The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 10 by Sir Richard Francis Burton (essential reading TXT) 📖

et �taient jaloux les uns des autres. * Elles cherchaient, mais en vain, les moyens de rem�dier au mal; elles employaient des herbes et des recettes diaboliques qui leur ramenaient bien quelques individus, mais ne pouvaient arr�ter les progr�s incessants du vice. Cet �tat de choses constitua un v�ritable moyen �ge, qui aura jusqu’� l’�tablissement du gouvernement des Incas” (p. 277).

 

When Sinchi Roko (the xcvth of Montesinos and the xcist of Garcilazo) became Ynca, he found morals at the lowest ebb. “Ni la prudence de l’Inca, ni les lois s�v�res qu’il avait promulgu�es n’avaient pu extirper enti�rement le p�ch� contre nature. I1

reprit avec une nouvelle violence, et les femmes en furent si jalouses qu’un grand nombre d’elles tuerent leurs maris. Les devins et les sorciers passaient leurs journ�es � fabriquer, avec certaines herbes, des compositions magiques qui rendaient fous ceux qui en mangaient, et les femmes en faisaient prendre, soit dans les aliments, soit dans la chicha, � ceux dont elles �taient jalouses” (p. 291).

 

I have remarked that the Tupi races of the Brazil were infamous for cannibalism and sodomy; nor could the latter be only racial as proved by the fact that colonists of pure Lusitanian blood followed in the path of the savages. Sr. Antonio Augusto da Costa Aguiar[FN#417] is outspoken upon this point. “A crime which in England leads to the gallows, and which is the very measure of abject depravity, passes with impunity amongst us by the participating in it of almost all or of many (de quasi todos, ou de muitos) Ah! if the wrath of Heaven were to fall by way of punishing such crimes (delictos), more than one city of this Empire, more than a dozen, would pass into the category of the Sodoms and Gomorrains” (p. 30). Till late years pederasty in the Brazil was looked upon as a peccadillo; the European immigrants following the practice of the wild men who were naked but not, as Columbus said, “clothed in innocence.” One of Her Majesty’s Consuls used to tell a tale of the hilarity provoked in a “fashionable” assembly by the open declaration of a young gentleman that his mulatto “patient” had suddenly turned upon him, insisting upon becoming agent. Now, however, under the influences of improved education and respect for the public opinion of Europe, pathologic love amongst the Luso-Brazilians has been reduced to the normal limits.

 

Outside the Sotadic Zone, I have said, Le Vice is sporadic, not endemic: yet the physical and moral effect of great cities where puberty, they say, is induced earlier than in country sites, has been the same in most lands, causing modesty to decay and pederasty to flourish. The Badawi Arab is wholly pure of Le Vice; yet San’� the capital of Al-Yaman and other centres of population have long been and still are thoroughly infected. History tells us of Z� Shan�tir, tyrant of “Arabia Felix,” in A.D. 478, who used to entice young men into his palace and cause them after use to be cast out of the windows: this unkindly ruler was at last poniarded by the youth Zerash, known from his long ringlets as “Z� Now�s.” The negro race is mostly untainted by sodomy and tribadism. Yet Joan dos Sanctos[FN#418] found in Cacongo of West Africa certain “Chibudi, which are men attyred like women and behaue themselves womanly, ashamed to be called men; are also married to men, and esteem that vnnaturale damnation an honor.”

Madagascar also delighted in dancing and singing boys dressed as girls. In the Empire of Dahomey I noted a corps of prostitutes kept for the use of the Amazon-soldieresses.

 

North of the Sotadic Zone we find local but notable instances.

Master Christopher Burrough[FN#419] describes on the western side of the Volga “a very fine stone castle, called by the name Oueak, and adioyning to the same a Towne called by the Russes, Sodom, *

which was swallowed into the earth by the justice of God, for the wickednesse of the people.” Again: although as a rule Christianity has steadily opposed pathologic love both in writing and preaching, there have been remarkable exceptions. Perhaps the most curious idea was that of certain medical writers in the middle ages: “Usus et amplexus pueri, bene temperatus, salutaris medicine” (Tardieu). Bayle notices (under “Vayer”) the infamous book of Giovanni della Casa, Archbishop of Benevento, “De laudibus Sodomi�,”[FN#420] vulgarly known as “Capitolo del Forno.” The same writer refers (under “Sixte iv.”) to the report that the Dominican Order, which systematically decried Le Vice, had presented a request to the Cardinal di Santa Lucia that sodomy might be lawful during three months per annum, June to August; and that the Cardinal had underwritten the petition “Be it done as they demand.” Hence the F�da Venus of Battista Mantovano. Bayle rejects the history for a curious reason, venery being colder in summer than in winter, and quotes the proverb “Aux mods qui n’ont pas d’ R, peu embrasser et bien boire.” But in the case of a celibate priesthood such scandals are inevitable: witness the famous Jesuit epitaph Ci-g�t un Jesuite, etc.

 

In our modern capitals, London, Berlin and Paris for instance, the Vice seems subject to periodical outbreaks. For many years, also, England sent her pederasts to Italy, and especially to Naples, whence originated the term “Il vizio Inglese.” It would be invicious to detail the scandals which of late years have startled the public in London and Dublin: for these the curious will consult the police reports. Berlin, despite her strong devour of Phariseeism, Puritanism and Chauvinism in religion, manners and morals, is not a whit better than her neighbours. Dr.

