EPIGRAMS (selection)
[This translation of many of Martial's epigrams was prepared by me in the interest of exhibiting to the Internet public a picture of what passed for sexual humor in the Roman empire. A society's sexual humor provides a map to help us find the boundary lines for that society between prudish, respectable, acceptable, tolerable, dishonorable, and deplorable forms of sexual expression. The reader will notice that those lines were drawn very differently in 90 AD than they are today, which is the point I would like to convey by offering these epigrams. Please pay attention to the way males [vir], eunuchs [spado], and castrated men [gallus] are portrayed in terms of their relations with women - it always takes a woman to make a boy into a full-grown male.The epigrams are basically social commentary of the type that one might expect today from someone like the comedian Chris Rock, and you could also compare Martial's prominence in late first century Roman society with that of Chris Rock in current American society. But Chris Rock would never dare to tell these jokes! The epigrams include criticism of hypocrisy, jokes about the appearance of certain ugly women, and jokes about greedy people and other foolish people, as well as jokes about the skills of other poets, with a few poems praising the Emperor mixed in. But they also contain a liberal dose of what modern editors call "pornographic" material, which is mostly what I am presenting in this selection of the epigrams. They had no qualms about males verbally acknowledging the sexiness of other males, although they seem to have tolerated homosexual acts between adult males much less than what we today abhor as homosexual child molestation (sex with early teenaged "beardless boys"). They also considered giving oral service to another man (or woman) a more shameful and abhorrent act than being anally penetrated by him. Also, notice that Martial's love of boys does not make him a homosexual, since he also talks about having sex with women.
Martial's epigrams were enormously popular in his day and for centuries afterward. Even current Latin textbooks like "Wheelock's Latin" contain lots epigrams from Martial as exercises for students to translate.
Many translators of Martial into English have in the past refused to translate the sexually explicit epigrams. These translators would either leave those particular epigrams in Latin or else give an Italian translation! But I recently came across an English translation that translated every epigram faithfully. It was prepared by D. R. Shackleton Bailey and published in a Harvard Loeb edition in 1993. I would encourage all those, who can afford the three-volume Loeb edition of Martial, to purchase it.
I have relied heavily on Bailey's translation to help me figure out what Martial was saying. But in the interest of not infringing Harvard's copyright, I have massacred every one of Bailey's elegant translations of the epigrams in order to give a crude, stilted, and strictly literal translation of my own. If my translation of any particular phrases matches that of Bailey, it is only because Bailey's translation was already a pretty faithful, literal translation of the original Latin, which belongs to Martial and thus to the public. The original Latin of all of Martial's epigrams can be found on a website of the Classics Department atGeorge Mason University.]
A note on the gender of names in the epigrams: Names ending in "-us" are masculine, while names ending in "-is" and "-e" are usually feminine (except for Attis, a castrated god). Names ending in "-a" are usually feminine first names (e.g., Lesbia, Bassa, Vetustina, Chrestina, Telesina, Galla, Thalia, Polla, Ligeia, Glaphyra, Fulvia, Caelia, Magulla), but may be surnames of men in some cases (e.g. Cotta, Numa, Cinna, Mamurra, Nasica, Baccara, Vacerra, Lattara, Tucca).]
MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS, BOOK I
1.23
Cotta, you do not make an invitation to anyone except those with whom you have bathed, and only the baths provide you with guests. I was wondering why you never invited me, Cotta: now I realize that you did not like me naked.
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1.24
Decianus, do you see that one there with the wild hair, whose stern arrogance makes you nervous, who is making comments about the champions, the Curii and the Camilli? Don't believe the appearance: he played the bride [nupsit] yesterday.
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1.31
Encolpus, the love of his master the centurion, will sacrifice to you, Apollo, all this hair from the top of his head down, when Pudens is awarded the hoped-for and deserved prize of a promotion to chief centurion. Apollo, cut off the long hair as soon as possible, while the delicate features are not sullied by any down and while a milky neck accompanies the abundant mane; and so that the master and the boy may enjoy your favors for a long time, give the haircut soon, but take your time making him a (grown) male [virum].
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1.35
Cornelius, you complain that I write undoctored verses unlike those taught by teachers in school: but like husbands with their wives, these little books cannot be pleasing unless they have dicks. Would you demand that I give a toast without saying "cheers"? Who would require modest attire at Carnival, or let whores go around wearing long dresses? There is a law made for joking songs: that they are useless if they do not titillate. Therefore, laying aside severity, take it easy on my jokes and amusements, and do not seek to castrate my little books: There's nothing so ugly as an emasculated (statue of) Priapus [gallo Priapo].
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1.46
Hedylus, when you say, "I'm in a hurry, if you're going to do it, do it," my disabled love languishes on the spot and ceases. Order me to wait: I come faster when I am held back. Hedylus, if you are in a hurry, tell me not to hurry.
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1.57
Flaccus, you ask what kind of girl I would want and what kind I would not want? I don't want one who is too easy or one who is too hard-to-get. Let's try that which is medium and between both: I want neither that which tortures nor that which satiates.
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1.58
The pimp demanded a hundred thousand for the boy: I laughed, but Phoebus gave it right away. My dick is upset about this and complains about me to itself, and Phoebus is praised while I am reproached. But Phoebus's dick earned him two million: you bring in that much for me, and I will spend more.
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1.90
Because I never saw you attached to males, Bassa, and because there were never any rumors about you having an adulterous lover, but a crowd of your own sex always undertook every service near you, while you never approached a male, I declare, you seemed to be a latter-day Lucretia: meanwhile, Bassa, you were in fact a fucker (of women). You dare to bring together two pussies between themselves and your prodigious love [i.e. her clitoris] plays the role of a male. You are a sign worthy of the fictitious riddle of Thebes: where there is no male [vir], an adultery occurs.
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1.92
Cestus often complains to me, with tears in his eyes, that he has been touched by your finger, Mamurianus. The finger is not the point: take Cestus all the way for yourself, Mamurianus, if you lack nothing else. But if you have no hearth, nor the frame of a bare cot, nor a broken cup of Chione or Antiope, if even your threadbare cloak hangs wax-colored from your loins and your Gallic jacket covers only half of your butt, and you subsist on the smoke of your black kitchen and drink filthy water on your knees with the dog: I will poke, with my finger, not your ass - for it is not an ass if it never shits - but your "third eye"; and you will not say that I am jealous or spiteful. In a word, Mamurianus, fuck boys when you are well fed.
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1.96
If it's not a bother and an annoyance to you, poem, please say a few words in the ear of Maternus so that he alone hears them. That lover of sad cloaks who dresses in both Baetican and ash-colored wool, who thinks those who dress in scarlet are not real men and who calls purple clothing women's wear, although he praises native things, and owns and always prefers dark colors, nonetheless he has effeminate [literally "chartreuse"] morals. He will ask why I suspect this male of being soft. We bathe together: he never looks up, but stares with devouring eyes at the athletes, and looks at their dicks with drooling lips. You ask who this is? The name escapes me.
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MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS, BOOK II
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2.28
Sextillus, go ahead and laugh out loud at whoever calls you a cinaedus [a passive] and flip him your middle finger. But you are not a butt-fucker [pedico], Sextillus, or a pussy-fucker [fututor], nor do you like the hot mouth of Vetustina. I declare that you are none of these things: so what are you? I do not know; but you know what two things are left.
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2.31
I have fucked Chrestina many times. You want to know how well she gives? Marianus, there can be nothing beyond it.
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2.36
I wouldn't want you to curl your hair, but I wouldn't want you to muss it up, either; I don't want your skin to shine, nor to be dirty; don't let your chin be smooth like the miter-wearing (priests of Cybele), nor let your beard be rough like prisoners. I don't want too much of a man [virum], Pannychus, or too little. As matters stand now, Pannychus, your legs are full of hairs and your chest is bristly, but your mind is plucked.
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2.44
If I buy a boy, or a new woolly toga, or three, maybe, four pounds of silver, then Sextus, that usurer, whom you know to be an old friend of mine, is immediately afraid that I may ask him for something [i.e. financial assistance] and he puts up his guard, whispering to himself, but in order that I will hear it: "I owe seven thousand to Secundus, four to Phoebus, eleven to Philetus, and I don't have a cent in my safe." What a great genius my friend is! It is cruel to say no when you are asked for something, Sextus: how much crueler it is before you have even been asked!
