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Forced Endings in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis
Attachment and loss in retirement 1st Edition Anne
Power Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Anne Power
ISBN(s): 9780415527644, 0415527643
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 4.09 MB
Year: 2015
Language: english
Forced Endings in Psychotherapy
and Psychoanalysis

Forced Endings in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis: Attachment and

loss in retirement explores the ambivalence the therapist may feel about
letting go of a professional role which has sustained them. Anne Power
explores the process of closing a private practice, from the first ethical
decision-making, through to the last day when the door of the therapy room
shuts. She draws on the personal accounts of retired therapists and others
who had to impose an ending on clients due to illness, in order to move
house, to take maternity leave or a sabbatical.
A forced ending is an intrusion of the clinician’s own needs into
the therapeutic space. Anne Power shows how this might compromise the
work but may also be an opportunity for deeper engagement. Drawing on
attachment theory to understand how the therapeutic couple cope with an
imposed separation, Power includes interviews with therapists who took
a temporary break and demonstrates the commonality of challenges faced
by those who need to impose an ending on clients.
Forced Endings in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis opens up an area
which has been considered taboo in the profession so that future cohorts
can benefit from the reflections and insights of this earlier generation. It
will assist clinicians making this transition and aims to support ethical
practice so that clients are not exposed to unnecessary risks of the sudden
termination of a long treatment. This book will be essential reading for
practising psychotherapists and psychoanalysts, and to undergraduate and
postgraduate students in clinical psychology, psychiatry and social work.

Anne Power is an attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapist

working with individuals and couples. She teaches at Regent’s University
London. She is interested in retirement, both as a supervisor and as a
middle-aged therapist wondering how she will manage this transition
herself.
“This book is timely and thought-provoking. It grasps the nettle of therapists’
retirement dilemmas firmly and skilfully. I found it very compelling reading, both
because of its immediate relevance to therapists and supervisors today, and because
the stories it traces in the retirees’ own words are so rich and engaging. This book
is a masterpiece of qualitative research, drawing on thirteen in-depth interviews,
as well as a broad range of additional sources. Anne Power poses and explores a
multitude of questions about when, how, why and with what support and with
what in mind can therapists tackle the issue of ending their working life. I was
deeply moved, sobered, intrigued and inspired.”
Roz Carroll, MA Cantab, UKCP registered psychotherapist, trainer on
the Minster Centre MA in Integrative Psychotherapy

“This is a wonderfully well written, sensitive and important book which examines,
though interviews with therapists, the issues and challenges involved in the
processes of retirement, ending and loss in a profession that has tended to avoid
consideration of this significant aspect of life. An essential read for therapists of
all ages in relation to their personal and professional journeys.”
Dr Christine Driver, SAP and FPC Training Analyst,
Supervisor, Director of Training, WPF Therapy

“A work of tremendous originality, Anne Power’s new book tackles the vital but
hitherto much neglected subject of retirement with the depth of a great investigator
and with the breadth of creative thinker. Drawing upon extensive primary research
and sensitive clinical understanding, the author allows us all – whether old or
young – to engage with key questions about endings and mortality with admirable
sensitivity and compassion. This volume fills a huge gap in the mental health
literature by examining not only the vicissitudes of retirement but, also, the heaving
subject of endings more generally – whether traumatic or ordinary – in such a
useful way.”
Professor Brett Kahr, Senior Clinical Research Fellow in
Psychotherapy and Mental Health at the Centre for Child Mental
Health in London; Honorary Visiting Professor in the School of
Arts at the University of Roehampton; and Consultant in
Psychology to The Bowlby Centre

“In a long term therapy the retirement of the therapist, be it from age, illness,
sabbatical, maternity or relocation, is a challenge to both patient and therapist.
This book shows how thirteen therapists met that challenge. The author makes
good use of attachment theory which provides a fascinating and appropriate over-
arching framework for her analysis.”
Colin Murray Parkes
Forced Endings in
Psychotherapy
and Psychoanalysis

Attachment and loss

in retirement

Anne Power
With a preface by Peter Fonagy
First published 2016
by Routledge
27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex, BN3 2FA
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,
an informa business
© 2016 Anne Power
The right of Anne Power to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and
78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be
trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Power, Anne.
Forced endings in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis:
attachment and loss in retirement/authored by Anne Power.
– 1 Edition.
pages cm
1. Dependency (Psychology). 2. Attachment behavior.
3. Psychologists – Retirement. 4. Psychotherapists –
Retirement. I. Title.
BF575.D34P69 2015
attachment theory – dc23
2015008184

ISBN: 978-0-415-52764-4 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-415-52765-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-71744-9 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman and Gill Sans

by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon, UK

Cover Image by Florence Hendriks

To Jonathan, Edward and Richard
Contents

Note on language viii

Preface by Peter Fonagy ix
Acknowledgements xiii

Introduction 1

Introduction to the contributors 15

1 Why retire? 25

2 How to begin? 57

3 How do patients respond to being left? 78

4 How to manage the ending? 97

5 Guilt in the countertransference? 113

6 How helpful is supervision? 128

7 What is lost? 148

8 What is next? 167

9 How similar are other imposed endings? 181

Conclusion 208

Appendix: Questions about closure 220

References 226
Index 239
Note on language
I have chosen to use the female pronoun when one word is needed to stand
for male or female.
The terms “client” and “patient” are used synonymously as I hope the book
will speak to clinicians who prefer either of these words.
For the sake of variety I refer to the therapists who shared their stories
as interviewees, contributors and participants. I use these terms inter-
changeably.
In the text when I mention that a contribution is located ‘below’ or ‘above’,
I mean that it is within the same chapter. When the material is located in
a separate chapter I give the chapter number.
Preface

In the process of talking to other therapists and thinking through the

dilemmas of retirement, Anne Power has captured something of what it is
to be a therapist – the particular achievement of emotional and intellectual
reflectiveness characteristic of therapists who are working well, and respon-
sibly. And Power also powerfully and sensitively reveals the complex
emotional and intellectual demands and narcissistic challenges that
confront a therapist who is considering retirement from practice.
The question of potentially intruding upon the therapeutic process via
external regulation has long been a fraught one. The issue is particularly
difficult in the context of considerations about retirement: how can you
legislate about appropriate retirement age when ageing itself is such a
variable process across individuals? But in the absence of any such external
framework, how do we protect patients from the experience of working
with a therapist who is no longer well enough to provide the treatment
they need? Psychotherapists have always been able to work well beyond
the statutory retirement age. Now that the statutory retirement age has
gone for most professions, other groups will share the dilemma which
psychotherapists have faced for many years: the conflict is one between
wanting to impart the accumulation of decades of experience set against
the subjective experience of the diminution of key competencies, for
example the capacity to remember detail. Normally skills acquired through
sheer number of repetitions mitigate against a slight decline in cognitive
agility. I remember experienced teachers of mine were able to make what
seemed to me to be remarkable shortcuts and to see through what, to a
novice, seemed an impenetrable jungle of personal detail to get to the core
difficulties that an individual brought to the consulting room. I saw this
magical skill at work in senior colleagues who had genuine difficulty in
recalling information that was not so personally relevant and who engaged
in that hallmark trait of retelling the same anecdote without embarrassment
x Preface

