Petronius: Satires and the Book of Priapeia

I could no longer hold back my tears, but brought to the edge of sadness, I said, "I beg you, mistress, surely you had ordered an embasicoetan a bed-chamber cup or, as interpreted here, a boy for the bed to be given." She clapped her hands quite tenderly and said, "Oh, what a sharp man and a fountain of home-grown wit. What? Had you not understood that a cinaedus a man kept for pederasty is called an embasicoetan?" Then, so that it might go better for my companion, I said, "By your faith, is Ascyltos alone in this dining room spending a holiday?" "Let it be," said Quartilla, "and let an embasicoetan be given to Ascyltos also." At this word, the cinaedus changed his mount and, having made the transition to my companion, ground against him with his buttocks and kisses.

Giton was standing among these things and dissolving his sides with laughter. Therefore, Quartilla, having spotted him, asked with the most diligent questioning whose boy he was. When I had said he was my brother, she said, "Why then has he not kissed me?" and having called him to her, she applied him to a kiss. Soon she also lowered her hand into his tunic and, having felt his equipment which was so "raw," she said, "This will fight beautifully tomorrow in the appetizer of our lust; for today I do not take daily rations after a donkey."

When she was saying these things, Psyche approached her ear laughing, and when she had said something, Quartilla said, "Yes, yes, you have advised well. Why is it not, because it is a most beautiful occasion, that our Pannychis is deflowered?" And immediately a girl was brought out who was pretty enough and who seemed to be no more than seven years old, the very one who had first come with Quartilla into our room. While everyone was applauding and demanding the wedding, I was stunned and affirmed that neither Giton, a most modest boy, could suffice for this impudence, nor was the girl of an age to be able to accept the law of female endurance. "Is she," said Quartilla, "younger than I was when I first endured a man? May I have my Juno the goddess of marriage angry with me if I ever remember having been a virgin. For when I was an infant, I bent with my peers, and subsequently, as the years progressed, I applied myself to older boys, until I reached this age. Hence I also think that proverb was born, that one can carry a bull who has carried a calf."

Therefore, lest my brother receive a greater injury in secret, I rose to the wedding duty. By now Psyche had wrapped the girl's head in a wedding veil flammeum a flame-colored bridal veil, by now the embasicoetan was carrying a torch before them, by now drunken women had made a long line, applauding, and had decorated the bridal chamber with an unchaste garment, when Quartilla, also...