Gaspar,[FN#421] a wellknown authority on the subject, adduces many interesting cases, especially an old Count Cajus and his six accomplices. Amongst his many correspondents one suggested to him that not only Plato and Julius C�sar but also Winckelmann and Platen(?) belonged to the Society; and he had found it flourishing in Palermo, the Louvre, the Scottish Highlands and St. Petersburg to name only a few places. Frederick the Great is said to have addressed these words to his nephew, “Je puis vous assurer, par mon exp�rience personelle, que ce plaisir est peu agr�able � cultiver.” This suggests the popular anecdote of Voltaire and the Englishman who agreed upon an “experience” and found it far from satisfactory. A few days afterwards the latter informed the Sage of Ferney that he had tried it again and provoked the exclamation, “Once a philosopher: twice a sodomite!”

The last revival of the kind in Germany is a society at Frankfort and its neighbourhood, self-styled Les Cravates Noires, in opposition, I suppose, to Les Cravates Blanches of A. Belot.

 

Paris is by no means more depraved than Berlin and London; but, whilst the latter hushes up the scandal, Frenchmen do not: hence we see a more copious account of it submitted to the public. For France of the xviith century consult the “Histoire de la Prostitution chez tous les Peuples du Monde,” and “La Prance devenue Italienne,” a treatise which generally follows”L’Histoire Amoureuse des Gaules” by Bussy, Comte de Rabutin.[FN#422] The headquarters of male prostitution were then in the Champ Flory, i.e., Champ de Flore, the privileged rendezvous of low courtesans. In the xviiith century, “quand le Francais a t�te folle,” as Voltaire sings, invented the term “P�ch�

philosophique,” there was a temporary recrudescence; and, after the death of Pidauzet de Mairobert (March, 1779), his “Apologie de la Secte Anandryne” was published in L’Espion Anglais. In those days the All�e des Veuves in the Champs Elysees had a “fief reserv� des Ebugors”[FN#423]—“veuve” in the language of Sodom being the ma�tresse en titre, the favourite youth.

 

At the decisive moment of monarchical decomposition Mirabeau[FN#424] declares that pederasty was reglement�e and adds, Le go�t des p�d�rastes, quoique moins en vogue que du temps de Henri III. (the French Heliogabalus), sous le r�gne desquel les hommes se provoquaient mutuellement[FN#425] sous les portiques du Louvre, fait des progr�s consid�rables. On salt que cette ville (Paris) est un chef-d’�uvre de police; en cons�quence, il y a des lieux publics autoris�s � cet effet. Les jeunes yens qui se destinent � la professign, vent soigneusement enclass�s; car les syst�mes r�glementaires s’�tendent jusques-l�.

On les examine; ceux qui peuvent �tre agents et patients, qui vent beaux, vermeils, bien faits, potel�s, sont r�serv�s pour les grands seigneurs, ou se font payer tr�s-cher par les �v�ques et les financiers. Ceux qui vent priv�s de leurs testicules, ou en termes de l’art (car notre langue est plus chaste qui nos m�urs), qui n’ont pas le poids du tisserand, mais qui donnent et re�oivent, forment la seconde classe; ils vent encore chers, parceque les femmes en usent tandis qu’ils servent aux hommes.

Ceux qui ne sont plus susceptibles d’�rection tant ils sont us�s, quoiqu’ils aient tous ces organes n�cessaires au plaisir, s’inscrivent comme patiens purs, et composent la troisi�me classe: mais celle qui pr�side � ces plaisirs, v�rifie leur impuissance. Pour cet effet, on les place tout nus sur un matelas ouvert par la moiti� inf�rieure; deux filles les caressent de leur mieux, pendant qu’une troisieme frappe doucement avec desorties naissantes le si�ge des d�sire v�n�riens. Apr�s un quart d’heure de cet essai, on leur introduit dans l’anus un poivre long rouge qui cause une irritation consid�rable; on pose sur les �chauboulures produites par les orties, de la moutarde fine de Caudebec, et l’on passe le gland au camphre. Ceux qui r�sistent � ces �preuves et ne donnent aucun signe d’�rection, servent comme patiens � un tiers de paie seulement.[FN#426]

 

The Restoration and the Empire made the police more vigilant in matters of politics than of morals. The favourite club, which had its mot de passe, was in the Rue Doyenne, old quarter St Thomas de Louvre; and the house was a hotel of the xviith century. Two street-doors, on the right for the male gyn�ceum and the left for the female, opened at 4 p.m. in winter and 8 p.m. in summer. A decoy-lad, charmingly dressed in women’s clothes, with big haunches and small waist, promenaded outside; and this continued till 1826 when the police put down the house.

 

Under Louis Philippe, the conquest of Algiers had evil results, according to the Marquis de Boissy. He complained without ambages of m�urs Arabes in French regiments, and declared that the result of the African wars was an �ffrayable d�bordement p�d�rastique, even as the v�role resulted from the Italian campaigns of that age of passion, the xvith century. From the military the fl�au spread to civilian society and the Vice took such expansion and intensity that it may be said to have been democratised in cities and large towns; at least so we gather from the Dossier des Agissements des P�d�rastes. A general gathering of “La Sainte Congregation des glorieux P�d�rastes” was held in the old Petite Rue des Marais where, after the theatre, many resorted under pretext of making water. They ranged themselves along the walls of a vast garden and exposed their podices: bourgeois, richards and nobles came with full purses, touched the part which most attracted them and were duly followed by it. At the All�e des Veuves the crowd was dangerous from 7 to 8 p.m.: no policeman or ronde de nun’ dared venture in it; cords were stretched from tree to tree and armed guards drove away strangers amongst whom, they say, was once Victor Hugo. This nuisance was at length suppressed by the municipal administration.

 

The Empire did not improve morals. Balls of sodomites were held at No. 8 Place de la Madeleine where, on Jan. 2, ‘64, some one hundred and fifty men met, all so well dressed as women that even the landlord did not recognise them. There was also a club for sotadic debauchery called the Cent Gardes and the Dragons de l’Imp�ratrice.[FN#427] They copied the imperial toilette