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2.45
Glyptus, your dick, which used to not become erect, has been cut off. Idiot! What did you need a knife for? You were already a gallus.
[Galli were priests of Cybele, and were usually castrated or natural eunuchs. Cf. for example Augustine's City of God.]
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2.47
O Gallus, you who are smoother than Venus's shells, I warn you, flee the deceitful nets of the famous adulteress. Are you relying on your butt? The husband is not a butt-fucker [pedico]; there are two things that he does: he gets sucked [irrumat] or he fucks pussy [futuit].
[Thus Gallus would have a worse punishment in store than being anally penetrated, namely being orally penetrated.]
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2.48
An innkeeper, a butcher, a bathroom, a barber, a board and game pieces, and a few little books (but I must choose them): one buddy who is not too crude, and a large boy who will remain beardless for a long time, and a girl who is dear to my boy: if you offer me these things, Rufus, even in Calabria, you can keep even the baths of Nero.
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2.49
I do not want to take Telesina as a wife: Why not? She is an adulteress. But Telesina favors boys: okay, I will.
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2.50
Lesbia, just because you suck dick and drink water does not mean you are sinning: Lesbia, you consume water in the part of you where it is needed.
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2.51
Hyllus, even though you often have only one silver coin in your whole safe, and even that is more worn than your ass, you won't spend it at the bakery or in a restaurant, but you will spend it on whoever has the biggest dick. Your unhappy belly watches the feast enjoyed by your ass, and while the former always goes hungry, the latter always gorges itself.
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2.54
Linus, your wife demonstrated sufficiently, by means of definite indications, what she suspects about you, and what part of you she would prefer to be more chaste, when she gave you a eunuch [spadonem] as a chaperone. No one is more satirical or malicious than she is.
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2.55
Sextus, you want to be cultivated: I wanted to love you. You must be obeyed: because you command it, you will be tilled; but if I plough you, Sextus, I will not love you.
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2.56
Among the Libyans, Gallus, your wife is badly spoken of on account of an excessive greed, which is a terrible crime. But they are telling mere lies: she never takes anything. What does she do then? She gives [i.e. she fucks him].
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2.60
Boy Hyllus, you are fucking the wife of an armed tribune because you fear nothing more than the punishment suited for a boy [i.e. being butt-fucked]. Poor thing, as you play, you will be castrated. Now you're telling me: "That's not allowed." What about it? Is what you are doing allowed, Hyllus?
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2.61
While your young cheeks flourished with a slight down, your restless tongue licked male groins. Now that your miserable face makes even morticians nauseous and turns the stomach even of an unfortunate executioner, you use your mouth otherwise, and, seized with excessive ill-will, you rail at whatever name is applied to you. It would be better for such a poisonous tongue to cleave to groins: for it was purer when it was giving head.
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2.62
Labienus, that you pluck your chest and your legs and your arms, that your shaved dick is surrounded with clipped pubes, everyone knows that you do this for your girlfriend. But Labienus, who do you pluck your ass for?
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2.70
You do not want anyone to be washed in the tub before you, Cotilus: what can the reason be, except that you do not want to sit in water that has contained a dick [undis irrumatis]? You can be the first one in if you like: your dick will inevitably be washed before your head.
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MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS, BOOK III
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3.24
A he-goat guilty of gnawing a vine stood about to die on your household altar, a welcome victim; when the Tuscan fortune-teller was about to sacrifice it, he told a strong and crude farmer to cut the testicles quickly with a sharp sickle, so that the offensive odor of the unclean flesh would go away. While he himself was prone on the green altar cutting the struggling throat and holding it down with his hand, a large hernia appeared in the middle of the violent rites. The country bumpkin grabbed it and cut it with the knife, believing the ancient rites of sacrifice demanded it and believing the primitive powers to be cultivated by such entrails. Thus, fortune-teller, while you were a Tuscan, now you are a Gaul [Gallus], and while you were cutting the throat of the he-goat, you yourself were made a caper.
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3.62
You buy boys for a hundred and often two hundred, you drink wine bottled under the reign of Numa, a tiny set of furniture stands you a load of money, a pound of silver gets five thousand, a golden carriage is procured for the price of an estate, your mule was bought for more than a house: Quintus, do you believe these things equate to a great mind [i.e. generosity]? You are mistaken: a very small mind [i.e. stupidity] buys these things, Quintus.
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3.65
The breath of a tender apple when a girl bites it, the air that comes from Corycian saffron; the silvery vines when the first bunches flourish, the smell of meadows that a sheep has just been grazing; myrtle, an Arabian mower, well-worn amber, pale fire that smells of eastern incense; when the earth is lightly sprinkled with rain in the summer, when you braid a full garland wet with fragrant ointment: This is how your kisses smell, Diadumenus, you cruel boy. What if you would give them fully without stinginess?
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3.71
The boy's dick is sore, Naevolus, and so is your ass. I am not a fortune-teller, but I know what you are doing.
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3.73
You sleep with big-dicked boys, Phoebus, and what is erect on them is not erect on you. What do you want me to think, Phoebus, I ask you? I used to want to believe you were a soft male [mollem virum], but rumor has it that you are not a cinaedus [a passive].
[Perhaps implying that Phoebus is giving head to these boys, or perhaps that Phoebus is not a vir (male) at all, but a closet eunuch.]
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3.75
Your dick stopped getting hard a long time ago, Lupercus, however, like an crazy man, you struggle to get an erection. But cabbage and aphrodisiac onions don't help, nor does low-grade savory seasoning do you any good. You have started to corrupt pure mouths using your wealth: nonetheless your molested love [i.e. penis] does not come to life. Could anyone wonder enough at this or believe it, Lupercus, that what does not stand up, stands you in for a lot?
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3.81
What is a female slit to you, Baeticus Gallus? This tongue is supposed to lick male crotches. Why was your dick cut off with a Samian shard, if the pussy was so satisfying to you, Baeticus? Your head should be castrated: for though you are admitted because you have the groin of one of her priests [gallus], nonetheless you betray the rites of Cybele: in the mouth you are a male [vir].
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3.85
Who persuaded you to cut off the nose of the adulteror? This is not the organ that sinned against you, husband. Fool, what have you done? Your wife has not lost anything this way, as long as the dick of your usurper is healthy.
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3.88
They are twin brothers, but they lick different groins: Tell me, are they more unlike than like?
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3.91
While seeking out the fields of his Ravennan homeland, a discharged soldier joined paths with a half-male gang of Cybele. He had with him a boy named Achillas, a fugitive from his master, who was conspicuous for his beauty and his wickedness. The sterile males [steriles viri] noticed him: they asked what side he slept on. But he too noticed their hidden tricks: he lied, and they believed him. After wine, they sought sleep: The noxious gang immediately took a knife and cut the old man, who was lying on the outside; meanwhile the boy was sheltered by the protecting screen. It was once told that a doe was substituted for a virgin girl, but here a dick was substituted for a stag.
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3.92
Gallus, my wife asks me to tolerate an adulteror, one of them. Gallus, shall I not gouge out his eyes, both of them?
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3.95
Naevolus, you never say hello first, but always say it in reply, even though even crows often speak first. I ask you, tell me, Naevolus, why do you wait for a greeting from me: for I think you are not better or higher than me, Naevolus. I am talked about by many readers, and fame has given me a name in the villages without waiting for my death. There is something in this too: I have been a Roman tribune and I sit in the seat that Oceanus [the manager of Pompey's Theater] makes you get up from. I have made more citizens through Caesar's favor than you have slaves, I suspect. But you get butt-fucked, Naevolus; you shake your ass prettily. All right, fine, you are better, Naevolus, you win: greetings!
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3.96
You lick my girl, but don't fuck her, while you chatter like an adulteror and pussy-fucker. If I catch you, Gargilus, you will shut up.
