A Type of Sexual Euphemism in Latin

Abstract

A COMMON FORM of euphemism is the omission of a sexual word which can be supplied from the context. The writer or speaker may deliberately break off an utterance, perhaps adding an apology or explanation for his silence (aposiopesis: see the examples given at Rhet. Her. 4.41, Quint. 9.2.54), or he may adopt a well established elliptical usage which had its origin in the deletion of a sexual term. A striking example of protracted avoidance of sexual terminology can be found at Pliny HN. 11.261 f., a passage which concerns the male and female genital organs. Genitalia occurs once at the outset, but thereafter in an extended discussion no other noun is used. Of particular note is the sentence contra mulierum paucis prodigiosa adsimulatio (262), where allusion is made to both the male and female organs with neither named (the sense is that in a few women the sexual organs are remarkably similar to those of men). Analogous to euphemistic ellipse is the replacement of an indelicate word (usually a noun) in various ways (usually by a pronoun). Various omissions in Latin can be paralleled in Greek, and in some cases can be put down to direct imitation of a Greek usage. When Virgil at Ecl. 3.8 expressed both subject and object, but omitted an obscene verb (nouimus et qui te transuersa tuentibus hirquis), it is not unlikely that he recalled a passage of Theocritus with the same structure (1.105 oi XEyerat rav KiVrptv o /3oVKoXoS; cf. 5.149 6 6' av 7rat) and Philem. 126 Kock (iAis XeVKOs, OT-av avirpv rLTS-XX' alao-xvooat / X&yetv). Terence may well have been translating closely. The speakers' comments in these two passages on their failure to complete the utterance are also reminiscent of Plaut. Pseud. 215 ff.: ibi tibi adeo lectus dabitur ubi tu hau somnum capias, sed ubi / usque ad languorem-tenes / quo se haec tendant quae loquor. For similar comments, see Mil. 1092 neque te remoror neque tango neque te-taceo' (cf. Priap. 82.6, quoted below), Pseud. 1178 etiamnefacere solitun es-scin quid loquar? Ter. Heaut. 1041 non mihiperfallacias adducere ante oculos... pudet / dicere hac praesente verbum turpe (sc. scortum). But euphemistic omissions would undoubtedly have been made in ordinary Latin speech (note the various graffiti quoted below). In a passage of literature it is sometimes difficult to pin down the determinant