Note 251 — SECOND SECTION. Influences which served to hinder to a greater or less degree the inception of Diseases consequent upon the Use or Misuse of the Genital Organs.

Ovid, Amor., bk. III. eleg. 7. 84.

(And that her handmaids might not know her untouched, she dissembled this disgrace by taking water).

Ovid, Ars Amandi, bk. III. 619.,

(Of course your guard will put obstacles in the way to hinder your writing, though time be given you for taking water).

Martial, bk. VII. Epigr. 34.,

(What! do you a matron penetrate into women’s secret haunts? and by stealth are you washed, O female organ, in the water that appertains to you?) Petronius, Sat. 94., Itaque extra cellam processit, tanquam aquam peteret. (And so she came forward outside her chamber, and if she were going for water).—Cicero, Orat. pro Caelio, ch. 14. represents his grandfather Appius Claudius Caecus, who (442 A.U.C.) had constructed the Appian Way, say to his depraved granddaughter: Ideo aquam adduxi ut ea tu inceste uterere? (Was it for this I brought the water to Rome, that you might use it for abominable purposes?) Comp. Casaubon on Cicero, Letters to Atticus, bk. I. Letter 16. For the same reason women and girls who only rarely participated in sexual intercourse were called siccae (dry) (Plautus, Miles Glor. III. 1. 192. Martial, XI. Epigr. 82. Petronius, Sat. 37.), in contrast to the uda puella (wet girl) Juvenal, Sat. X. 321. Martial, XI. 17., who was obliged to wash herself frequently. So too illota or illauta virgo (unwashed maid) stands for intacta virgo (untouched maid), as in Plautus, Poenul. I. sc. 2. 22. Nam quae lavata est, nisi perculta est, meo quidem animo, quasi illauta est. (For she who is washed, unless she is bedecked as well, in my opinion, is as good as unwashed). In fact the whole of this scene is important for our subject.