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MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS, BOOK IV
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4.42
If perhaps someone could give me what I ask for, Flaccus, let me tell you what kind of boy I would want. First of all, let the boy be born in the land of the Nile: no soil knows better how to instill naughtiness. Let him be whiter than snow: for in dark-skinned Egypt, this color is all the prettier for being rare. Let his eyes compete with the stars, and soft hair brush against his neck: I do not like curly hair, Flaccus. Let his forehead be low and let his nose be moderate-sized and slightly bent, and let his lips be red to rival the roses of Paestum. Let him often force me against my will and refuse me when I want it; let him often be more uninhibited than his master; and let him be afraid of boys, and often shut out girls: let him be a male [vir] to everyone else, a boy to me alone. "I know already, I get your meaning: I too agree with your assessment. Such a one," you will say, "was our Amazonicus."
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4.43
I did not call you a passive [cinaedus], Coracinus: I am not so thoughtless or bold, or given to telling lies. If I did call you a passive, Coracinus, let the wrath of Pontia's bottle be upon me, the wrath of Metilus's chalice [i.e. let me be poisoned]: I swear by the tumors of the Syrian goddess, I swear by the Berecynthian rage [i.e. may I suffer the castration ceremony of Cybele priests if I am lying]. What did I say then? Something small and minor, which everyone knows, which you yourself do not even deny: I said, Coracinus, that you are a pussy-licker [cunnilingus].
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4.48
You enjoy being hammered, Papylus, but after being hammered, you cry: Papylus, why do you regret what you wanted to be done, once it has been done? Are you sorry about the obscene horniness? Or do you rather mourn the fact, Papylus, that you are no longer being hammered?
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MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS, BOOK V
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5.41
Although you are more emasculated than a frail eunuch [spado], and softer than the concubine Attis, bewailed by the cut priest [sectus gallus] of the Divine Mother, (nonetheless) you speak of theater and ranks and edicts and ceremonial robes and Ides and foreskin clamps and property rights, and point at poor people with your pumiced hand. I will give thought to whether you are permitted to sit on the benches of the knights, Didymus: but you are not allowed to sit among married men.
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5.48
What is love incapable of forcing! Encolpus has cut his hair, against the wishes of his master, although he did not forbid it. Prudens allowed it and then cried over it: thus did Phaethontus's complaining father turn over the reins to his reckless son; thus did kidnapped Hylas, and thus did unmasked Achilles get rid of his hair - rejoicing while his mother felt sorry. But you, beard, do not hurry - do not believe the short haircut - and come late in return for such a great favor.
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5.55
Tell me, whom are you carrying, queen of birds? "The Thunderer." Why is He not carrying lightning bolts in His hand? "He is in love." What fire is heating up the god? "A boy." Why are you looking back gently at Jove with an open mouth? "I am speaking of Ganymede."
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5.57
When I call you master, Cinna, I am not trying to flatter you: I often return your slave's greeting that way too.
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5.83
You chase me, and I flee; when you flee, I chase. This is how my mind works: I do not desire your willingness, Dindymus, but I desire your unwillingness.
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MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS, BOOK VI
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6.2
It was once a game to deprive sexual intercourse of [its justification through] holy matrimony, and a game to castrate males [mares] who did not deserve (castration). You prohibit both things, Caesar, and you help future peoples, whom you command to be born without fraud. Because of you, O guardian, no one will be either a eunuch [spado] or an adulteror: formerly - O morals! - even a eunuch was an adulteror.
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6.7
Faustinus, the Lex Julia was reborn for the peoples and chastity commanded to enter the home less than, or certainly not more than, thirty days ago, and already Telesilla has married her tenth man [viro]. A woman who marries that much is not getting married: she is committing legal adultery. I am less offended by a more upfront adulteress.
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6.16
You who terrify males [viros] with your penis and passives [cinaedos] with your sickle, protect these few acres of private land. Thus may no poor old thieves enter your orchards, but only a boy and a girl with pretty long hair.
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6.23
Lesbia, you always command my penis to be hard for you: Believe me, a dick is not the same as a finger. You may work hard with your smooth hands and enticing words, but your domineering face is against you.
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6.26
Our Sotades is in danger of losing his head. Do you think Sotades is on trial? He isn't. Sotades has stopped being able to get an erection: he licks.
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6.33
Matho, you have never seen anything more miserable than Sabellus the butt-fucker, who was once the happiest one of all. That person [hominem] is plagued by thefts, fleeing, deaths of slaves, fires, and grieving. The wretch is even fucking pussy now.
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6.36
Papylus, your dick is big enough, and your nose is long enough, that when you have a hard-on you can smell it.
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6.37
Charinus's ass is cut all the way up to his belly-button, and yet it itches all the way to his belly button. O what an itch the poor man suffers from! He has no butt, but he is still a passive [cinaedus].
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6.39
Cinna, you have become a father by Marulla of seven non-sons: for none of them is your son, nor that of a friend, nor that of a neighbor, but, conceived on army cots and pieces of matting, they display their mother's deceptions by their heads. This one, who struts around with curly hair like an African, declares himself to be the offspring of Santra the cook; and that one with the snub nose and full lips is the spitting image of Pannychus the wrestling coach. What person who knows and sees half-blind Dama does not know that the third child is the baker's? The fourth one, with the forehead of a passive [cinaeda fronte] and a fair face was born for you from the concubine Lygdus: fuck your son, if you want: it won't be a crime. This one with the truly pointed head and long ears that move like a donkey's, who would deny that he is the son of the fool Cyrta? The two sisters, this one black-haired and that one red-haired, belong to Crotus the flute-player and Carpus the foreman. Your brood would be larger than Niobe's if Coresus and Dindymus were not eunuchs [spado].
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6.50
When Telesinus, the poor man, cultivated pure friends, he went around dirty in a cold garment: Now that he has started to take care of obscene passives [cinaedos], he buys silver, tables, and estates on his own. Do you want to become rich, Bithynicus? Take note of this. Pure kisses will get you nothing, or very little.
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6.56
Because your legs are stiff with bristles and your chest with hairs, Charidemus, you think you escape rumors. Believe me, you should get rid of the hairs on your whole body and testify that you depilate your butt. "For what reason?" you ask. You know that many people say many things: Charidemus, make them think that you get butt-fucked.
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6.67
Pannychus, you wonder why your Caelia has so many eunuchs [eunuchos]? Caelia wants to be fucked, not to give birth.
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6.91
The sacred judgment of our supreme leader prohibits and bans the commission of adultery. Rejoice, Zoilus, you do not fuck (pussy).
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MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS, BOOK VII
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7.10
Eros gets fucked, Linus gives head. What business is it of yours what the one or the other does with his own skin, Olus? Matho pays a hundred thousand to fuck (pussy). What business is it of yours, Olus? You will not become a pauper because of that, Matho will. Sertorius eats until daybreak: Olus, what business is that of yours, when you may snore the whole night? Lupus owes Titus seven hundred thousand. What business is it of yours, Olus? Don't give or loan a penny to Lupus. You pretend not to know what does pertain to you, Olus, and what does merit your attention more. You owe for your garment: this pertains to you, Olus. No one lends you a nickel anymore: this too. Your wife is an adulteress: this pertains to you, Olus. Your grown daughter is already asking for a dowry: this too. I could note fifteen things that pertain to you: but what you do, Olus, is none of my business.
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7.18
Since you have a face which no (other) woman could criticize, since your body has no blemishes, do you wonder why it is rare that a fucker desires you and then comes back? You have a serious flaw, Galla. As soon as I get to work and we move our groins together, your pussy won't shut up, although you say nothing. If only the gods would make you talk and it be quiet: I am offended by the talkativeness of your pussy. I had rather you farted: Symmachus says that is helpful and at the same time it makes you laugh. But who can laugh at the smacking of a silly cunt? When it makes noise, whose dick and mind does not fail? At least say something and drown out your noisy pussy; and if you are so speechless, learn to talk from there.
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7.55
Chrestus, if you never return anyone's gifts, then do not give me any or send me any: I will consider you sufficiently generous. But if you give gifts to Apicius and Lupus and Gallus and Titius and Caesius, then you can lick, not my dick - which is decent and small - but a dick from burned Jerusalem, a dick condemned only recently to pay taxes.
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7.58
Galla, you have already married six or seven passives [cinaedis], while the neatly combed hair and beard attracts you too much; then after trying out their flanks and their groins very like soaked [leather] that do not get hard even when forced by a tired hand, you leave the unfit bedroom and the soft husband, then go back and fall again and again into similar marriages. Look for someone who is always talking about Curii and Fabii, hairy and fierce from hard boorishness: you will find him; but the severe crowd also has its passives: it is hard, Galla, to marry a real male [vero viro].
