(It is forbidden even to mention thee (viz. the penis) in serious discourse. I have begun to do penance for my words and to feel the glow of a secret blush, because forgetful of my modesty I expressed in words that part of the body, which men of the stricter type refuse to admit even into their thoughts.) So the collector of Priapeia appeals to the reader: Conveniens Latio pone supercilium! (Lay aside the disapproving frown that befits Latium); and later on people used to say of such talk, they wished to speak plain _Latin_, just as we say, speak _plain English_; while the Greek would excuse himself by his ἄγροικος καὶ ἄμουσός εἰμι, (I am but am unpolished rustic).
[7] _Athenaeus_, Deipnosoph. bk. XIII. ch. 21.—Comp. _Aristotle_, Politics bk. VII. ch. 17.
[8] Bk. XII. Epigr. 43.—Comp. _H. Paldamus_, “Römische Erotik.” Greisswald 1833. large 8vo.
Ludens haec ego teste te, Priape, Horto carmina digna, non libello; Ergo quidquid est, quod otiosus Templi parietibus tui notavi In partem accipias bonam rogamus.
Quisquis venerit huc, poeta fiat, Et versus mihi dedicet iocosos; Qui non fecerit, inter eruditos Ficosissimus ambulet poeta.
Tu quicunque vides circa tectoria nostra Non nimium casti carmina plena ioci;
(The songs I sing, thou art my witness, Priapus, are worthy but of a garden, not of a book. Wherefore whate’er it be that in leisure hours I have writ on thy temple-walls, receive, we pray, in good part.)
(Whosoe’er comes hither must become a poet and dedicate to me some merry lines; whoe’er refuses, amidst the learned let him walk most wooden of poets.—N.B. _ficosus_ means at once like a fig-tree and _afflicted with piles_; perhaps we might render “most costive of poets”.)
(Thou beholdest, whoe’er thou art, around the plaster of our walls lines teeming with not too chastened a wit.)
also in _Martial_, bk. XII. Epigr. 62. we read:
Qui carbone rudi, putrique creta Scribit carmina, quae legunt cacantes.
(Who with rough charcoal or crumbly chalk writes verses that men read as they shit.)
[10] _Clement of Alexandria_, Paedag. bk. II. ch. 10. ὅσοι δὲ τὴν παραβολὴν διώκουσι, πταίουσι περὶ τὸ κατὰ φύσιν, _σφᾶς αὐτοὺς βλάπτοντες_, κατὰ τὰς παρανόμους συνουσίας.
(“Now they that follow the parable sin aginst nature, _hurting their own selves_, according to their lawless conversation.”)