ ἕτερος δέ τις πρὸς σκυτοτόμον ταδὶ λέγει
νεανίαν καὶ πέος ἔχοντ᾿ οὐ παιδικόν·
“ὦ σκυτοτόμε, τῆς μου γυναικὸς τοῦ ποδὸς
τὸ δακτυλίδιον πιέζει τὸ ζυγόν,
ἅθ᾿ ἁπαλὸν ὄν· τοῦτ᾿ οὖν σὺ τῆς μεσημβρίας
ἐλθὼν χάλασον, ὅπως ἂν εὐρυτέρως ἔχῃ.” }
Aristophanes, Lysistrata vv. 414-9, ancient Greek text and English translation (modified slightly) from Henderson (2000). The husband is inadvertently inviting the shoemaker to come and have sex with the husband’s wife. That’s obvious from the quip’s context in Lysistrata.
Interpreting Herodas in accordance with today’s dehumanizing gynocentric ideology of “liberated women” largely passes without critical scrutiny. In fact, that bizarre ideology has been essentialized as “a more authentic representation of female sexuality”:
Two companion pieces in the corpus of Herodas, Mimiambs 6 and 7, draw attention to female sexuality by giving voice to liberated women and their erotic fantasies. The women in these poems turn their lustful gaze not on men but on erotic accessories which arouse their sexual desire, a generic topos well-known from Old Comedy and perhaps Sophron’s mimes. But, in contrast to Old Comedy sex-humor which is filtered through the male perspective, it may be argued that here Herodas is interested in a more authentic representation of female sexuality through the viewpoint of his women characters.
Sistakou (2024) p. 136, footnotes omitted. Sistakou noted:
That Herodas in Mimiambs 6 and 7 appropriates the transgendered poetics of female poets such as Erinna and Nossis and therefore represents female sexuality is compellingly argued by Murray
2021
Id. p. 136, footnote 40. Another scholar interpreted Herodas’s Mimiambs 6 and 7 as presenting:
a gender reversal which plays out the male fear of a world where men are no longer needed or they are deemed ineffective.
Anagnostou-Laoutides (2015) p. 158. Men and women of good will should fear a world socially constructed to devalue and demean men. Like Herodas, they should engage with it critically, but carefully.
[8] Carmina Priapea 8. For an alternate English translation of Carmina Priapea 8, Elomaa (2015) p. 79. The phrase non assis faciunt literally refers to an as, a “copper coin worth ¼ sesterce (a coin of little value; a penny).” Porter (2021a) p. 28. An alternate translation thus would be “they don’t care as much as a halfpenny.” Id.
Carmina Priapea 68 highlights the shaping influence of men’s penises in Homeric epic. While violence against men is normalized so that it’s scarcely noted, in fact having a penis overwhelming characterizes those killed in Homeric epic. The “morally pure married women {matronae castae}” perhaps ironically invokes Penelope. Elomaa (2015) p. 80.
Carmina Priapea 8 is thematically close to one of Martial’s epigrams:
Thus far, married woman, this little book has been written for you.
For whom are the latter parts written, you ask? For me.
Gymnasium, warm baths, stadium are in this portion. Retire!
We are undressing. Forbear to look upon naked men.
Laying modesty aside after the wine and roses,
tipsy Terpsichore doesn’t know what she says,
she without ambiguity, but openly naming that
that Venus proudly welcomes in the sixth month,
that the bailiff sets as a guard in the middle of the garden,
that a proper young woman gazes upon from behind her hand.
If I know you well, you were already weary of this lengthy
volume. Now you will read attentively all of it.{ Huc est usque tibi scriptus, matrona, libellus.
Cui sint scripta, rogas interiora? mihi.
Gymnasium, thermae, stadium est hac parte: recede.
Exuimur: nudos parce videre viros.
Hinc iam deposito post vina rosasque pudore,
Quid dicat, nescit saucia Terpsichore:
Schemate nec dubio, sed aperte nominat illam,
Quam recipit sexto mense superba Venus,
Custodem medio statuit quam vilicus horto,
Opposita spectat quam proba virgo manu.