on numerous occasions. Our profession, as well as others, is built upon

and enriched by invaluable experience. Set against that is the plain fact
that, to quote Freud, ‘the ego is first and foremost a body ego’ (Freud,
1923), and therefore the mind has to age along with the body, with its ‘Bare
ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang’.
And yet perhaps we sometimes irrationally expect wisdom to increase
with age while we are far more ready to take on board our physical
limitations. Our self-appraisal in relation to our clinical skills is notoriously
inadequate. The motivation to obtain and use critical feedback to enhance
experience declines rapidly and almost inversely to one’s confidence in
one’s own competence (Tracey, Wampold, Lichtenberg and Goodyear,
2014). This justifies enforced retirement or at least forced monitoring of
competence after a certain age. The medical profession in the UK is making
a real and honest attempt at addressing this issue with the compulsory
revalidation process. Should psychotherapy follow suit?
Power is careful not to be over-proscriptive about what therapists
should do: this is a more reflective and discursive book than that.
However, she convincingly describes how it is not always realistic to expect
the therapist to make such a judgement via feedback from their patients,
nor from colleagues or a supervisor. And as well as protecting the patient,
consideration must also be given to the needs of the therapist: this work
asks a lot of its practitioner, in terms of emotional and intellectual
investment. The burden of the analyst is often borne with the help of the
sense of identity that goes with it. As Power describes, many therapists
are the children of depressed mothers; they are people who, to quote one
therapist, make carrying the burden a way of life:

my mother needed care, as it were, not my father, but I was definitely

a parenting child. It’s a sort of way of life really, and I think I just
professionalised it.
(Adams, M., 2014: 74)

It puts to mind the myth of Atlas carrying the celestial spheres – how
is the therapist to be assisted in putting down their burden without fearing
that the sky will fall on their own, or their patients’, heads? Power is to
be congratulated for interviewing Atlas directly and obtaining first-hand
information about a decision-making process we all have to go through.
Colleagues of mine whom I deeply admire and who have made the decision
to retire all discuss this with mixed emotion. In my own informal survey,
I’m not yet persuaded that I should stop at the earliest available opportunity.
However, exceptions frequently prove the rule and a number of colleagues
 Preface xi

have made a real and genuine success of engaging with new challenges
and obviously profiting from the changes that retirement brings. If I were
to face up to this decision, careful reading of this book would obviously
be of benefit. Reading the stories collected by Anne Power opens a window
on the diversity of considerations presented by the dilemma of retire-
ment. By reading about and identifying with other lives and other minds
we can perhaps offset the significant risk of short-circuiting the process of
decision making through premature closure and, even worse, prejudice.
Bowlby remarked that our attachment needs, as adults, are triggered
‘especially in times of ill health, stress or old age’. Anne Power’s work is
important in its appreciation of the complexity of our psychic lives across
life stages, and the thoughtful engagement of her interviews is an exercise
in humanity and compassion. In creating a space for considering, with our
colleagues, the meaning of retirement, Anne Power also creates a poignant
meditation on what it means to be a therapist: what this particular life’s
work means to its many thoughtful practitioners. Anne Power and I, as
well as sharing professions, shared a remarkable teacher – Shirley Pleydell,
to whom, for her wisdom and compassion, we both owe a debt of gratitude.
It seems fitting that Anne Power should have written such a sensitive and
insightful book that speaks to the particular strengths and dilemmas of a
caring profession.

Peter Fonagy, Freud Memorial Professor of Psychoanalysis

and Head of the Department of Clinical, Educational and
Health Psychology at University College London

References
Adams, M. (2014) Myth of the untroubled therapist: Private life, professional
practice. London: Routledge.
Freud, S. (1923/1961). The ego and the id. In J. Strachey (ed.) The standard edition
of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 19. London:
Hogarth Press, pp. 1–59.
Tracey, T.J., Wampold, B.E., Lichtenberg, J.W., & Goodyear, R.K. (2014).
Expertise in psychotherapy: An elusive goal? American Psychologist, 69:
218–229.
Acknowledgements

Like most authors I am at a loss as to how I can appropriately thank so

many people who helped me towards writing this book. I feel profound
thanks to those who have encouraged me and in different ways enabled
me to learn and to write. Even a long essay would not adequately convey
the extent of what I owe so I have chosen to make a simple list.

Two teachers from my earlier life who gave me belief in myself when I
most needed it – Shirley Pleydell and Sonia Poulson.
My original colleagues with whom I trained at the Bowlby Centre, and
also my teachers there. I particularly wish to thank Linda Cundy, Jenny
Riddell and Thea Thompson.
My colleagues at BAPPS Supervision Review, Chris Driver and Lynda
Norton.
Colleagues at Wimbledon Guild.
Colleagues at Regents University London.
Supervisors and teachers who have helped me learn: Bernie Laschinger,
Kate White and Brett Kahr. Joe Schwartz for the initial encouragement to
write. Nick Midgley for supervision of this research.
My therapists who helped me at different stages of my life – they know
who they are.
Peter Fonagy for his preface and for having previously put the subject of
retirement on the agenda.
For their pioneering retirement workshops, Penny Kegerreis, Gill Barratt
and Jean Wetherell.
xiv Acknowledgements

Kate Hawes and Kirsten Buchanan at Routledge for believing in the project
and facilitating it.
Colleagues who gave me time from their own busy lives to critique
my drafts: Christina Patton, Debbie Vowles, Cynthia Ransley, Gillian
Chapman, Mary Russell, Em Farrell, Angela Cotter, Marie Adams,
Charlotte Wynn Parry and Angela Massucco.
My supervisee C, who retired and who provided the impetus for this study,
and all my other supervisees and clients who have challenged and trained
me over the years.
My interviewees who in a sense wrote the book for me.
Finally my family for fulfilling with love and protest most of the roles
mentioned above.
Thank you.

