Page:The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter (1922), vol. 2.djvu/269

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
POLLUTION
 

same use of a woman as of a boy, and thereby open a double avenue to enjoyment; but the male can never afford the same enjoyment as the female.

“Therefore, if you are convinced by my arguments, let us, men and women, keep ourselves apart, as if a wall divided us; but, if it is becoming for men to have intercourse with men, for the future let women have intercourse with women. Come, O new generation, inventor of strange pleasures! As you have devised new methods to satisfy male lust, grant the same privilege to women; let them have intercourse with one another like men, girding themselves with the infamous instruments of lust, an unholy imitation of a fruitless union; in a word, let our wanton Tribads reign unchecked, and let our women’s chambers be disgraced by hermaphrodites. Far better that a woman, in the madness of her lust, should usurp the nature of a man, than that man’s noble nature should be so degraded as to play the woman!


IV.

Embasicetas fut bientôt au comble de ses voeux.
The Catamite soon reached the height of his passion.

The theologians class this species of lascivious feeling with pollution which is complete when it produces

497