Note 23 — Second Part.

Lampridius, Life of Heliogabalus ch. 5. Clement of Alexandria, Paedag. bk. III. p. 254. edit. Potter, ἁβροδίαιτος περιεργία πάντα ζητεῖ, πάντα ἐπιχειρεῖ, βιάζεται πάντα· συνέχει τὴν φύσιν· τὰ γυναικῶν οἱ ἄνδρες πεπόνθασιν καὶ γυναῖκες ἀνδρίζονται παρὰ φύσιν· γαμούμεναί τε καὶ γαμοῦσαι γυναῖκες· πόρος δὲ οὐδεὶς ἄβατος ἀκολασίας. (delicately-living idleness searches out all things, attempts all things, forces all things. It constrains Nature. Men have come to endure the treatment proper to women, while women act as men contrary to nature; women are both given in marriage and themselves take men in marriage, and no way of impurity is left untrod. Again of a similar significance are perhaps the words μυριοστόμος (ten-thousand-mouthed) and ἀθυροστόμος, ἀθυροστομία, ἀθυροστομέω (unrestrained of mouth, unrestrainedness of mouth, to be unrestrained of mouth), and εὐρόστομος (wide-mouthed). Epicrates said of a lecherous girl, ἡδ’ἀρ’ἦν μυωνία (she was a regular mouse-hole), and Philemon called another μῦς λεύκος) (white mouse), while Aelian, Hist. Anim. Bk. XII. ch. 10, gives yet another similar expression, μυωνίαν ὅλην ὀνομάσας (having named her a complete mouse-hole); she is a perfect mouse-hole, in other words she has as many entrances as a mouse-hole. Instead of μυριοχαύνη we might also read μυριομήχανος (of ten-thousand devices), referring to the fessus mille modis (fatigued by a thousand modes of pleasure) in Martial, bk. IX. 58. and on the analogy of Δωδεκαμήχανος (of a dozen devices), a name borne by the “fille de joie” Cyrené, because she had contrived twelve different postures of Love. Comp. Suidas, under word δωδεκαμήχανος, and the Scholiast on Aristophanes, “Frogs” 1356. Also μιαροχάνη (μιαρὸς, polluted) might be defended, on reference to Aristophanes, Acharnians 271-285.