I am grateful to the following individuals and organisations for permission

to reproduce material in this book:
On page xxx The Collected Poems by Cavafy, translated by Hirst (2007)
27w from p.37. By permission of Oxford University Press, (URL
www.oup.com).
‘This last isn’t something I actually saw, but what you end up remem-
bering isn’t always the same as what you have witnessed.’ (2012: 3)
Excerpted from The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes. Copyright ©
2011 Julian Barnes. Published by Vintage. Reprinted by permission of The
Random House Group Limited.
‘This last isn’t something I actually saw, but what you end up remembering
isn’t always the same as what you have witnessed.’ (2012:3) Excerpted
from The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes. Copyright © 2011 Julian
Barnes. Reprinted by permission of Random House Canada, a division of
Random House of Canada Limited, a Penguin Random House Company.
Excerpt from ‘The Old Fools’ from THE COMPLETE POEMS by Philip
Larkin, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012.
Excerpt from ‘The Old Fools’ from THE COMPLETE POEMS by Philip
Larkin (electronic), Faber & Faber Ltd, 2012.
‘When a supervisee retires’ by Anne Power, published in Psychodynamic
Practice: Individuals, Groups and Organisations, Vol. 18 (4): 441–455
(2012), http://www.tandfonline.com/. Reprinted with permission.
Introduction

I think there are some people who are able to mourn, to grieve, to be
angry. And other people go on until far beyond they should be going
on . . . It is incredibly hard work to retire.
(Celia)

In summer, when the windows are open, our cat has the pleasure of
choosing when he comes and goes, but the route by which he makes his
exit is audacious. As the house has a basement, the ground floor windows
open onto a deep drop and the cat needs to jump across the area and pass
through railings before landing safely on the pavement. He must gauge
his trajectory to a very precise angle. The clearance between the railings
is very slight and to miss would mean a fearful fall down the sheer cliff
of the basement wall. Even for a cat, this undertaking requires special
concentration and he seems to prefer to jump when no one is around. He
is 12 years old. As each summer comes and the windows are left open I
wonder if he will again make use of this route, and a small part of me
worries about him attempting the jump and having a horrible accident. How
will my cat know when he can no longer risk this leap? When his body is
less agile, his eye less sure and his coordination less reliable, will he then
have the sense to wait for us to open the front door? Another part of me
trusts that it will be easy for him to give up this dangerous jumping because
he does not have an ego to manage or a sense of loss or sacrifice. So he
will not face the dilemma that many psychotherapists report in relation to
retirement.

Why retirement matters

I hadn’t anticipated – whether naively or defensively or omnipotently
– even though I knew that these are big events – I didn’t anticipate
2 Introduction

such a rollercoaster of feelings evoked in me. Because I actually feel

very distant from some people as well. I have so many different
feelings.
(Denise)

Age is not a precise indicator of the right time to retire. When we think in
terms of quality control and duty of care, there are two main risks which
need to be held in mind: first that an ageing therapist may lose capacity
to do the work sufficiently well and second that as we age there is an
increased chance of our dying, or of becoming seriously ill, and therefore
abandoning patients in the midst of their process. Registering organisations
are becoming aware of the large number of therapists who will be retiring
in the next decade, but most have yet to evolve or implement procedures
around retirement.
In a chapter looking back at her own retirement, Josephine Klein (2006)
conveys the natural resentment felt by those whose strong sense of duty
leads them to retire before those colleagues who take a more sanguine view
of how age is affecting them. ‘Anna Freud and Dorothy Burlingham,
among others, practised into their nineties, said my more megalomaniac
self, why could not I?’ (2006: 66). This comment has slightly inflated the
ages of these two pioneers, but several early analysts did work to a very
advanced age and some died in harness. Freud himself continued working
to within weeks of his death. The evidence of his later writing suggests
that his mind remained enormously powerful and perhaps he was able to
do good clinical work despite the appalling losses and the pain he was
living with. The problem from a twenty-first-century perspective is that
issues of continuity and attachment were overlooked. Freud did not
consider it necessary to protect patients from the experience of an analysis
cut short and the way he managed his practice through his years of illness
raises some ethical questions (Klockars, 2013). Some months after arriving
in London, and very weak following his final major operation, he took on
three new patients at the age of 82. He was able to work with them for
around 10 months before pain and weakness made it impossible to continue
(Gay, 1988). It seems that the impact of his condition on others was denied
and was most sharply brought home to him when his beloved dog cringed
from the smell of his wound.
While the news that their therapist is leaving them is unwelcome for
most clients and devastating for some, there will be clients for whom the
imposed time frame turns out to be beneficial. Some of the literature on
endings offers a positive view of the work which can be done under
pressure. Kaplan, Weiss, Harris and Dick (1994) point out that, like any
 Introduction 3

adjustment to the frame, the imposed ending provides a window onto parts
of the unconscious which might otherwise not have been exposed and
explored. All are agreed that the rupture will pose profound challenges to
patients and therapists. Boyd-Carpenter (2010a) describes the sudden threat
to the therapeutic alliance when the news was broken. She writes that once
the approaching abandonment was known, in her clients’ minds she was
‘no longer a passably steadfast, predictable and safe “mother”; but had
proved to be vulnerable, wilful, selfish and to have other loves and other
“children”’ (2010a: 91).

Stories we need to listen to

I think it is a process which needs to be taken incredibly seriously.

That’s what I’ve come to feel – through experiencing it myself and
watching other people go through it. Giving up of one’s whole identity
as a psychotherapist is mammoth, even if one may feel in some ways
burnt-out, there is so much wrapped up in that identity.
(Celia)

Five years ago, when I was 53, one of my supervisees began to speak of
the possibility of retiring and I became aware of an aspect of clinical
practice to which I had given little thought. I realised that the issues faced
by a retiring therapist have much in common with those occurring in other
imposed endings such as illness, maternity leave, relocation and sabbatical,
where a therapist needs to close her practice. As I thought with my
supervisee about her clients I became abruptly aware of what significant
attachment issues this raised and how differently the experience of being
left might play out for each of them. I realised I was becoming interested
in retirement not only in order to fulfil my duties as a supervisor but also
because in years to come this could be a challenging developmental stage
for me. Until my supervisee mentioned retirement it had been a distant
issue for me, but I now recognised that for those few clients who need a
decade of therapy my own retirement could soon become a consideration.
Like many therapists in peri-retirement I prefer not to put a figure on this
but, if my health permits, 70 (or a bit beyond), seems the age I might close
my practice. Of course sudden death and illness can arise at any age and
from the first day of private practice all therapists should have in place a
clinical will and an executor with access to all necessary contact details
(Firestein, 1993; Despenser, 2008; O’Neil, 2013).
The lack of almost any research or commentary on retirement motivated
me to set up my own study which aimed to discover what the process of
4 Introduction

