Sunday, July 19, 2020

 

A Hymn

[John Wesley,] Queries Humbly Proposed to the Right Reverend and Right Honourable Count Zinzendorf (London: J. Robinson and T. James, 1755), pp. 29-30:
Do you own or disown that Hymn? (I shrink at repeating such words)
"Member full of Mystery
Which holily gives and chastly receives
The conjugal Ointments for Jesus' sake;
Mayst thou be blessed and anointed?"
And that to our Saviour, "May thy first holy Wound anoint me for the conjugal Business, on that Member of my Body which is for the Benefit of my Wife? — The rest I cannot repeat. Were ever such Words put together before, from the Foundation of the World?
This seems to refer to Zinzendorf's Gedichte number 2010, stanzas 8-9:
Und geheimnißvolles glied! das die ehelichen salben Jesus halben heilig gibt und keusch empfäht im gebet, in dem von dem Erz-erbarmen selbst erfundenen umarmen, wenn man kirchen-saamen sä't;

Sey gesegnet und gesalbt mit dem blut, das unserm manne dort entranne: fühle heisse zärtlichkeit, zu der seit, die fürs Lamms gemahlin offen, seit der speer hineingetroffen, das object der eheleut.
Ovid addresses his membrum virile in less flattering terms in Amores 3.7.69-72 (tr. G.P. Goold):
Lie down there, you shamefaced creature, worthless part of me: I have been tricked by promises like this before. You deceive your master; through you I have been caught defenceless, and suffered a painful and humiliating reverse.

quin istic pudibunda iaces, pars pessima nostri?
    sic sum pollicitis captus et ante tuis.
tu dominum fallis; per te deprensus inermis
    tristia cum magno damna pudore tuli.
Encolpius also castigates his membrum virile for its impotence in Petronius, Satyricon 132. See Gareth Schmeling, A Commentary on the Satyrica of Petronius (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 507:
The mentula of course cannot reply, but we do find a speaking penis at Horace Serm. 1.2.68-70. On the motif of literary addresses of a man to his penis: G. Salanitro (1971-2) 448; Adams (1982) 30 calls it an 'implicit personification', as does Richlin (1992a) 116; Ovid Am. 3.7.69; Priapea 83.14-45; AP 5.47, 12.216, 232. On 'Klage über Impotenz', see Höschele (2006) 129-35; Holzberg (2005).



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