Note 399 — FIRST SECTION. (continued 3)

Ταῦτα δὲ τοῖσί τε Σκύθῃσι πρόσεστι, καὶ εὐνουχοειδέστατοί εἰσι ἀνθρώπων διὰ τὰς προφάσιας, καὶ ὅτι ἀναξυρίδας ἔχουσι ἀεὶ καὶ εἰσι ἐπὶ τῶν ἵππων τὸ πλεῖστον τοῦ χρόνου, ὥστε μήτε χειρὶ ἅπτεσθαι τοῦ αἰδοίου, ὑπό τε τοῦ ψύχεος καὶ τοὺ κόπου ἐπιλήθεσθαι τοῦ ἱμέρου καὶ τῆς μίξιος, καὶ μηδὲν παρακινέειν πρότερον ἢ ἀνανδρωθῆναι. for translation see text above: “And this is the case ..., to resign their manly privilege.” We have it is true translated according to the text, yet we cannot possibly take this as being uncorrupted, but without for the moment being in a position to offer a complete emendation of it. The sequence of thought, if we are not altogether in error, is this: The Scythians ride continually, which of its self weakens their power of generation and desire for coition, then besides this they wear trousers, a thing that particularly struck the Greek because he did not use them himself. These trousers were so tight, that the wearer could not get at the genitals with his hand; again the genitals lay close to the body, did not hang down, could not be set in motion; at the same time they were also protected against the wind, so that no cooling process could take place; the idle repose and the constantly heightened temperature in combination weakened the genitals to such a degree that the impulse to coition was at last totally lost. Views which entirely agree with our experience of the present day, and indeed were by Faust, as is notorious, exaggerated almost to caricature. Now if Hippocrates has expressed, as is likely enough, these views in the words ὑπό τε τοῦ ψύχεος καὶ τοῦ κόπου (under the influence of cold and lassitude), the text must be corrupt, and this is what we wish to insist on. For if by the words we understand frost and lassitude, then the first at any rate is impossible; how could the Scythians suffer from frost, when they wore trousers! Then the cooling process spoken of just now must be intended by ψύχος (cold)! But if κόπος (striking, beating, so weariness, lassitude) is understood literally, in accordance with its derivation from κόπτω (to strike), in the sense of blows, shocks, and taken as referring to the genitals, especially the testicles, a negative and a verb must have been lost from the text, and this appears to us too the most probable explanation, though at the time we cannot say what verb. The matter would be at once decided, if we could translate: so that they could not put the hand to the genitals, and since these were encountered neither by the cooling wind, nor yet by the shock (against the horse’s back or the saddle), they forgot the desire for coition and coition itself, i.e. the genitals being neither fortified by the cold nor yet set in motion, do not remind the Scythians of the fact that they have such organs and must use them. The movement (κίνησις) in riding is at any rate regarded as early as Aristotle (Probl. bk. IV. 12.) as cause of the greater lasciviousness of those who ride. He asks: Quare qui equitant libidinosiores evadunt? An caloris agitationisque causa eodem afficiuntur modo, quo per coitum. Quocirca aetatis quoque accessione membra genitalia contrectata agitataque plenius augentur, quod igitur semper eo utuntur motu qui equitant, hinc fluentiore corpore praeparatoque ad concumbendum evadunt. (Why those who ride come to be more lascivious? Is it that on account of the heat and movement they are affected in the same way as by coition? Wherefore as age also advances, the genital organs being handled and moved more, are the more increased in size, so therefore because those who ride use the same movement hence they come to be of a more fluid body and one ready prepared for sexual intercourse). In Probl. 24. he is investigating the causes of the erection of the penis, and says διά τε τὸ βάρος ἐπιγίνεσθαι ἐν τῷ ὄπισθεν τῶν ὄρχεων αἴρεσθαι (now it is on account of the increase of weight in the hinder part of the testicles that it is raised). Comp. Probl. 25. Continual riding naturally stimulates the impulse, wherefore the Scythians are the first in later times to become ἀνάνδριες (unmanly), and this sooner than other riding nations because they wore trousers. However those who are better informed must decide the point!—Finally that in any case ἀνανδρωθῆναι (to be made unmanly) and not ἀνδρωθῆναι (to be made manly) must be read, any one who considers the passage at all carefully must easily see. Coray’s lucubration cannot for a moment convince us.