retirement might involve. This book is based on my interviews with 13

retiring therapists, one who closed her practice to relocate, four who closed
a practice temporarily for maternity or sabbatical leave and one who gave
consideration to retirement but instead adopted a novel pattern of working.
In the last few years the literature has been significantly expanded. A book
by Junkers (2013) gives voice to psychoanalysts who have observed how
hard their colleagues find it to make a timely retirement and how much
harm may be done when the decision is postponed too long. A paper by
Barratt, Kegerreis and Wetherell (2012) reflects on the pioneering
retirement course which they ran in London for four years. Very recently
a number of the registering bodies have begun to recognise the need for
support in this area and to arrange workshops for therapists who are
preparing to retire. In this book I particularly wanted to gather up the
experience of retired therapists so that the next generation could benefit
from what has already been digested and learned. My focus has been
directed to two sets of questions: how hard is retirement for both therapists
and their patients, and, how do they manage the challenges? The research
was deeply enriching for me and I owe a profound debt to my anonymous
interviewees.
A survey by Guy, Stark, Poelstra and Souder (1987) suggested that
therapists who postpone retirement cite emotional satisfaction from the
work as a reason for continuing regardless of age. In her research into
therapists’ personal challenges and tragedies, Adams (2014) explores this
emotional need and the way, as therapists, we may be seeking to remedy
the past through our work with clients. She concludes, ‘in our work, many
of us have also found an unconscious method of self-medicating’ (2014:
8). Given my deep attachment to the work and the identity and meaning
it gives me, I can recognise that I could fall into this group who are reluctant
to let go. In this sense this study is part of my own extended preparation
for retirement.

Psychoanalysis and ageing

Fonagy puts the matter squarely: ‘Psychoanalysts took their time to catch
on to ageing’ (Fonagy, 2009: 212). In the early years of the profession,
attention was naturally focused on childhood because it was recognised
as formative for all that followed; old age was consequently left under-
theorised. Freud’s dismissive comments about the analysability of
middle-aged people were famously made when he was 48 and wrote,
‘psychotherapy is not possible near or above the age of fifty, the elasticity
of the mental processes, on which treatment depends, is as a rule lacking
 Introduction 5

– old people are not educable’ (1905: 264). These comments now sound
ridiculous, particularly in the light of the three productive decades in
Freud’s life which followed, but Biggs (1999) explains Freud’s statement
in terms of context. A few years earlier he had been almost drummed out
of town for his ‘outrageous’ ideas on child sexuality. This may have led
him to be overcautious in his claims for the new treatment. Even if Freud
himself was not as pessimistic as the 1905 statement can seem to imply,
the negative attitude towards work with older people became embedded
and only shifted towards the end of the century after pioneer papers by
Segal (1958) and King (1974). This means that the cohort of therapists
now coming into retirement will have been influenced by that earlier
negative belief. If being older is taken as meaning ‘not educable’, no
wonder there may be reluctance to own up to it. Biggs (1999) suggests
that the Freudian legacy which privileges the importance of childhood has
contributed to a negative discourse about old age and has meant that
psychoanalysis has aligned itself with other ageist beliefs in our culture.
It would be interesting to speculate whether elderly retired Jungians,
supported by a theory which puts emphasis on later life development, might
have a more positive self-image.

Attachment theory
I have chosen to look at the phenomenon of an imposed ending through
the lens of attachment theory because this is the understanding at the heart
of my own training and work, and because it offers an accessible way of
thinking about loss. Each chapter opens with reflections on the attachment
implications of the theme under discussion. Retirement involves loss and
separation on many levels, and how we cope with this will owe much to
our own attachment pattern and the defences with which we have managed
earlier challenges. The patients are losing an attachment figure, a secure
base and the person who carries (via projection) the unwieldy parts of the
self until these can be integrated. The therapist is losing her clients, her
colleagues and her identity as one who provides containment and meaning.
Attachment behaviour is most obviously triggered by separation.
However, many states of reduced vitality can prompt us to draw close to
a trusted other. Loneliness may evoke attachment needs and is often present
to some degree in retirement. One retiree, older than her partner, spoke
poignantly of going ahead of her attachment figure, saying, ‘I feel daunted
by doing it alone’. My hope is that this book can offer some sense of
accompaniment by enabling the voices of an earlier cohort of retirees to
speak to the next generation.
6 Introduction

Scope of the book

This book explores the experience of therapists who closed a private
practice in which they were working with long-term individual clients. I
hope the book will have relevance to a wide range of therapists and
counsellors, as well as to supervisors working with retiring supervisees. I
focused my study on people who draw on psychodynamic ideas because
the significance of imposing an ending may have particular repercussions
for the therapeutic couple who have worked with the interplay of their
unconscious worlds. I have used the terms patient and client inter-
changeably, hoping to speak to the wide range of clinicians who value
psychodynamic principles. The papers I have drawn on tend towards more
mainstream psychoanalytic pieces because the small literature that exists
on imposed endings has mostly been written by analysts.
The psychoanalytic frame was developed to provide containment for a
complex relationship with different levels of meaning. Disruptions to
the frame have significant impact and the imposition of an ending cuts
right into the ‘as if’ relationship as well as the more ‘real’ attachment
relationship. Sherby sums up why the announcement of an ending is such
a challenge, ‘as if everything the analyst had explicitly or implicitly
promised – security, safety, consistency, trust – has now been destroyed’
(2004: 74).
Some of the interviewees worked once a week with clients and others
more frequently, while two participants were analysts seeing patients up
to five times a week. In order to maintain confidentiality I have not clarified
to which of these three groups each contributor belongs, but there are some
points where this is implicit in what they say. The participants were all
working long term and some of them were working very long term – well
beyond 10 years. Some of them had additional qualifications to work with
groups, couples or children but, again to preserve anonymity, I have not
made this clear. The special issues which arise in imposing an ending on
groups or couples are outlined in Chapter 2, which also looks very briefly
at retirement from an organisation. Child psychotherapy is not covered.
Chapters 1 to 8 focus on the contributions of the 13 retired or retiring
therapists as well as the one who relocated. These therapists were all
making a full and permanent closure of a practice. Each chapter addresses
a question about the process, beginning with the enquiry, ‘Why retire?’
and leading through to Chapter 8 on life after retirement. While a staged
model is always an oversimplification, it is interesting how the experience
of closing a practice does chart the familiar stages of grief. The themes
addressed in each chapter follow the familiar sequence quite closely:
 Introduction 7

ambivalence; uncertainty; abandonment; challenge; guilt; hoping for help;

sadness; relief.
Chapter 1 asks contributors how they came to the decision to retire.
Chapter 2 reports on how they set about the task and then two long chapters
– 3 and 4 – cover the clinical stories of working with patients when the
guillotine has been set. Chapter 3 focuses on how patients responded and
the material here is circumscribed by therapists’ obvious need to maintain
confidentiality for patients. Chapter 4 continues to look at the clinical tasks
of closing a practice and referring on. In Chapter 5 retirees speak about
their countertransference. Chapter 6 asks what role supervision played in
the process of retirement and considers the supervisor’s own retirement.
In Chapter 7 therapists speak about the different types of loss they faced
and in Chapter 8 they share their experience in the period after retiring.
Each of these eight central chapters opens with reflection on the attachment
implications of this stage, followed by verbatim quotations from different
participants and comments from the literature. The Introduction to the
Contributors is placed in a section of its own before Chapter 1.
The eight chapters which describe the process of permanently closing
a practice for retirement or relocation are followed by a single chapter
looking at temporary closures. This chapter draws on interviews with two
therapists who took maternity leave, two who took a sabbatical and one
who made an innovative adaptation to his working schedule when he turned
60. These temporary endings are distinct from retirement and relocation
but there is considerable overlap in the issues faced by patients and
therapists. In all cases therapists are facing a dilemma as to how to
balance their need to leave the work versus the clients’ needs for care. This
dilemma can be acute when patients are in long-term work, are invested
in a challenging transference and have an early history of loss and
abandonment. The appendices at the end of the book provide a checklist
of the challenges relating to each type of ending.

