User:Cynwolfe/Hippomanes
In the magico-medical tradition deriving from classical antiquity, hippomanes (Greek ἱππομανές) was a substance thought to possess dangerously aphrodisiac powers. Some sources call it an herb, but most give it an equine origin.
Equine origin
[edit]Glaucus (son of Sisyphus), the son of Sisyphus
Propertius describes hippomanes as "the seed of a pregnant mare" (fetae semina … equae).[1] It is also said to be "a mucous secretion from a mare in heat, or a fleshy growth on the forehead of a foal that its mother bites off".[2]
Tibullus: "hippomanes which drips from the groin of a desirous mare where Venus breathes amours upon the unmastered herds et quod, ubi indomitis gregibus Venus adflat amores, / hippomanes cupidae stillat ab inguine equae
A scholium to Theocritus, Idyll 2.48–49, says hippomanes as the flesh on the forehead of a foal used as a love charm. Photius describes it as a philtron, love charm, in one passage as a growth that is little smaller than a dried fig, flat, round and black, but elsewhere as a discharge from mares.[3]
Vergil hints that it could be poisonous.[4]
Pausanias 5.27.3 reports that in Olympia a bronze statue of a mare was called hippomanes by the Eleans, and drove stallions into a sexual frenzy as they attempted to mount it.[5] http://books.google.com/books?id=YSvYzumpy7MC&pg=PA131&dq=hippomanes&hl=en&ei=c_2QToO2G46-tgf69u2UDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDUQ6AEwATgU#v=onepage&q=hippomanes&f=false
As herb
[edit]Theocritus says that hippomanes is a plant that grows in Arcadia and causes foals and mares to go mad.
Pliny
[edit]quin et caudae huius animalis creditur vulgo inesse amatorium virus exiguo in villo eumque, cum capiatur, abici nec idem pollere nisi viventi dereptum. dies, quibus coeat, toto anno non amplius duodecim. eundem in fame vesci terra inter auguria; ad dexteram commeantium praeciso itinere si pleno id ore fecerit, nullum ominum praestantius.
It is also commonly supposed, that the tail of this animal contains a small lock of hair, which possesses an amatory power; and that when the creature is caught, this hair is shed by it, but has no virtue whatever, unless it is procured from the animal while alive. (NH 8.34)
Pliny, Natural History 28.xlix(= 181): equarum virus a coitu in ellychniis accensum Anaxilaus prodidit lichenis equinorum capitum vires repraesentare onstrifice, similiter ex asinis. nam hippomanes tantas in veneficio vires habet, ut adfusum aeris mixturae in effigiem equae Olympiae admotos mares equos ad rabiem coitus agat.
Anaxilaüs assures us that if the liquid which exudes from a mare when covered, is ignited on the wick of a lamp, it will give out a most marvellous representation3 of horses' heads; and the same with reference 4 to the she-ass. As to the hippomanes, it is possessed of properties so virulent and so truly magical, that if it is only thrown into fused metal5 which is being cast into the resemblance of an Olympian mare, it will excite in all stallions that approach it a perfect frenzy for copulation.
[268] glauci potniades m. m. a. quadrigae Potnia civitas est, de qua fuit Glaucus. qui cum sacra Veneris sperneret, illa irata equabus eius inmisit furorem, quibus utebatur ad currum, et eum morsibus dilaceraverunt. ordo autem talis est 'quo tempore Glauci membra malis absumpserunt Potniades quadrigae'. hoc autem ideo fingitur, quod eis furorem Venus inmiserit, quia dilaniatus est Glaucus, effrenatis nimia cupiditate equabus, cum eas cohiberet a coitu, ut essent velociores. et aliter: Glaucus, Sisyphi filius, cum ad gymnicum certamen quadrigam duceret, adplicuit ad vicum Boeotiae Potnias et equas potum ad fontem sacrum per ignorantiam duxit, unde qui bibissent in furorem agi solebant. itaque illum equae, furore exagitatae, in ipso certamine curru effudisse ac morsibus laniasse dicuntur.
Renaissance
[edit]Renaissance writers list hippomanes among the philters, citing Pliny and Aristotle. Glosses in Renaissance editions puzzle over the contradictions in classical sources.[6] John Lyly preserves the xxxxxx in Euphues and His England, where he says it must be licked off to be effective.[7] Edmund Spenser alludes to hippomanes with the ingredient "colt-wood" Glauce's recipe for xxxx in The Faerie Queene (maybe III ii 39). [8]
References
[edit]- ^ Micaela Janan, The Politics of Desire: Propertius IV (University of California Press, 2001), p. 90.
- ^ Janan, The Politics of Desire, p. 195.
- ^ R.W. Sharples, Theophrastus of Eresus: Sources for His Life, Writings, Thought p. 79.
- ^ Vergil, Georgics 3.280–283; Janan, The Politics of Desire, p. 195.
- ^ John M. McMahon, Paralysin Cave: Impotence, Perception, and Text in the Satyrica of Petronius (Brill, 1998), p. 131.
- ^ Gareth Roberts, "Amatory Magic," in The Spencer Encyclopedia (University of Toronto Press, 1990), p. 447.
- ^ John Lyly, Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit, and Euphues and His England, edited by Leah Scraff (Manchester University Press, 2003), p. 258.
- ^ Roberts, "Amatory Magic," in The Spencer Encyclopedia p. 447.
[[Category:Aphrodisiacs]] [[Category:Sexuality in ancient Greece]] [[Category:Sexuality in ancient Rome]]