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7.62
You hammer big boys behind open doors, Amillus, and you want to be caught while doing it, for fear that your freedmen and paternal servants and a malicious client may talk with insinuations and gossip. Anyone who testifies that he is not butt-fucked, Amillus, often does what he does without witnesses.
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7.67
The girl-rubber Philaenis fucks boys and, with lust worse than a husband, afflicts eleven girls in a day. She also plays handball with her leggings tied up, and turns yellow from [wrestling in the] sand, and with her upper arm easily swings weights that are heavy for athletes. She does not eat dinner until she first vomits up six pints of undiluted wine; to which she thinks she has the right to come back after she has eaten seven steaks. After all this, when she gets horny, she does not give head - she doesn't think that is virile enough - but rather she completely devours the crotches of girls. May the gods give you your mind, Philaenis, since you think licking pussy is virile.
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7.70
Rubber of all girl-rubbers, Philaenis, you quite rightly call the woman you fuck your girlfriend.
[Note: Philaenis is the name of a woman.]
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7.95
It is winter and shivering December stiffens. However, you dare to hold up everyone you meet, from here and from there, with your wintry smooch, and to kiss all of Rome. What could you do that would be more severe and cruel, even if you had been beaten and flogged? In this cold I would not even want to be kissed by my wife with her alluring lips, or by my daughter with her innocent lips, but you are sweeter and more elegant, from whose canine nose a lead-colored icicle hangs and whose beard is stiffened, like that which a Cilician barber harvests with upturned shears from a Cinyphian husband. I would rather fall in with a hundred pussy-lickers and I would have less fear of a freshly-minted priest of Cybele [Gallus]. So if you have sense and shame, Linus, I ask you to defer your winter kisses until the month of April.
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MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS, BOOK VIII
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8.44
Titullus, I warn you, live: It is always late for that; though you start when still under the tutor's supervision, it is already late. And you, poor Titullus, don't even live in your old age, but rather you wear down every threshold with your greetings, and you sweat in the morning, wet with the kisses of the city, and in the three forums you appear before all of the horses and the temple of Mars and the colossus of Augustus, you run through every third hour and fifth hour. Seize, pile up, carry away, possess: you can't take it with you. Though your proud temple be yellow with densely packed coins, and a hundred pages of Kalends be settled, your heir will swear that you left nothing behind, and as you lie upon your bier or stone, while your bed is crammed with papyrus, the arrogant bastard will kiss your weeping eunuchs [eunuchos]; and your mourning son, whether you like it or not, will sleep with your (male) concubine [concubino] on the first night.
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8.46
Your modesty is equalled by your outstanding beauty, boy Cestus, more
chaste than pure Hippolytos. Diana would want you to swim with her and
would be your teacher, Cybele would prefer to have you over the Phrygian;
you could take Ganymede's place in bed, but, cruel boy, you give your master
only kisses. Happy the bride that will tease her tender husband, and be
the first girl to make you a man [virum]!
MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS, BOOK IX
------------------------------------------------------------------------
9.2
While you play the poor man to your friends, Lupus, you do not so to your girlfriend, and only your dick has no complaint about you. That adulteress gets fat on wheat pussies [?], while black porridge feeds your guest. Burning Setine wine melts like snow for your mistress, while we drink the dark poison of a Corsican jar; you buy part of the night with your paternal estates, while your abandoned partner tills ground that is not his; your bright adulteress shines with Erythraean gems, and your client is led away enslaved while you fuck (pussy); a litter borne by eight Syrians is provided for your girl, while your friend will be a nude weight in a cheap coffin. Hey, Cybele, go ahead and castrate the poor passives [cinaedos]: but this dick, she was the one worthy of your knife.
[I interpret that Lupus's "girlfriend" is his dick, as the Latin word for dick, mentula, is feminine. Reading between the lines, it seems that Lupus is saving the female concubines for himself while giving his guests only boys or eunuchs to fuck.]
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9.5 (9.6)
To you, supreme conqueror of the Rhine and parent of the world, chaste prince, the cities give thanks: they will have populations; giving birth is no longer a crime. No longer must a boy grieve for his lost manhood [virilitatis], castrated by the art of the greedy slave-dealer, nor does the extremely arrogant pimp count the donation given by a miserable mother for her prostituted infant. Modesty, which at one time before you was found not even in the marriage bed, has begun to exist, thanks to you, even in the brothel.
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9.7 (9.8)
As if it were a small insult to our sex to prostitute males [mares] to be defiled by the people, even the cradle belonged to the pimp, so that the boy snatched from the breast begged for dirty coins: immature bodies were subjected to shameful punishments. The Ausonian father [i.e. the emperor Domitian] did not tolerate these monstrosities, the one who recently helped tender youths, so that cruel lust would not make males [viros] sterile. Previously, boys, youths, and old men appreciated you, and now infants love you too, Caesar.
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9.21
Artemidorus has a boy, but he sold his field; Calliodorus has a field in place of a boy. Tell me which of these two got the better deal, Auctus: Artemidorus loves, Calliodorus plows.
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9.25
Whenever we look at your Hyllus as he pours the wine, Afer, you notice us with a troubled eye. What crime is it, I ask you, to look at a soft servant? We gaze at the sun, stars, temples, gods. Shall I turn my face away as though a Gorgon were offering me a cup and attacking our eyes and faces? Alcides was fierce, but it was permitted to look at Hylas; Mercury was allowed to play with Ganymede. If you do not want your guests to look at your tender servants, Afer, then invite Phineas and Oedipus [who were blind].
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9.27
Chrestus, while you have depilated testicles and a dick like a vulture's neck and a head smoother than prostituted asses, and not a hair lives on your legs, and cruel tweezers purge your whitened lips; nonetheless you talk about Curii, Camilli, Quintii, Numas, Anci and all the other hairy men we read about, and you make noise and threaten with big words, and you fight with the theaters and the times. If, between all this, any athlete comes along, just freed from his teacher's care and whose swollen dick has been unpinned by the smith, you lead him off, summoned by a nod, and I am ashamed to say, Chrestus, what you do with your Catonian tongue.
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9.32
I want an easy girl, who walks around in a cape, I want one who has already given herself to my boy, I want one who can be bought for a couple of bucks, I want one who can take on three by herself. Let dense Burdigala's dick have the one who demands coins and makes noise with big words.
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9.33
If you hear applause in any bath, Flaccus, know that Maro's dick is there.
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9.40
When Diodorus left Pharos for Rome, seeking the Tarpeian wreath, Philaenis, the simple girl, vowed that on the return of her man [viri] she would lick that thing that even chaste Sabine women love. When his ship was wrecked by the awful storms, and covered in the waves and sunk, Diodorus swam to land for the fulfillment of the vow. O very late and apathetic husband! If my girl made such a vow on the beach, I would have returned right away.
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9.41
Ponticus, do you think it is nothing that you never fuck (pussy), but use your left hand as a mistress and your hand serves as a friend for your lust? It is a crime, believe me, but a huge one, the force of which even your mind can grasp. Of course, Horace fucked once to produce three offspring; Mars once for chaste Ilia to give twins. All would have been lost if they both had masturbated and sent their filthy pleasure to their hands. Believe that nature itself is telling you how it is: 'That which you are losing in your fingers, Ponticus, is a human being.'
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9.47
You talk of Democritus, Zeno, inexplicable Plato, anyone who is covered with a hairy statue, almost as if you were Pythagoras' successor and heir. And a healthy beard which is not smaller than theirs hangs from your chin: but, what is late for the goat-smelling and shameful for the hairy, you gladly have a stiff one in your soft butt. You who know the origins and significances of the sects, tell me, Pannychus: getting fucked, what teaching is that?
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9.56
Spendophoros is going to Libya's cities as his lord's armor-bearer: Cupid, prepare shafts to give the boy, those with which you pierce youths and soft girls: But make sure there is also a smooth spear in his tender hand. Never mind about a breast-plate, shield, and helmet; and so that he will enter the battlefield safe, let him be nude: Parthenopaeus was not wounded by a javelin, a sword, or an arrow, as long as he was free of a metal helmet. Whoever is pierced by this one, will die of love. O happy one, who has such a good fate in store! Return while you are a boy, while your face is smooth; and do not let Libya, but your Roma make you a man [virum].