Relocation
I have drawn heavily on papers about relocation because of the dearth of
writing on retirement itself and because the two kinds of imposed ending
are in many ways similar. In an early paper on relocation, Aarons (1975)
is forthright about the enormity for some patients: ‘For the analyst to move
away is akin to the loss of a loved one in whom there has been great
emotional investment’ (1975: 303). Papers by Dewald (1965), Weiss
(1972), Schwarz (1974), Martinez (1989) and Sherby (2004) also illustrate
a personal record of relocation and their articles provide a basis for thinking
8 Introduction

about each stage of retirement. Although I see similarities in the experience

of retirement and relocation and I have included the story of one
interviewee who relocated, it is important to acknowledge that there are
differences and so where the issues concerning relocation are more distinct
I have included a specific paragraph on this. A key practical issue which
distinguishes the two experiences is the pace of the change. Most therapists
who are in good health are able (if not willing) to see their retirement when
it is still a few years distant whereas the need to move home may arise
much more suddenly. The most significant difference may be the emotional
meaning of the imposed closure. For both therapist and client, feelings and
fantasies will be differently informed. In the case of relocation the therapist
is pursuing a new venture and making an exciting-sounding choice to move
to another town whereas in retirement she is usually responding to her own
life cycle.
That this simplification is misleading is immediately illustrated by the
story of my contributor Alice, whose relocation was necessitated by the
long illness and eventual death of her partner. The story of Nicola also
illustrates how experience of retirement or relocation may not accord with
such a simple distinction. Her own retirement was brought forward because
her husband stopped working and this pushed them towards moving house.
For many therapists who relocate, the reason for moving arises out of their
partner’s needs rather than their own. This experience of relocating under
pressure is described by Sherby (2004), whose paper shares the personal
challenge of eventually placing her husband’s health needs above her own
wishes and the claims of her patients.

Uncertainty over fitness to practise

Fitness to practise is essentially about being able to provide the contract
which we explicitly and implicitly have with patients. Where there is doubt
about our being reliably and effectively available, it may be necessary to
close our practice. This is an important allied area which cannot be explored
fully in this book but is considered in Chapter 1 and in Chapter 6, which
looks at the role of supervision. When a therapist is facing an uncertain
prognosis, decisions about how to proceed will need a lot of thought
in supervision, and possibly in negotiation with our registering body, to
identify the best way forward. Sometimes it is appropriate to take a limited
period of time off in which the therapist comes to a view as to whether
they will be able to resume or whether, provided they are well enough,
they need to meet with their patients to say goodbye and to think with them
about referral on.
 Introduction 9

Although this book is focused on planning retirement with the aim of

avoiding an emergency ending, one participant, Emma, did have to make
an abrupt closure. She ended with half of her patients over a three-month
period and a year later was obliged to retire from work with her remaining
patients, with just two weeks’ notice. Her story will provide some insight
into this particular challenge.

Methodology: research with a supervisory

stance
In selecting a methodology I was looking for an approach which would
sustain and deepen my own curiosity as well as that of my readers. I
considered using an ‘off the shelf’ qualitative research method as a way
to achieve philosophical coherence and academic rigour, but I felt that my
primary aim of sharing information between generations of therapists
would be best achieved by evolving a pragmatic approach. I intend the
book to be user friendly for the reader and I would like it to span the gap
which has often existed between research and practice. Freshwater (2007)
has drawn attention to the role of the reader in appraising research, and
she reminds us that every reader is a critic. I hope this book will evoke
this kind of critique from the reader, so that they are aware of being
participators in the research and may choose to build on it.

Sample
My research has been based on a small sample, most of whom practised
in London, and cannot hope to represent the full range of retirement
experiences. Nonetheless I wished to achieve some breadth of cover – in
particular to hear the stories of therapists who retired at different ages. In
pursuing that aim I rather de-prioritised achieving a gender balance and
so a limitation of my sample is its homogeneity: my contributors are mostly
women, all white and mostly middle class. This of course is representative
of this cohort of British therapists. It is also my identity. In addition to
data from the formal participants, I have drawn on conversations with
colleagues who have kindly given permission for use of their material.
I have focused on therapists who made a planned retirement from private
practice, who worked with patients long term and with an orientation which
was either psychoanalytic or integrative with psychodynamic under-
standing. The point of commonality was that therapists were working in
a way that meant the unexpected break in the frame would represent a
serious challenge to the clinical relationship. I did not ask contributors to
10 Introduction

identify their place on the analytic spectrum, but their comments may give
some clues as to whether they tend towards neutrality in the therapy
relationships or whether they are interested in the intersubjectivity of the
analytic encounter (Benjamin, 1990, 2004). My own theoretical base of
attachment theory would have been more familiar to some participants than
to others. Training was thus one factor which made me closer to some of
the interviewees than to others and there will have been other less obvious
factors that supported a deeper level of rapport with some contributors.

Confidentiality and ethics

When we write about researching the work of other therapists we are
inevitably engaging with a triangle. As in writing about supervision, there
are two levels of participants whose identity needs to be protected: the
therapists and their clients. To provide anonymity for interviewees and
patients I have been sparing with personal details and of course pseudo-
nyms are used. Contributors gave permission for recording of interviews
and as I wanted them to feel that their script represented them and their
clients fairly, I offered several opportunities for revision of the transcript
and the draft.

