The Satyricon — Volume 06: Editor's Notes by 20-66 Petronius Arbiter
page 29 of 69 (42%)
page 29 of 69 (42%)
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you, but for me no girl can be too naked. For me be kisses like the
cooing doves; your kisses are like those you give your grandmother in the morning. You do not condescend to assist in the performance by your movements or your sighs or your hand; (you behave) as if you were taking the sacrament. The Phrygian slaves masturbated themselves behind the couch whenever Hector's wife rode St. George; and, however much Ulysses snored, the chaste Penelope always had her hand there. You forbid my sodomising you. Cornelia granted this favor to Gracchus; Julia to Pompey, Porcia to Brutus. Juno was Jupiter's Ganymede before the Dardan boy mixed the luscious cup. If you are so devoted to propriety--be a Lucretia to your heart's content all day, I want a Lais at night." xi, 105. "Since your husband's mode of life and his fidelity are known to you, and no woman usurps your rights, why are you so foolish as to be annoyed by his boys, (as if they were his mistresses), with whom love is a transient and fleeting affair? I will prove to you that you gain more by the boys than your lord: they make your husband keep to one woman. They give what a wife will not give. 'I grant that favor,' you say, 'sooner than that my husband's love should wander from my bed.' It is not the same thing. I want the fig of Chios, not a flavorless fig; and in you this Chian fig is flavorless. A woman of sense and a wife ought to know her place. Let the boys have what concerns them, and confine yourself to what concerns you." xii, 97. "Wife, you scold me with a harsh voice when I'm caught with a boy, and inform me that you too have a bottom. How often has Juno said the same to the lustful Thunderer? And yet he sleeps with the tall Ganymede. The Tirynthian Hero put down his bow and sodomised Hylas. Do you think that Megaera had no buttocks? Daphne inspired Phoebus with love as she fled, |
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