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9.57
Nothing is more worn-out than Hedylus's cloaks: not the handles of old Corinthian bronzes, not a shin made smooth by a shackle over ten years, not the skinned neck of a broken mule, not the grooves that cut through the Flaminian Way, not the pebbles sparkling on the beaches, not a hoe polished by a Tuscan vineyard, not the yellowish toga of a dead relative, not the shattered wheel of a slow-moving mule-driver, not the flank of a bison shaved by the cage, not the aged tooth of a fierce boar. But there is one thing that is [as smooth]: he himself will not deny it - Hedylus's ass is more worn-out than his cloaks.
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9.59
Walking around in the Enclosure [a Roman shopping mall] for a long time and often, there where golden Rome rummages among its wealth, Mamurra inspected soft boys, devouring them with his eyes, not those who are prostituted in the first booth, but those preserved on the decks of the secret slave platforms, whom neither the people nor my crowd see. Then when he had had enough of that, he stripped the tables and the hidden wheels, and asked for the tall oiled ivory to be exhibited, and after measuring four times a tortoise couch for six persons, he sighed that it was not big enough for his table, he consulted his nostrils as to whether the bronzes smelled of the air of Corinth, and criticized statues, even yours, Polyclites, and, complaining that the crystals were bothered by small amounts of glass, he marked and set aside ten stone vases. He weighed old wine cups and any drinking cups made noble by the hand of Mentor, and counted green gems in painted gold, and anything large that rings from a snowy ear; he asked for genuine sardonyxes at every table and made a price for large jaspers. When the tired man finally left after eleven hours, he bought two cups for a penny and carried them away himself.
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9.60
[Addressed to a female:] Whether you were born in the fields of Paestum or Tibur, or whether your blossom reddened the ground of Tusculum, or whether a foreman's wife picked you from a garden in Praeneste, or whether you were recently the glory of the Campanian countryside: in order to be seen as a more beautiful garland to our Sabinus, let him think you come from my place at Nomentum.
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9.63
All passives [cinaedi] invite you to dinner, Phoebus. He who is fed by a dick, is not, I think, a pure person [purus homo].
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9.66
Since your wife is beautiful, modest, and young, what need have you of the Right of Three Children, Fabullus? What you are seeking from our master and god, you will give yourself if you can get an erection.
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9.67
I enjoyed a lusty girl all night long, whose naughtiness no one can surpass. Tired out by a thousand different positions, I asked her for the boyish style: before I finished asking, she gave in at my first words. Laughing and blushing, I asked for something even more shameless: the lustful girl promised it without delay. But she was pure to me; she will not be to you, Aeschylus, if you are willing to accept this gift on bad conditions.
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9.69
When you fuck pussy, Polycharmus, you usually take a shit at the end. Polycharmus, what do you do when you are butt-fucked?
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9.73
You used to work old skins with your teeth and chew an old sole filthy with mud, now you hold the Praenestine lands of your deceased patron, where I would be upset to see you have even a cell; drunk, you break crystal with hot Falernian wine and you fool around with your master's Ganymede. And my stupid parents taught me my letters: what use to me are grammar and rhetoric teachers? Break your thin pens and tear up your little books, Thalia, if a shoe can give all that to a shoemaker.
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9.90
Where pebbles are agitated here and there by the whirling waters in sparkling streams, with all worries banished far away, may you punch through the ice with a black half-pint, your forehead red with sewn garlands; let there be a passive boy [puer cinaedus] for you alone, and let the purest girl fool around with you alone: Flaccus, I warn and beg you, beware of Cyprus, infamous for excessive heat, when the threshing floor threshes the noisy harvests and the fervent mane of Leo becomes fierce. And you, goddess of Paphos, return our young man unharmed to our vows. So may the Kalends of Mars serve you, and may many cut squares of cake be offered to you at your white altars, with incense, pure wine, and sacrifices.
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9.92
Condylus, although you groan that you have been a slave for such a long time, you do not know what evils belong to a master, what comforts to a slave. A cheap piece of mat gives you sound sleep, while behold Gaius lies awake all night on his featherbed. Gaius, trembling, greets so many masters from the first light of day, while you, Condylus, do not greet even your one master. "Pay back what you owe, Gaius," say Phoebus and, from far off, Cinnamus: no one says that to you, Condylus. Do you fear the torturer? Gaius is cut by arthritis in his hands and feet, and would rather suffer a thousand lashes. Because you neither vomit in the morning nor lick pussy, Condylus, wouldn't you rather have your life than Gaius's, three times over?
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9.95
Athenagoras was once Alfius, but now he has become Olphius ["smeller"], since he took a wife.
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9.103
What new Leda bore you such similar servants? What nude Laconian girl
has been caught by another swan? Pollux gave his face to Hierus, Castor
to Asylus, and in both shines the face of their sister Tyndaris. If such
beauty had been in Therapnaean Amyclae [Helen of Troy's homeland], when
lesser gifts defeated two goddesses, you would have stayed behind, Helen,
and Dardanian Paris would have returned to Phrygian Ida with twin Ganymedes.
MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS, BOOK X
------------------------------------------------------------------------
10.4
You who read about Oedipus and darkened Thyestes, about Colchian women and Scyllas, what else do you read about except wonders? What is kidnapped Hylas to you, what are Parthenopaeus and Attis, what good will sleeping Endymion do you? Or the boy stripped of his disintegrating wings, or Hermaphroditus, who dislikes the waters of love? How do the vain pretenses of a miserable sheet of paper help you? You should read that of which life can say, "This belongs to me." You won't find centaurs, gorgons, or harpies here: our writing tastes of man. But, Mamurra, you do not want to get to know your behavior or yourself: so read the Origins of Callimachus.
[I include this epigram only because of the characterization of the dual-gendered god Hermaphroditus, "who dislikes the waters of love".]
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10.8
Paula wants to give herself to me in marriage, but I do not want to take Paula in marriage: she is an old woman [anus with short a]. I would have wanted to if she were a bigger anus [anus with long a means butthole].
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10.12
Domitius, you who are going to the peoples of the Aemilian Way and the Apollonian town of Vercellae, and the fields of the Po, Phaethon's river, let me not live unless I let you go freely, but without you no day will be welcome to me: But missing you is worth it, so that for one harvest you can rest your sore neck from the urban yoke. I beg you, go and drink up all the sun with your greedy skin, -- O, how beautiful you will be while you are traveling! And you will come back unrecognizable to your white friends, and the pale crowd will envy your cheeks. But the color that the road has given, Rome will soon take away, even if you come back with the black face of a Nile-resident.
[An example of chaste love for another man. No sex is involved here.]
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10.13
If the Celtiberian river Salo leads me to the gold-bearing lands, if I would love to see the hanging roofs of my homeland, you are the reason, Manius, you who have been dear to me since my innocent years, whose friendship I cultivated while I still wore the juvenile toga; there is no other in Spain sweeter or more worthy of love. With you by my side, I could be a stranger in the African huts of Carthage or the houses of the Scythians, and love them. If you feel the same way, if you care for me in return, we two would have Rome wherever we were.
[See note for previous epigram.]
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10.22
Philaenis, you ask why I often go out with a bandage on my chin or with my healthy lips painted with white paint? I do not want to kiss you.
[Again, Philaenis is a woman's name.]
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10.32
You ask, Caedicianus, whose face is portrayed in this picture that I am decorating with violets and roses? Such was Marcus Antonius Primus in his middle years: in it, the old man sees himself as a youth. If only art could depict his morals and his soul! There would be no more beautiful panel in the world.
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10.40
Since I was always being told that my Polla was shut away in secret with a passive [cinaedo], I intruded, Lupus. He was not a passive [cinaedus].
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10.42
Your down is so dubious, so soft, that a breath or sunshine or a light breeze wears it away. They disappear like coming Cretan wool, which shines when stripped by a virgin thumb. Whenever I press on you five strong kisses, I get a beard off of your lips, Dindymus.
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10.52
After having seen Thelys the eunuch [spadonem] wearing a toga, Numa pronounced him a convicted adulteress.