Data gathering through a supervision-interview

It was important to me that interviewees felt comfortable to share their
experience and I think this was helped by my approaching all of them
through personal introduction. The first two subjects were known to
me directly and the subsequent ones were all known to colleagues who
knew me. This meant that in each case there was an initial level of trust
that enabled us to use the space productively. Interviews lasted about 90
minutes and I let the contributors know in advance the areas on which I
would ask them to reflect. The fact that all interviews and transcription
were done by me may contribute to a clear frame and possibly a degree
of consistency, although I believe that my method was evolving as my data-
gathering progressed.
As interviewees were generously agreeing to share their stories, I gave
them control of confidentiality and built this into the process. Occasionally
contributors censored themselves as they spoke, interjecting ‘That
shouldn’t go in!’. They also had the assurance that when I transcribed the
conversation I would remove any identifying details about clients and
I would be asking specific permission before I quoted any sentences
verbatim. When they received the transcript they had a chance to ask for
 Introduction 11

amendments; typically participants spotted a few more personal details

which needed to be excised or they added the odd clarification. Later I
invited them to read the first draft of the book and to check that they were
satisfied with the way I had used their stories.
I would argue that with this frame in place, once interviewees felt
confidence in the quality of my listening it was natural for them to make
significant use of the contained thinking space which we created between
us. I think that the use they made of it was analogous to supervision. I
would define supervision as a generative thinking space where reflection
on work with clients is deepened. Contributors were all experienced in
using free association to access deeper levels of the self and they took the
opportunity to tune into their own unconscious process. This happened
to differing degrees in different interviews, but the pattern that emerged
was that of a quasi-supervisory meeting. I became aware that my stance
in these sessions had considerable overlap with the way I listen and respond
as a supervisor and that my interviewees were, to some extent, using me
in that way. This evolution seemed to be a mutual process and helped to
promote a kind of supervisory dynamic. As most meetings were held
in the therapist’s current or former therapy room, this also contributed to
our sense of working together on understanding the retiree’s clinical
experience.
This claim that my interviews had a supervisory nature makes sense if
we consider the research qualities that are already present in regular clinical
supervision. We could say that the supervisory dyad is engaged in a study
of the supervisee’s work. As supervisor and supervisee construct a
narrative about the therapist and her patients, data are amassed and analysed
and there is also reflection on the way the supervisory dyad is handling
that material and on how it is impacting on them (Frawley-O’Dea and
Sarnat, 2001).
While I have emphasised the sense of a frame in my interviews, it is
important to acknowledge that these meetings happened within a research
contract; Midgley (2006) suggests researchers benefit from psychoanalytic
skills, but warns that the research interview is not suited to the kinds of
interaction we expect within a clinical relationship. The factor that made
this process very distinct from clinical supervision was the different
intention. As a supervisor I have the needs of both the client and the
supervisee in mind. In these research interviews the aim was different: I
was hoping for the interviewee to understand more of her own process, so
that I could make use of that emerging story. For those contributors who
were still working with clients, it is possible that our meeting did perform
a direct supervisory function.
12 Introduction

The subjectivity of the researcher

As a therapist I subscribe to the idea that there is no neutral position to
which we can retreat (Mitchell, 1993). There are always two subjectivities
in the consulting room, and equally I do not claim objectivity as a
researcher. Through reflection on my subjectivity I hope to deepen the
understanding which the study may offer readers. Through transparency
about my process I aim to put the reader in a position to interpret my work.
Avis and Freshwater (2006: 221) assert that ‘it is having a theory in mind
that makes particular features of experience apparent’. We know this of
course from the consulting room where we listen with a certain filter
assembled from our theoretical and personal values; our clients certainly
know it, with different levels of consciousness, and they soon learn what
we will and won’t pick up on. The conscious filter which I brought to this
work was constructed from a combination of attachment and psycho-
analytic theory. This template for my listening was further coloured by a
personal agenda to prepare myself for my own retirement, as well as to
address my concern about those cases where reluctance to retire leads to
unplanned endings. As I listened to my interviewees it was inevitable that
my own responses would to some extent be implicitly conveyed. This may
have happened through my expression, my demeanour and my choice, or
phrasing, of supplementary questions. Clearly my own identification with,
or defensiveness against, parts of each story will have impacted on how
the story was being told.
We know that transference operates in all human relationships and it
may help us to make sense of the assumptions and projections being made
by researcher and participants. In some conversations I was aware of being
particularly warmly engaged and also sensing mutuality in that feeling. It
was not difficult for me to recognise the kinds of qualities which I was
appreciating in these senior therapists and to observe my wish to inspire
their respect in me. In some cases I was relating to them as authority figures.
From these comments it is very clear that I do not stand outside of my
inquiry.
All therapists will approach retirement with their own blend of concerns.
For many the overriding question is how they will know when to retire. I
am chiefly concerned with how deeply I will feel the loss of my work.
When I no longer have the opportunity to be so useful to people, to benefit
from the very particular contained intimacy which therapy involves, how
will I manage the parts of me which have been sustained by this role? This
need in me to understand the challenge ahead has shaped the research and
the book.
 Introduction 13

Interpretation of contributors’ stories

Although the participants in this study were all, by definition of their
profession, signed up to the significance of unconscious process, and
although when we met I tried to elicit new layers of reflection from them,
I have not felt it was my role as researcher to subject these stories to full-
blooded interpretation. Yet all my participants were aware, and readers will
expect, that motivation for retirement, like other motivations, will include
a mix of conscious and unconscious elements. In some of the interviews
these layers were more fully exposed and the interviewee herself com-
ments on her unconscious process. The stories are therefore to some
extent self-interpreted, but the contributors’ gift is that they have made their
stories available for the reader to make sense of. Doubtless each reader
will identify more fully with some participants than with others and
they will seek to understand the stories through their own theoretical
lens. I have tried to present material in a way which is faithful to the
differences between contributors without creating a narrative which feels
too exposing to individuals whose former colleagues are likely to read this
book. The framework for the book is chronological, following recognisable
steps through a retirement process. This choice of structure reflects the
strong narrative sequence in the accounts I heard, but it is also the case
that I was, from the start, looking for stories. By choosing this familiar
and accessible format, I have necessarily forgone other ways of presenting
the material which would have emphasised and linked up different aspects
of experience.

Critique of my methodology
There are downsides to being as close as I was to my contributors. A serious
limitation is my bias towards being nice to my interviewees – I identified
with them as colleagues and to different degrees I felt admiration of their
careers. Although I felt able to pose some challenging questions, my respect
may have been more constraining than if I had been interviewing dis-
tinguished retirees from a profession other than my own. After gaining their
permission to use their story, I did not want to steer the conversation in a
way which might ‘show them up’ or enhance the feelings of regret or guilt
they might be carrying about their retirement.
As well as sparing my interviewees from discomfort I was perhaps
anxious on my own account: if a transcript had showed the speaker in a
poor light I would then have had the dilemma of either presenting or
censoring that material. In her writing about the relationship between
14 Introduction

researcher and subject, Rizq (2008) explores the impact of unconscious

dynamics and the temptation there may be for collusion. She refers to ‘the
research couple’s jointly constructed unconscious agreement to abolish
disagreement, to deny Oedipal difference’ (2008: 46). There are points in
my interviews where I was aware of this collusion and almost certainly
others of which I was unconscious, but which readers may identify. In some
other passages I have purposefully avoided comments which could appear
judgemental; readers may develop their own thoughts about best practice,
in terms of their own clinical experience and modality.
In support of my method I would point to the deeper engagement which
may be possible when the researcher is experienced as a like-minded
colleague. In the supervision-interview process the mostly silent listening
of another is likely to evoke a process of remembering which is different
from a regular interview. In the pauses where the speaker stops but the
listener continues to listen and to expect, there is an invitation to dig deeper,
to look again at what has been said, to add or to revise. The knowledge
that the listener is attending, and is receiving and holding what is said with
an analytic attitude, is an encouragement to the speaker to also enter into
that reverie and to allow material to loosen and to come to the surface and
for new connections to be made. The paradox is that the same trust which
meant that I was privileged with confidences meant that I felt constrained
in how I used them.