Si bene te novi, longum iam lassa libellum
Ponebas, totum nunc studiosa leges. }
Martial, Epigram 3.68, Latin text from Heraeus & Borovskij (1976) via Perseus, my English translation. Men’s bodies, including their penises, are specific, flesh-and-blood materialities. Carmina Priapea 8 emphasizes the body’s immediate significance. Martial’s Epigram 3.68, in contrast, is more abstract and literary.
Using a figure of Priapus, Martial elsewhere more directly insisted on the incomparable value of men’s bodily integrity:
But these little books
are like husbands with wives —
they can’t please without a penis.
…
Don’t try to castrate my little books.
Nothing is more repulsive than a Priapus like a eunuch Gallus.{ … sed hi libelli,
tamquam coniugibus suis mariti,
non possunt sine mentula placere.
…
nec castrare velis meos libellos.
gallo turpius est nihil Priapo. }
Martial, Epigram 1.35.1-3, 14-5, sourced as previously.
[9] Carmina Priapea 39. Fatuus suggests “silliness, foolishness, and idiocy.” Elomaa (2015) pp. 129-30, fn. 249. “The adjectives fatuus and insulsus are roughly synonymous.” Id. p. 137. Insulsus is etymologically linked to “tasteless”: in (“not”) + salsus (“salted, witty”). Matthew 25:2 and 1 Corinthians 1:20, 27 provide nearly contemporaneous evidence on what it means to be regarded as not foolish: wise, smart, and strong.
In relation to divine beings’ diverse attributes, Priapus similarly asserts the importance of his penis:
Each of us has a notable bodily appearance.
Phoebus has lovely hair, Hercules is muscular,
tender Bacchus brings out the figure of a virgin woman,
Minerva has sparkling eyes, Venus a flirting squint,
Arcadian fawns, as you see, have goats’ brows,
the god’s envoy Mercury has suitable feet,
Lemnos’s patron Vulcan moves with limping gait,
Asclepius always has an unshaved beard, and
no one has a bigger chest than furious Mars.
If among these any place remains for me,
it’s because no god is more penis-endowed than Priapus.{ Notas habemus quisque corporis formas:
Phoebus comosus, Hercules lacertosus,
trahit figuram virginis tener Bacchus,
Minerva ravo lumine est, Venus paeto,
frontem vides cornutos Arcadas Faunos,
habet decentes nuntius deum plantas,
tutela Lemni dispares movet gressus,
intonsa semper Aesculapio barba est,
nemo est feroci pectorosior Marte:
quod si quis inter hos locus mihi restat,
deus Priapo mentulatior non est. }
Carmina Priapea 36. For comments on this poem, Elomaa (2015) pp. 117-8. Carmina Priapea 20 mocks brutalizing figuration of the penis through comparison of Priapus’s penis to other gods’ weapons.
Carmina Priapea shows “ingenuity and artistic skill” in its catalogues:
Traditional structural forms of catalogues are followed, yet tradition is often challenged by new interpretative alternatives. In the collection the variety of structural patterns (internal balance, descending mode, ascending mode ) is impressive. Metrical diversity, the use of present or past tenses and the use of polysyndeton or asyndeton are all employed as means of diversification within a cycle of epigrams. Catalogues are perceived both as means of cohesion and of variatio; at the same time they manage to contest the expected and play with the reader’s expectations.
Michalopoulos (2017) p. 345.
[10] Carmina Priapea 43. That the young woman kisses Priapus’s groin doesn’t necessarily imply that they have oral sex. Moreover, classicists simplistically and misleadingly bifurcate oral sex into fellatio and irrumatio. Cf. Elomaa (2015) p. 138.
In another poem, Priapus himself recognizes that a woman can vitalize his wood and transform it into a penis that can make a holy sacrifice:
Why do you look at me, desirous young women, with eyes askance?
A penis doesn’t stand erect on my groin.