[Numa was a legendary and famously wise Roman king. Convicted adulteresses were required to wear the toga, a men's garment.]
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10.55
Whenever Marulla has weighed an erect penis with her fingers and measured it for a long time, she tells the pounds, scruples, and sextules; after the deed and its contortions, when the same lies like a loose strap, Marulla tells how much lighter it is. Therefore, that is not a hand, it is a scale.
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10.64
Queen Polla, if you touch my little books, do not receive our amusements with a stern brow. That poet of yours, the glory of our Helicon, while he sounded fierce wars with a Pierian trumpet, nonetheless he did not blush to say in lustful verse: "If I am not even getting buttfucked, Cotta, what am I doing here?"
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10.65
Since you boast of being a fellow citizen of Corinthian wares, and no one contradicts you, why am I called a brother to you, when I am born of Iberians and Celts and a fellow citizen of the Tagus river? Do we seem to have similar faces? You go around well-groomed with curled tresses, I with defiant Spanish hair; you are smooth from a daily hair-remover, I am hairy on my legs and cheeks; your mouth is lisping and your tongue is weak, even a daughter of mine will speak louder: An eagle is not more different from a dove, or a fleeing doe from a sturdy lion. Therefore, Charmenion, stop calling me a "brother", lest I call you a "sister."
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10.66
Who, I ask, was so harsh, who so arrogant, that he ordered that you should be made a cook, Theopompus? Is anyone capable of injuring this face with a black kitchen, of polluting these locks with greasy fire? Who is more able to hold ladles or crystal cups? Mixed by what hand will Falernian wine taste better? If this end awaits such star-like servants, let Jupiter now employ Ganymede as a cook.
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10.75
Once Galla asked me for twenty thousand, and I declare, she was not too expensive. A year went by: She said, "You will give ten thousand." She seemed to me to be asking for more than before. Then after six months, she asked me for two thousand, I gave one thousand coins. She did not want to accept. Two or maybe three months passed, and she herself of her own accord asked for four gold pieces. I did not give them. She ordered me to send a hundred coins: But even this sum seemed too high to me. A meager gift provided me with a hundred nickels; she wanted this: I told her that I had given them to a boy. Could she come down any lower? She did. She gives it for free, without being asked Galla offers it to me: I decline.
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10.80
Eros cries whenever he inspects cups of spotted murrine or boys or a very nice citrus table, and heaves sighs from the bottom of his chest, because the wretch is unable to buy up the whole Enclosure [a Roman shopping mall] and carry it home. How many do what Eros does, but with dry eyes! The majority laugh at his tears, while having them inside.
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10.81
When two came one morning to Phyllis in order to fuck, and each one desired to take her first, Phyllis promised to give herself to both of them at the same time, and she did so: One lifted the foot, the other the tunic.
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10.90
Ligeia, why do you pluck your old pussy? Why do you stir up the ashes of your tomb? Such refinements are appropriate for girls - for you cannot be seen to be even an old woman - believe me, Ligeia, this is a nice practice not for Hector's mother, but for his wife. You are wrong if this thing seems to you to be a pussy which is never touched by a dick. Therefore, if you have any shame, Ligeia, do not pluck the beard of a dead lion.
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10.91
Almo has only eunuchs [eunuchos], nor does he himself get an erection: And he complains that his Polla gives birth to nothing.
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10.95
Galla, your man [vir] and your adulterous lover sent your baby back to you. I think that, without doubt, they are denying having fucked you.
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10.98
When a servant more enervated than Ida's passive [cinaedo] [i.e. Ganymede] pours me Caecuban wine, whom neither your daughter nor your wife nor your mother nor your sister lying there surpass in terms of grooming, had you rather I looked at your lamps or your old citrus table or your Indian tusks? However, so that I should not be suspected while lying here, supply me from the crowd on your shabby farm, shaved, unsophisticated, crude, puny sons of a goat-smelling swineherd. This resentment of yours will ruin you: Publius, you cannot maintain these morals and these servants.
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10.102
By what means, you ask, did Philinus, who never fucks pussy, become a father? Avitus, let Gaditanus answer that, who never writes anything and yet is a poet.
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MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS, BOOK XI
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11.8
The aroma of wilted balsam in yesterday's vases, the last smell that falls from the curved saffron; apples ripening in their winter box, a field luxurious with spring trees; of silks from our Mistress's Palatine clothes presses, amber thawed in a virgin's hand, a broken bottle of black Falernian wine, but from far away, or a garden keeping Sicanian bees; the scent of Cosmus's alabaster and the hearths of the gods, or of a garland just fallen from rich locks: why do I talk of these things? They are not enough; all mixed together, this is the fragrance of my boy's morning kisses. You want to know his name? If it's because of the kisses, I will say it. You swear. Sabinus, you want to know too much.
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11.20
Spiteful person, you who read Latin words with a grim attitude, read six lustful verses by Augustus Caesar: "Because Antonius fucks Glaphyra, Fulvia set me this punishment that I should fuck her too. What, me fuck Fulvia? What if Manius begged me to buttfuck him? Would I do it? I think not, if I have any sense. 'Either fuck, or we will do battle,' she says. What if my dick is more important to me than life itself? Let the trumpets sound!" Augustus, you of course absolve my little books, you who know how to speak with Roman plainness.
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11.21
Lydia is as loose as the ass of a bronzed horseman, as a swift hoop that rings with the melodious bronze, as the wheel so often passed through with the springboard without being touched, as an old shoe soaked in muddy water, as the sparse nets that wait for errant thrushes, as the awnings denied to the wind at Pompey's Theater, as a bracelet fallen from a tuberculotic passive [cinaedo], as a mattress having lost its Leuconian wool, as old trousers of a Britonic pauper, and as the ugly throat of a Ravennan pelican. I am said to have fucked her in a marine fishpond. I do not know; I think I fucked the fishpond.
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11.22
That you wear down snowy Galaesius's soft kisses with your hard mouth, that you lie with nude Ganymede, - who denies it? - this is too much. But let it be enough; at least refrain from provoking their groins with your hand, letting it be fucked like a pussy. The hand sins more than the dick with smooth boys, and the fingers make and precipitate [his becoming a] man [virum]: hence come body-odor and swift hairs and a beard to make a mother amazed, and baths in the clear daylight are not pleasing. Nature divides the male [marem]: one part is made for girls, and one part is made for (grown) males [viris]. Use the part that belongs to you.
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11.23
Sila is prepared to give herself to me in marriage on any terms; but I do not want to take Sila in marriage on any terms. However, when she insists, I say: "As my fiancée, you will give me as a dowry a million in gold." "No problem." "And I will not fuck you as your husband, not even on our wedding night, and I will not share my bed with you; and I will embrace my girlfriend, and you will not forbid it, and when commanded, you will send me your slave girl. Before your eyes the servant will give me lustful kisses, whether he is mine or yours. You will come to dinner, but you will lie apart from me so that your gown does not touch mine. You will on rare occasion give me kisses, and not like a bride but like an elderly mother, and you will not give them to anyone else. If you can put up with these things, if there is nothing you refuse to tolerate, then you will find someone to marry you, Sila."
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11.25
That too salacious dick, known to no small number of girls, has ceased to become erect for Linus. Watch out, tongue.
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11.26
O my welcome rest, o charming care, Telesphorus, such a one as has never before been in my embrace, give me kisses, boy, moist with old Falernian wine, give me cups made smaller by your lips. If you add on top of this the true joys of love, I will deny that Jupiter is better off with Ganymede.
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11.28
Nasica, a phrenetic, attacked Doctor Euctus's Hylas and hammered him. This one, I think, was sane.
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11.29
When you begin to handle my languid male genitals with your old right hand, Phyllis, you murder me with your thumb. Then when you call me "mouse" or "light of my eyes", I think I will be able to recover my strength (perhaps) in ten hours. You do not know enticement: say "I will give you a hundred thousand and I will give you reliable acres of Setine soil; take wine, a house, boys, gold-inlaid dishes, tables." A finger is not needed: rub me this way, Phyllis.
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11.30
You say that the mouths of lawyers and poets smell bad. But that of a cocksucker smells worse, Zoilus.
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11.40
Lupercus loves beautiful Glycera and he alone holds her and he alone rules over her. When the poor guy complained that he had not fucked her in a whole month and then wanted to give the reason to Aelianus, who was asking, he responded that Glycera's teeth hurt.