Imposed ending as opportunity

For the most part this book looks at challenges and losses but an imposed
ending also brings opportunities: the intrusion of real life can bring forth
the adult part of the client so that their resourcefulness can become more
apparent. In a comment about transitions which might speak here to either
the retiring therapist or the patient, Murray Parkes writes that ‘Crisis can
lead to the stars as well as to the grave’ (1971: 102). In some ways the
dilemma of working through an enforced ending is the dilemma of all
therapy writ large: how to allow space for the young, disturbed parts of
the client to be known and reintegrated, while also holding appropriate
expectations of the adult in the room.
Introduction to the
contributors

As you write, you are aware of the people with whom you talked; you
hesitate to give meanings to their words which they would wish to
reject.
(Thompson, 2000: 271)

The book will draw on interviews with 19 participants. In Chapters 1 to

8 we follow the process of those who closed their practice permanently;
these are the stories of 13 retirees and one contributor who closed her
practice to relocate. Chapter 9 considers temporary closure of a practice
and draws on the stories of two women who took maternity breaks, two
who took a sabbatical and one who, on turning 60, adopted an unusual
working timetable. Pseudonyms have been used throughout.

The retirees
This list shows retirees in descending order of their age at the point of
retirement. This also gives their stage in relation to retirement, with the
six whom I interviewed prior to their retirement being marked with an
asterisk.

88 Alan interviewed two years after retiring

88 Beatrice * interviewed six months prior to retiring
75 Rosemary interviewed nine years after retiring
74 Mary * interviewed six months prior to retiring
72 Annette interviewed one month after retiring
71 Clementine interviewed a year and a half after retiring
70 Celia * interviewed one year prior to retiring
70 Emma interviewed two years after retiring
68 Hannah interviewed six months after retiring
16 Introduction to the contributors

65 Patsy interviewed two months after retiring

64 Denise * interviewed two months prior to retiring
62 Nicola * interviewed ten months prior to retiring
61 Carol * interviewed six months prior to retiring

This chapter will provide a brief introduction to all those who generously
contributed their stories to the study. As a whole this presents too many
characters to take in at one sitting, and readers may find it more useful to
skim this chapter and refer back to it when they want to clarify the age
and stage of a particular speaker.
To make these 13 individuals more accessible, I will introduce them
under the four headings which emerged as I worked on the data: the
younger, the older, the forced and the classic. These headings reflect
participants’ reasons for retiring. My first question to my interviewees
asked them why they decided to stop work, and it was the pattern which
emerged from those initial responses around motivation to retire which led
me to think in terms of these headings. This typology offered itself as the
way I could best make sense of the 13 narratives: it describes the patterns
which I see indicated in my interviewees’ experiences. Of course like any
typology there is much overlap between groups and the risk of using these
labels is that it forecloses our thinking.

The classic group: Clementine, Annette and Mary

(aged 71, 72 and 74, respectively, at the point of
retirement)
Clementine, Annette and Mary shared a style of retirement which seems
to be most common in the psychoanalytic community. They had all chosen
a carefully planned retirement soon after the age of 70, taking a couple of
years to complete the process. I see this as a ‘classic’ style of retirement
for therapists who feel deeply attached to their work and are in many ways
reluctant to let it go. In the end they are motivated to do so by a balance
of both push and pull factors. For them the decision rests on a combination
of their concern to protect their patients from the risks of an ageing thera-
pist and their appetite for an active life in retirement. Clementine was
interviewed a year and a half later and Annette one month after retiring.
Mary was 74 when I met her six months prior to her retirement.
From informal conversations with older colleagues I have seen that this
is a way of managing retirement which is widely followed by those whose
health is good and who greatly enjoy their work but who feel it would be
responsible to end around the age of 70. Therapists in this group tend to
 Introduction to the contributors 17

reduce their patient numbers very gradually through their late 60s and
eventually set a deadline of around 18 months. Their dominant reasons for
retiring are the duty of care to patients (wanting to avoid both reduced
performance and actual collapse) and the wish for a pleasurable retirement
while they still have the health to enjoy it.
Clementine was 72 when I interviewed her 18 months into her
retirement, and her story is quite typical of a carefully planned retirement:
she saw 70 as a watershed around which her plans developed and, once
she had made up her mind to end, she gave patients about 18 months’
notice. Clementine had eight patients at the point when she settled on a
date for retirement and she describes a duty of care as one of her main
reasons for closing her practice. As a former social worker accustomed to
working in a team of colleagues, she was acutely aware of the particular
responsibility of the single practitioner. She also expressed her wish to
retire while she still had enough energy to develop and pursue her other
interests.
Annette had ended with her final patient just weeks before we met. She
was 72 and had had a few years of practising with a reduced caseload after
treatment for cancer five years earlier. During her radiotherapy treatment
she had been able to schedule appointments in a way that allowed her to
carry on working, but she had stopped taking new patients. When she
realised how much she enjoyed the free time she decided to keep her case
load very light. After her earlier cancer, it felt particularly important to her
that she was able to retire in good health rather than through an emergency
ending. As she had given 18 months’ warning she felt confident that
patients could not, in reality, attribute her going to illness and she was glad
they had been spared tangible grounds for that possible fantasy. As Annette
had made the earlier reduction in patient numbers, her retirement was
particularly gradual with the final guillotine affecting only her last two
patients and two supervisees. She also mentioned two pull factors: the
wish to visit grandchildren who lived at some distance and a desire for
‘me time’.
Mary was due to retire six months after our meeting. She was 74 and
particularly clear about her duty of care and her concern not to expose
patients to unnecessary risks through her ageing. Mary had anticipated her
retirement well in advance and prepared for the closure by not taking on
new patients for many years. Eventually she had given her remaining
patients 18 months’ notice but had been working with the end in her own
mind for much longer. She pondered to what degree her husband’s
retirement had prompted her, but she felt on the whole it had not. Her
appetite for enjoying artistic pursuits and her extended family were also
18 Introduction to the contributors

important but here again she was mindful of the paradox of this stage,
looking forward to leisure but aware that ‘there’s a scary thing about
stopping and knowing who you are’.

