Note 92 — Chapter IV · OF MASTURBATION

Martial’s meaning is: My left hand will console my suffering mentula; the business done, my hand covered with the ejaculation of the sperm, like the fleece on the pubis of Ravola in Juvenal, IX., 4,—if indeed it is the fleece of his pubis that is intended:

“Whilst Ravola with wet beard rubs the groin of Rhodopé” ... the greedy cinede will be told to go to the deuce, to slink off with drooping head, like the man in Horace (Satires II., 69), who finds:

“Nothing is left to him and his but to weep.”

This moist hand reminds us of the adulterous woman in Juvenal, XI., 186, who:

“Show humid traces in the doubtful pleats of her tunic.”