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11.43
Wife, you attack me, caught in the act with a boy, with harsh words, and you point out that you too have an ass. How many times did Juno say the same thing to the Thunderer! However that one lies with big Ganymede. Tirynthius used to put down his bow and bend Hylas over: don't you think Megara had a butt? Fugitive Daphne tortured Phoebus: but the Oebalian boy made those flames go out. Although Briseis lay many times with her back turned, his smooth friend was closer to the son of Aeacus. Therefore, refrain from giving masculine names to your things, wife, and think of yourself as having two pussies.
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11.45
Whenever you cross the threshold of a marked cubicle, whether you are attracted by a boy or a girl, you are not content with doors and a curtain and a bolt, you demand greater secrecy for yourself: if there is suspicion of the smallest crack or hole punctured by a sharp needle, they are sealed up. No one has such a tender and worried modesty, Cantharus, who either butt-fucks or pussy-fucks.
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11.46
Now you do not get an erection, Mevius, except in your sleep, and your unsheathed penis has begun to pee in the middle of your feet, your shriveled dick is pulled by your tired fingers and, thus solicited, does not even lift its extinguished head. Why do you vainly arouse miserable pussies and asses? You should seek the uppermost part: there an elderly dick is alive.
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11.47
Why does Lattara avoid all the baths popular with the female crowds? In order not to fuck pussy. Why does he not take slow walks in the shadow of Pompey's Theater or seek out the thresholds of the Isis temples? In order not to fuck pussy. Why does he drench his body, covered in Lacedaemonian mud, with Virgin ice water? In order not to fuck pussy. Since he avoids contact with the female gender in such a way, why does Lattara lick pussy? In order not to fuck pussy.
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11.49 (11.50)
There is not an hour for you that you do not plunder furious me, Phyllis: you rob me with so much skill. Now your deceitful slave girl weeps over a mirror left behind, or a gem falls from your finger or a stone falls from your ear; now stolen silk garments demand to generate money, now a dry onyx box of Cosmus' is offered to me; now a decayed bottle of black Falernian wine is asked for, in order that a talkative witch will avert your dreams; now so that I will buy a large pike or a two-pound red mullet, a rich friend has announced she is coming to your place for dinner. Have some shame and at last respect for the truth and for fairness: I do not deny you anything, Phyllis; Phyllis, do not deny me anything.
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11.51
The pillar that hangs down from Titius is as big as the one that the Lampsacian girls revere. He bathes in large baths all to himself, with no partners or annoyances. Nonetheless, Titius bathes in a tight space.
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11.56
Charemon, you Stoic, because you praise death too much, do you expect me to admire and look up to your soul? You possess this virtue because of your broken-handled jug, your gloomy hearth warmed by no fire, and a mat, and a bedbug, and the frame of a bare cot, and a short toga that you wear day and night. O what a great person you are, being able to leave behind the dregs of red vinegar and straw and black bread! Let your cushion be stuffed with Leuconian wool, and let your couches be lined with purple weaves, and let a boy sleep with you who recently tormented guests with his rosy face as he mixed Caecuban wine: O how you will yearn to live three times the years of Nestor and will want to lose nothing of any day! In dire straits it is easy to condemn life: he who is able to live poorly can boast strength.
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11.58
When you see that I want it, Telesphorus, and you feel my hard-on, you ask for a lot - suppose I wanted to refuse: can I? - And unless I say under oath, "I will give it", you take away those buttocks that provide you with many things from me. What if the barber, with the razor hanging over me, were at that moment to demand freedom and wealth from me? I would promise it; and at that time it is not a barber asking, but a thief; fear is a powerful thing. But once the razor is in a safe curved case, I will break the barber's legs and hands as well. And to you I will do nothing, but with washed wool my dick will tell your covetous greed to fuck off.
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11.60
You ask whether Phlogis or Chione is more apt for love? Chione is prettier; but Phlogis has a tender spot; she has a tender spot that could make Priam's soft leather hard, and that would not allow old man Pelias be old; she has a tender spot that everyone wants his girl to have, that Criton can heal, but not Hygia. And Chione does not feel the act, or help out with any words, you would think she was absent or made of marble. Gods, if it is permitted to prevail upon you for such great things, and if you are willing to give such precious favors, make Phlogis have the body that Chione has, and let Chione have the tender spot that Phlogis has.
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11.61
A husband with his tongue, an adulteror with his mouth, Nanneius is filthier than Summemmian cheeks. When obscene Leda sees him nude from a Suburan window, she closes the brothel and prefers to kiss the middle than the top. He that recently went through all the abdominal tubes and stated with a definite and knowledgeable voice whether a boy or girl was in the womb of its mother - rejoice, pussies; this deed is done for your sake - cannot make his pussy-fucking tongue get hard. For while he was stuck deep in a swelling womb and heard the bawling infants inside, an indecent disease weakened the gourmet body part. Now he can be neither pure or impure.
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11.62
Lesbia swears that she has never been fucked for free. It's true. When she wants to be fucked, she usually pays for it.
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11.63
Philomusus, you watch us while we bathe, and you promptly ask why my smooth boys have such big dicks. I will answer you and your questioning very simply: they butt-fuck nosy people, Philomusus.
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11.66
You are both an informer and a slanderer, you are both a con-man and a salesman, you are both a cocksucker and gladiator trainer. I wonder why you haven't got any coin, Vacerra.
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11.70
Tucca, are you capable of selling those you bought for a hundred thousand? Are you capable of selling your masters with them crying, Tucca? Are you not moved by their charms, their words, and their rough complaints, by their necks wounded by your tooth? Oh, outrage! With their tunic lifted, their groins are revealed on both sides, and their dicks, crafted by your hand, are inspected. If you desire money paid out, then sell silver, tables, murrine stone, land, a house, sell old slaves, they will forgive you, sell your father's slaves: Sell everything else, wretch, in order not to sell your boys. It is extravagant to buy them - for who doubts or denies this? - but it is much more extravagant to sell them.
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11.71
Leda told her old husband that she was hysterical and complained that being fucked is a necessity for her; but crying and lamenting she denies that this is healthy and reports that she has rather determined to die. The man [vir] asks her to live and not to desert her green years, and he permits that, what he no longer does, should be done. Right away the male doctors come forward and the female doctors step back, and her feet are lifted. What severe medicine!
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11.72
Natta devours the wee-wee of his athlete, compared to whom Priapus is emasculated [gallus].
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11.73
Lygdus, when I ask, you always swear to me that you will come and you set the hour and you set the place. When I have lain in vain for a long time with my horniness stretched tight, my left hand often helps me out in your place. What should I wish on you, oh false one, for such offenses and such behavior? Lygdus, may you bear the parasol of a one-eyed mistress [i.e. the foreskin of a dick?].
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11.74
Baccara the Rhaetian entrusted his penis for treatment to a rival doctor. Baccara will be a Gaul [Gallus = emasculated].
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11.75
Caelia, your slave bathes with you while covered in a bronze sheath; for what reason, I ask, since he is not a lyre-singer or flute-player? I guess you do not want to see his dick. So why do you bathe in public? Are we all eunuchs [spadones] according to you? Therefore, in order not to appear stingy, Caelia, drop the safety-pin.
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11.77
Vacerra spends hours in all the public toilets, sitting all day long. Vacerra wants to have a dinner, not take a shit.
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11.78
Practice feminine embraces, practice, Victor, and let your dick learn an act unknown to it. The bridal veils of your fiancée are being woven, the virgin is already being prepared, soon the new bride will be shaving your boys [or maybe "your boyish testicles"?]. She will allow her desirous husband to buttfuck her once, while she fears the first wound of the new shaft: her nurse and her mother will forbid this to happen more often and will say: "She is your wife, not your boy." Oh, what agitations, what ordeals you will suffer, if the pussy is a foreign thing to you! Therefore, hand yourself over as a novice to a Suburan mistress. She will make you a male [virum]; a virgin is not a good teacher.
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11.81
Together with an old man, the eunuch [spado] Dindymus harasses Aeglis and the girl lies dry on the middle of the bed. In one case, the male powers, in the other case, the useful years are missing for the deed. Therefore, the work of both arouses to no effect. She humbly begs for herself and the two wretches, that you, Venus, will make this one a youth, and that one a male [virum].