Although it’s now a lifeless and useless piece of wood,
it will be useful, if you offer your altar.{ obliquis quid me, pathicae, spectatis ocellis?
non stat in inguinibus mentula tenta meis.
quae tamen exanimis nunc est et inutile lignum,
utilis haec, aram si dederitis, erit. }
Carmina Priapea 73. The altar that a woman offers is her warmly receptive vagina inseparable from her personal agency.
[11] The suffocating weight of anti-men gender ideology pervades classical studies, from the absurd “active” / “passive” sexual dichotomy to preposterous claims about the “reign of the phallus.” With respect to penis and dildo, consider this overview:
Like scholars in art history, feminists who criticize the use of the dildo tend to see it as reproducing and reinscribing heterosexual norms. Those who defend the dildo in theoretical terms stress its detachability and separation from economic and social masculinity, as well as its suitability for parodic inversion of gender conformity. The antidildo position is generally associated with the woman-identified woman, radical feminist, separatist branch of lesbianism, while the prodildo position is usually associated with the pro-sex, anti-censorship, butch / femme, s/m supporting wing of “lesbian” ism. The sexuality debates, the pornography debates, and internal fights within feminism might jokingly be said to be based on the lowly dildo. Those who dismiss the dildo in these vases as an invasion of male sexuality, or the effect of male fantasy, ignore the difference between the dildo and penis: there is no man attached to the former. In some sense, the dildo stands for women’s sexual agency and therefore for the possibility of the pleasure of penetration without male domination.
Rabinowitz (2002) p. 146. Many women experience “the pleasure of penetration without male domination” in relations of mutual love and respect with men. The domineering ideological assertion, “without male domination,” presents no obstacle to pleasure for women wise enough to reject it as a totalizing ideological myth.
[12] Carmina Priapea 80.9-10 / Carmina Priapea 81. Scholars differ about whether these last two verses of Carmina Priapea are a separate poem, and whether they are a later addition. For a review of the issues Porter (2021a) pp. 146-8. Poetic unity is convincingly argued, in my view, in Elomaa (2015) pp. 186-9. These verses tend to be interpreted as those of an impotent supplicant asking for Priapus’s favor. Yet there is also a more sophisticated reading of this ending of a highly sophisticated poem collection:
the poet is also asking for the reader to be favorable to his literary work. To be favorable to this text requires us to understand its poetics, to see through the pose, to understand the text’s engagement with literary texts, to exist in the world of the poetry while simultaneously existing in the world of the present day, and, ultimately, it requires us to laugh and to be pleasantly stimulated by the different associations the poet makes between his poetry and other literary works.
Elomaa (2015) p. 190. The poet seems also to have composed a universal prayer relevant to women and men everywhere in all time. It’s prayer of persons aspiring to the fullness of life.
[images] (1) Young woman sprinkling a substance on four dildos with foliage at their bases. Scholars have speculated that this painting might be related to the men-excluding Thesmophoria, a festival honoring the goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone. Painting on a red-figured pelike made in Attica (Greece) between 440 BGC and 430 BGC. Attributed to the Hasselmann Painter. Preserved in the British Museum, number 1865,1118.49. Source image © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence. The British Museum describes the items pointing up from the ground as “phalli” (penises). The term dildo is more appropriate for such representations separate from a man’s body. For an alternate discussion of distinguishing between dildos and penises / phalli, Rabinowitz (2002) pp. 140-6.
(2) Young woman carrying a huge dildo. Painting on a Attic red-figure column krater made about 470 BGC. Attributed to the Pan Painter. Found in Etruria. Preserved in the Antikensammlung / Altes Museum (Berlin, Germany) as inventory no. 3206. Source image thanks to ArchaiOptix and Wikimedia Commons. For an alternate image, Figura (2022) Figure 13.
(3) Athletic woman using two dildos. Painting on a pottery cup made in Attica (Greece), 520 BGC to 500 BGC. Painting attributed to the Nikosthenes Painter. Cup made by Pamphaios. Preserved in the British Museum, number 1867,0508.1064. Source image © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.
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