Лингвофорум

Цитата: James Noel Adams, стр. 139—150, раздел «Metaphors»
(i) 'Eat'

The metaphor of 'eating' has surprising ramifications in the sexual sphere in Latin. It occurs in graffiti, and must have had a place in low slang. From slang it was taken over into literary genres which had a vulgar or coarse element (notably epigram). A few parallels can be quoted from Greek, but the metaphor was not literary in Latin. It had two main applications, the first relatively unimportant.

The culus or cunnus is sometimes personified and described as 'eating' or 'devouring' the mentula. The verb uoro seems to have been the appropriate term in this sense: Catull. 33.4 'culo . . . uoraciore', Mart. 2.51.6 'infelix uenter spectat conuiuia culi, / et semper miser hie esurit, ille uorat', 12.75.3 'pastas glande natis habet Secundus' (glans is ambiguous: see p. 72). There is an extension of this type of imagery at Auson. Cent. Nupt. 118, p. 217 P., where the mentula 'drinks': 'haesit uirgineumque alte bibit acta cruorem'. Bibit was probably an ad hoc metaphor, facilitated by the tendency for the mentula to be personified. For Greek note the jokes at Aristoph. Ach. 801f., where Dicaeopolis asks if the pig (= κύ́σθος) eats chick peas and figs (= πέ́ος): τρώγοιτ' ἂν ἐρεβίνθους; ... τί δαί φιβάλεως ἰσχάδας.

But usually the metaphor is applied to oral acts: the sexual organ of either sex is said to be 'eaten'. The usage is found in graffiti: CIL IV. 1854 'Caliste, deuora',¹ IV. 1884 'qui uerpam uissit, quid cenasse ilium putes?' ('he who went to visit the uerpa, what would you think he had for dinner?'),² IV.2360 'ursi me comedant et ego uerpa qui lego';³ cf. esurio ('want to eat') in the context of fellatio at CIL IV.1825 'Cosmus equitaes magnus cinaedus et fellator esuris apertis mari(bus)', XI.6721.34 'esureis et me felas'.⁴ See further Catull. 28.12f. 'nam nihilo minore uerpa / farti estis' (farcio is typically applied to stuffing with food), 6 80.6 'grandia te medii tenta uorare uiri', 88.8 'demisso se ipse uoret capite', Mart. 7.67.15 'sed plane medias uorat puellas' (= cunnum lingere), 14.70.2 'si uis esse satur, nostrum potes esse Priapum; / ipsa licet rodas inguina, purus eris'. In three of the above passages it is a uerpa which is 'eaten'; to 'eat the uerpa' was obviously a slang expression.

There may be an allusion to the metaphor in Mart. 3.77. Baeticus, the cunnilingus (see 3.81), is described as rejecting delicious and eating foul food. In the final line (10) he is asked why he eats what is putrid Cut quid enim, Baetice, saprophagis?'). There may be a double entendre in the last word: Baeticus 'eats' the cunnus (cf. Auson. Epigr. 86.1, p. 344 P. 'uxoris grauidae putria inguina'), and hence has a need of foul and pungent foods to conceal his bad breath.

The verb which Juvenal uses at 10.223 is unusual, perhaps because he wanted to avoid the slang terms associated with the image (notably uoro and uerpa): 'quot longa uiros exorbeat uno / Maura die'. ¹ Cf. 6.126 'ac resupina iacens cunctorum absorbuit ictus' (or is it the cunnus which absorbuit here?: cf. Hor. Serm. 2.7.49 'quaecumque excepit turgentis uerbera caudae'). Note too the double entendre at Juv. 9.5 'nos colaphum incutimus lambenti crustula seruo'.² A protracted example of the metaphor is provided by Tertullian, Apol. 9.12 'minus autem et illi faciunt, qui libidine fera humanis membris inhiant, quia uiuos uorant? minus humano sanguine ad spurcitiam consecrantur, quia futurum sanguinem lambunt? non edunt infantes plane, sed magis puberes'. Tertullian permitted himself drastic phraseology here.

The note 'siue membrum uirile' on colyphium at Juv. 2.53 Cluctantur paucae, comedunt coloephia paucae') may be based on a belief that comedunt has a sexual sense.

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1 For this inscription, see Svennung, in Studi in onore di Luigi Castiglioni
(cited above, p. 65, n. 5), II, p. 978 n. 13.
2 For uerpa used pars pro toto, see p. 13.
3 On the interpretation of the inscription, see above, p. 129, and n. 3.
4 On these inscriptions, see Krenkel, p. 83; see also esurit at Mart. 2.51.6
above, p. 138.
5 See TLL VI.1.280.31ff.
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1 For Maura the fellatrix, see Courtney, p. 297 (on 6.307-8).
2 See Courtney, p. 428 'Lambere is wittily used both of slaves who lick the
morsels . .. and in the obscene sense'. In that obscene sense there is present
a notion of'eating', or 'eating by licking'.