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11.85
Zoilus, your tongue was unexpectedly struck by a star [i.e. paralyzed] while you were licking. Certainly, Zoilus, now you fuck (pussy).
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11.87
You were once rich: but at that time you were a butt-fucker and for a long time no woman was known to you. Now you run after old women. Oh, how much poverty forces! She makes you, Charidemus, a pussy-fucker.
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11.88
Lupus, Carisianus says he has been incapable of buttfucking for many days now. When his friends recently asked the reason, he said his bowels were loose.
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11.94
That you are excessively jealous of my little books and disparage them everywhere, I forgive: circumsized poet, you have sense. I also do not care that, while you cut my songs to pieces, you plagiarize them: in this way, too, uncircumsized poet, you have sense. What torments me is that, while born in Jerusalem itself, you butt-fuck my boy, circumsized poet. Behold, you deny it and swear to me by the temple of the Thunderer [Jupiter]. I do not believe it: swear, circumsized one, by Anchiale [the tomb of Sardanapalus, a notoriously licentious Eastern ruler].
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11.95
Whenever you come upon the kisses of cocksuckers, Flaccus, imagine that you are submerging your head in bathwater.
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11.97
I can do it four times in one night: but I'll be damned if I can do you once in four years, Telesilla.
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11.100
Flaccus, I do not want a skinny girlfriend, whose upper arms would be encircled by my rings, who could shave me with her naked butt, and pierce me with her knee, who has a saw projecting from her back and a spearhead from her butt. But by the same token, I do not want a girlfriend who weighs a thousand pounds. I'm a meat-lover, not a fat-lover.
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11.103
Your modesty of mind and appearance is such, Safronius, that I wonder that you could become a father.
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MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS, BOOK XII
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12.12
After having drunk all night, you promise everything; in the morning you provide nothing. Pollio, drink in the morning.
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12.16
Labienus, you sold three small fields; Labienus, you bought three passives: Labienus, you are butt-fucking three small fields.
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12.20
Fabullus, you ask why Themison does not have a wife? He has a sister.
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12.33
In order to buy boys, Labienus sold gardens. Now Labienus has nothing but a "fig plantation".
[Fig is a euphemism for hemorrhoids.]
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12.34
If I remember, Julius, I have had thirty-four summers with you. Their sweetnesses were mixed with bitternesses, but the pleasantnesses were more; and if every pebble were sorted on this side and that into two different colored piles, the white pile would exceed the black. If you want to avoid particular bitternesses and guard against severe bites to the heart, do not make anyone too close a friend: You will enjoy less and suffer less.
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12.35
Callistratus, you have a habit of telling me often that you have been hammered, as if you were being upfront with me. You are not as upfront, Callistratus, as you want to be believed. For anyone who tells so many things, keeps quiet about more.
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12.38
This one who day and night appears by feminine chairs, who is all too well known throughout the city, with shining hair, black from ointment, very bright in purple, tender of face, broad of chest, smooth of leg, who often clings to your wife as a shameless companion, it is not what you fear, Candidus: he doesn't fuck pussy.
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12.42
Bearded Callistratus gave himself in marriage to stiff Afer, in the manner in which a virgin usually gives herself in marriage to a male [viro]. The torches shone in front, the bridal veils covered his face, and wedding toasts were not absent, either. A dowry was also named. Does that not seem enough yet for you, Rome? Are you waiting for him to give birth?
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12.49
Linus, educator of the long-haired crowd, whom rich Postumilla calls master of her things and to whom she entrusts her gems, gold, wine, (male) concubines: You who have been tested for perpetual faith, may your patroness prefer no one over you: I beg you, aid my miserable fury and watch negligently sometime over them that cause my heart to burn badly, those that day and night I longingly wish to see in my bosom, the beautiful, snow-white, equal twins, the large, not boys, but pearls.
[Note: "Like a pearl" seems to have been a compliment for a beautiful boy. In the Qur'anic vision of Paradise, the believers will be waited on by boys "the like of scattered pearls."]
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12.64
Cinna has made a cook out of one who surpasses his rosy servants in face and hair. Cinna, you are a gourmand.
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12.65
After beautiful Phyllis provided me with everything all night long, generous in every way, and I thought in the morning about what I would give in payment, whether a pound of Cosmus ointment or Nicerotian perfume, or a full weight of Baetican wool, or ten gold coins from Caesar's currency: with her arms around my neck and charming me with a kiss as long as the nuptials of doves, Phyllis begins to ask for a bottle of wine.
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12.70
Recently, when a knock-kneed young home-born slave still carried him his towels and a one-eyed old woman still watched over his gown and a masseur suffering from an intestinal hernia still gave him his single drop of oil, Aper was a stern and harsh critic of heavy drinkers. He clamored that the cups should be broken, and that the Falernian wine, which a recently washed knight was drinking, should be poured out. After having received three hundred thousand from an elderly paternal uncle, now he does not know how to go home sober from the baths anymore. Oh what strength there is in pierced-work and five long-haired boys! Back when he was a poor man, Aper was not thirsty.
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12.71
Lygdus, you deny me everything I ask for: yet at one time, Lygdus, you used to deny me nothing.
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12.75
Polytimus is anxious to be with girls; Hymnus does not like to call himself a boy; Secundus's buttocks are overfed with "acorns" [i.e. heads of penises]; Dindymus is soft, but does not want to be; Amphion could have been born a girl. Avitus, I would rather have their mannerisms and arrogance and complaining contempt, than a dowry of two hundred thousand sesterces.
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12.85
You say that the mouths of buttfuckers stink. If it is true as you say, Fabullus: What do you think stinks on a pussy-licker?
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12.86
You have thirty boys and just as many girls: you have one dick, and it does not get hard. What will you do?
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12.91
Magulla, since you share a small bed as well as a (male) whore [exoletus] with your husband, tell me why you don't share a cupbearer. You sigh; the reason is, you fear the bottle [of poison, says Shackleton Bailey].
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12.93
Labulla discovered means by which to kiss her adulterous lover in the presence of her husband. She kisses her small fool continuously; the adulteror immediately catches hold of him wet with many kisses, and at once sends him back to the smiling lady of the house full of his own [kisses]. How much more of a fool is the husband!
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12.96
Since you know your husband's life and fidelity belong to you, [my wife,] and no other woman presses or threatens your marriage bed, why do you torture yourself foolishly because of servants as though they were mistresses? Love with them is both brief and fleeting. I will prove to you that boys provide more to you than to their master: They make it so that you are your man's only woman [femina sola viro]; they give what you, wife, do not want to give. 'But I will give it,' you say, 'so that my spouse's love will not go wandering astray from the marriage bed.' It is not the same thing: I want a cherry, not a prune: So that you have no doubt about which is the cherry, yours is the prune. A matron and woman should know her limitations: Leave their part to the boys, and use yours.
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12.97
Although your wife is like a young girl, such as a shameless husband would hardly dare ask for in his prayers, rich, noble, educated, and chaste, yet you explode your loins with long-haired boys, Bassus, whom you have paid for with your wife's dowry. And so your dick, which she paid for with many thousands, returns to your mistress weak; and it won't get hard, neither excited by charming words nor solicited by a soft thumb. Have some shame, finally, or we will go to law. This thing does not belong to you, Bassus: you sold it.
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MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS, BOOK XIII XENIA
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26 Sorb apples.
We are sorb apples, tightening bellies that are too soft: you will do better to give this apple to your boy than to yourself.
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34. Onions.
Since your wife is an old woman and your members are dead, you can be sated with nothing else but onions.
[Onions were considered an aphrodisiac.]
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63. Capons.
So that he will not become too thin from overdraining his groin, the chicken [gallus] lost his testicles. Now that's what I call a chicken [gallus = castrated male].
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64. The same.
In vain the hen [gallina] submits to her sterile husband. He should have been Mother Cybele's bird.
[Cybele, the Mother Goddess, had castrated and natural eunuchs as priests, who were called galli, which also meant chicken.]
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MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS (APOPHORETA)
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205 Boy.
Let me have a boy who is smooth due to age, not due to a pumice stone,
because of whom no girl will be pleasing to me.