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It is believed that the flesh of the newts in the sacred pond of Yaegaki possesses aphrodisiac qualities; and the body of the creature, reduced to ashes, by burning, was formerly converted into love-powders. And there is a little Japanese song referring to the practice: 'Hore-gusuri koka niwa naika to imori ni toeba, yubi-wo marumete kore bakari.
It is as though on the rising, falling, rising, sinking tides of the poem, on the waves of the glamorous feminine voices, on the aphrodisiac swell of the sea, the white Anadyomene herself, with her galaxy of tritons and naiads, approached earth's shores once more. If any musical task is to be considered as having been accomplished, it is that of Debussy.
Speaking of Bacchus, he writes, "The vine was a favorite symbol of the deity, which seems to have been generally employed to signify the generative or preserving attribute; intoxicating liquors were stimulative, and therefore held to be aphrodisiac. The vase is often employed in its stead to express the same idea and is often accompanied by the same accessory symbol."
The semen is thus a natural stimulant, a physiological aphrodisiac, the type of a class of drugs which have been known and cultivated in all parts of the world from time immemorial. (Dufour has discussed the aphrodisiacs used in ancient Rome, Histoire de la Prostitution, vol. II, ch. 21.) It would be vain to attempt to enumerate all the foods and medicaments to which has been ascribed an influence in heightening the sexual impulse. (Thus, in the sixteenth century, aphrodisiacal virtues were attributed to an immense variety of foods by Liébault in his Thresor des Remèdes Secrets pour les Maladies des Femmes, 1585, pp. 104, et seq.) A large number of them certainly have no such effect at all, but have obtained this credit either on some magical ground or from a mistaken association. Thus the potato, when first introduced from America, had the reputation of being a powerful aphrodisiac, and the Elizabethan dramatists contain many references to this supposed virtue. As we know, potatoes, even when taken in the largest doses, have not the slightest aphrodisiac effect, and the Irish peasantry, whose diet consists very largely of potatoes, are even regarded as possessing an unusually small measure of sexual feeling. It is probable that the mistake arose from the fact that potatoes were originally a luxury, and luxuries frequently tend to be regarded as aphrodisiacs, since they are consumed under circumstances which tend to arouse the sexual desires. It is possible also that, as has been plausibly suggested, the misunderstanding may have been due to sailors the first to be familiar with the potato who attributed to this particular element of their diet ashore the generally stimulating qualities of their life in port. The eryngo (Eryngium maritimum), or sea holly, which also had an erotic reputation in Elizabethan times, may well have acquired it in the same way. Many other vegetables have a similar reputation, which they still retain. Thus onions are regarded as aphrodisiacal, and were so regarded by the Greeks, as we learn from Aristophanes. It is noteworthy that Marro, a reliable observer, has found that in Italy, both in prisons and asylums, lascivious people are fond of onions (La Pubert
It abounds in medical learning, is avowedly an aphrodisiac, and was intended, if one may borrow an expression from Juvenal, "to revive the fire in nuptial cinders." Moslems read it, just as they took ambergrised coffee, and for the same reason.
In modern times, also, the truffle is regarded as the diamond of the kitchen, being highly valued for its capability of exciting the genesiac sense, it being a positive aphrodisiac which disposes men to be exacting and women complying.
In spite of the whole modern school of impressionists, æsthetes, and aphrodisiac poets, the most prominent features of Greek art are its intellectuality, its well-reasoned science, and its accurate conception of the ideal.
Every traveller has praised the honey-wine of the Highlands, and some have not scrupled to prefer it to champagne. It exhilarates, excites and acts as an aphrodisiac; the consequence is, that at Harar all men, pagans and sages, priests and rulers, drink it. The Caliph Umar is said to have smiled once and wept once.
Then there was her husband, who, gullible as he might be, must nevertheless suspect their liaison, since, by her own confession, she dissembled her obsession very badly. "This is what I get for letting myself be carried away. For I, too, wrote at first to amuse myself with aphrodisiac statements. Then I ended by becoming completely hysterical.
It was then, when the scent of elder blossom, decaying fruit, mud and hot yew brooded there, that the place attained one of its most individual moods narcotic, aphrodisiac.
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