Sexual life in ancient Greece : with thirty-two full-page plates

THe THEATRE

story tells us, Poseidon, angry at the neglect of an offering, had inspired Pasiphaé, the wife of King Minos of Crete, with violent passion for a specially beautiful bull. The famous architect Dzdalus came to her assistance, made a cow of wood, and dressed it in a natural skin. Pasiphaé concealed herself in the empty body of this cow and was thus coupled with the bull, by whom she had the Minotaur, the well-known monster, half-bull, halfman. (Ovid, Ars Amatoria, 11, 24; Semibovemque virum semivirumgue bovem.)

That such scenes were not unheard of in Greek theatres in imperial times is shown by the fact that the mythological motive and the disguise with the animai’s skin was given up, and scenes of weddings between a human being and an animal were put on the stage in puris naturalibus. The subject of Lucian’s Lucius or the Ass, as is well known, is that Lucius is changed by enchantment into an ass, which, however, keeps its human power of thought and feeling. ‘The end of the adventure of the human ass is formed by the love-story of the distinguished lady of Thessalonica. Lucian tells this adventure in sufficient detail; we can only here briefly sketch an episode that is very readable in itself and must refer the curious reader to the original text (Asimus, 50 ff.).

This distinguished and very rich lady has heard of the wonderful qualities of the ass, whom certainly no one supposes to be an enchanted man. She comes, sees, and falls in love with him. She buys it, and henceforth treats him quite like her lover. But the singular loving couple is watched, and it is resolved to make the rare abilities of the ass a public show. It is to be exhibited for all to see, how the ass consummates the marriage nuptials with a woman who has been sentenced to death.

“© And when the day arrived on which my master was going to give his show it was decided to exhibit me in the theatre. I made my entrance in the

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