Note 55 — Second Part.
Reading edition
Catullus, Carm. 80.:
Quid dicam, Gelli, quare rosea ista labella Hiberna fiant candidiora nive, Mane domo cum exis, et cum te octava quiete E molli longo suscitat hora die. Nescio quid certe est. An vere fama susurrat, Grandia te medii tenta vorare viri? Sic certe clamant Virronis rupta miselli Ilia, et emulso labra notata sero.
(Would you have me tell, Gellius, why those rosy lips grow whiter than the winter’s snow, when you sally out from home in the morning, and when the eighth hour of the long summer day wakes you from gentle sleep? Nay! I know not what it is for sure. Does report say true, that whispers you mouth the swollen member of a man’s middle? So at any rate declare the deboshed vigour of poor feeble Virro, and your own lips marked by the humour you draw out). Martial, Bk. VII. Epigr. 94.:
Bruma est, et riget horridus December, Audes tu tamen osculo nivali Omnis obvios hinc et hinc tenere, Et totam, Line, basiare Romam. Quid possis graviusque saeviusque Percussus facere atque verberatus? Hoc me frigore basiet nec uxor. Blandis filia nec rudis labellis. Sed tu dulcior, elegantiorque, Cuius livida naribus caninis, Dependet glacies, rigetque barba, Qualem forficibus metit supinis Tonsor Cinyphio Cilix marito. Centum occurrere malo cunnilingis, Et Gallum timeo minus recentem. Quare si tibi sensus est pudorque, Hibernas, Line, basiationes, In mensem, rogo, differas Aprilem.
(’Tis winter time, and the shuddering chill of December is upon us. None the less, Linus, you dare to greet with your frosty salute all men you meet here and there, and to kiss all Rome. What more disagreeable or more cruel could you do, if you had been struck or thrashed? With an embrace so chilling may no wife kiss me, or unripe maid with wheedling lips. But you,—you think yourself more attractive and more pleasing, you from whose dog-like nose a blue icicle hangs, whose beard is frozen stiff, such a beard as the Cilician shearer crops with his upward-pointing clippers from the chin of a Cinyphian he-goat. I had rather meet a hundred cunnilingues; I am less afraid of a Gaul new come to town. Wherefore, if you possess any sense or any shame, I do beseech you, Linus, defer your wintry salutes till April is come). Now Linus is designated by Martial, bk. VII. Epigr. 9, as a fellator, and bk. XI. Epigr. 26., as a cunnilingue.