The younger group: Carol, Nicola, Denise, Patsy and

Hannah (aged 61, 62, 64, 65 and 68, respectively, at
the point of retirement)
Therapists in this group may be more motivated by pull factors – the needs
of a partner and family or a wish to pursue their own creative interests –
than by the push factor of duty of care. On the whole this group managed
their retirement over a shorter period than the classic retirees, with Denise
and Hannah each giving six months’ notice to patients. There was more
explicit evidence of ambivalence in this group. Out of all the contributor
Patsy and Carol expressed the highest level of uncertainty about the decision,
though some ambivalence was indicated by most participants. Nicola’s
decision was combined with a house move and she was leaving open the
possibility that she might open a new practice once she was settled. This
form of ‘trial retirement’ is also particular to this group as Carol’s decision
to retire had been partly been triggered by an inevitable gap in her practice
at a point where she had moved house. This was not a homogeneous group.
In contrast to Carol, Patsy and Nicola who expressed much doubt about
the step, Hannah reported a particularly smooth process and did not convey
conflict about the decision or the experience of retirement. Denise’s experi-
ence was different again: she spoke of a very heavy clinical challenge as
she made the whole transition in just six months rather than starting with
a gradual preparatory reduction in patient numbers.
Carol was 61 when I met her some months before she intended to end
with her final client. She experienced uncertainty about the retirement
decision which had arisen as a result of her partner’s recent redundancy
and their consequent house move. At the time of the move her commitment
to continuing had been demonstrated by her recreating her therapy room
in the new house with exactly the same decoration and furnishings as the
old one. However, she found herself tired in the evenings and sometimes
forgetful. Carol also had conflicted feelings about her financial situation,
which was comfortable enough to permit her to retire, and she experienced
guilt about choosing a life of leisure. The chief pull factor in her case was
a desire for a good quality of life in retirement and an explicit recognition
that her remaining span of life was unknown. She felt she was getting a
bit better at allowing herself to relax and was determined to enjoy the next
10 years.
 Introduction to the contributors 19

Nicola’s decision to close her practice was also timed around her
husband’s retirement. When I spoke to her she was 62, and 10 months from
the date she had set for final sessions. Her husband’s retirement had been
known well in advance and she sometimes found his keen anticipation
trying. She described a drawn-out process of ambivalence about closing
her practice and the possibility that after their intended house move she
might start a new practice in their new location. Her intention was to stop
working and then make a final decision about whether this would be a
retirement. She wondered whether she would enjoy not working or whether
she would feel that she lacked intellectual stimulation. Nicola’s process
of reducing the size of her practice and setting an end date was a gradual
one and, in this respect, she is similar to the older therapists who follow
the classic pattern. In common with them she was poised between
attachment to the work and a wish to enjoy retirement. Like the classic
retirees, Nicola was also very clear about her duty of care to patients and
her wish to reduce the risk of abandoning them suddenly. She also noticed
that she was getting tired and sometimes questioned whether her afternoon
clients were being short-changed by seeing her at the time of day when
her energy dipped.
Denise was 64 when I spoke to her and was halfway through the six
months’ notice she had given her patients. She was living through the
gruelling experience of a timetabled, rather than an organic, retirement.
She was one of the youngest of my participants and she voiced the ‘pull’
factor vigorously, and this included two elements which were relevant
to other younger retirees: the timing of her partner’s retirement and an
imminent house move. In voicing the desire to be well enough to enjoy
retirement she cited her mother, whom she felt had left retirement too late.
Like others whose practice was outside of their home, Denise listed the
renewal of the contract on her therapy room as a practical factor in setting
the end date. She had had this date in mind at least a year in advance and
negotiated a contract to allow for that. She then made a separate clinical
decision that in order to achieve a real engagement with the meaning of
ending she would give the patients six months’ notice. This was informed
by her personal experience of an overly protracted ending to her own
therapy which she felt had not been productive.
Patsy was 65 at the point of retiring and her story is in many respects
akin to the younger pull-factor retirements, yet her very conflicted feelings
and her deep reflections make her pathway to retirement exceptional. I met
Patsy a few weeks after she had finally closed her practice and she shared
her evolving thoughts about the circuitous route she had taken to reach
that point. Her story gives us a particularly interesting window into the
20 Introduction to the contributors

role of the unconscious in the decision to retire. She had thought much
about her motivation for retirement and struggled with particularly painful
ambivalence including an initial aborted retirement, where she rescinded
her plans to close her practice and worked on for a few more years.
Hannah’s story is the closest to Denise’s, being fairly swift and largely
motivated by the choice to spend time with a new partner. She had been
69 at her retirement two months prior to our meeting. It was clear that she
was a very fit and active 69-year-old and she explained that it had been
her original intention to work for another decade. She recalled that during
her training she had been impressed by the paper which Strauss had written
while still practising at the age of eighty (1996). Hannah described herself
as a latecomer to the profession; her training as a therapist had itself been
a retirement project which she had undertaken in the closing years of an
earlier successful career in business. Hannah expressed some sadness about
not having stayed long enough in the profession to achieve all she had
hoped for. In common with another younger retiree, Nicola, she mentioned
irritation with the proposed changes in registration of psychotherapists as
an additional factor which had influenced her decision. She felt disinclined
to jump through the further hoops which she anticipated might be required.

The group who were forced to retire: Emma, Celia

and Rosemary (aged 70, 70 and 75, respectively,
at the point of retirement)
Emma and Celia are part of a significant minority of therapists who are
forced into retirement by illness and who have had the double loss of
closing their practice while facing a reduced and uncertain future. Emma
had been compelled by her cancer to give up work and Celia was facing
an undiagnosed cognitive decline which meant that she was losing her
capacity for the work and was taking steps to close her practice. While I
owe a debt of gratitude to all the participants, I felt that those who had
been forced into retirement were exceptionally generous in how they shared
their stories and as a fellow therapist I was very moved by their loss. I
have included Rosemary in this group as she also retired out of duty of
care to her patients when she found that her memory was losing its power.
Her case is different in that when she noticed that her memory was reducing
she stopped taking on new patients, but she did not actually impose an
ending on any of them.
Emma’s retirement was triggered by her illness at the age of 69. After
her first treatment for cancer she retired the majority of her patients over
a three-month period. She was hoping to work through to normal endings
 Introduction to the contributors 21

with a core of patients but a year later she was compelled to make an
emergency ending over a two-week period with these five. I interviewed
Emma two years into retirement. She had evidently been a very healthy
active 69-year-old, with a full practice of 13 patients coming two, three
or four times a week, when cancer had been quite suddenly diagnosed.
Her first treatment took place in a longer than usual holiday break. When
she returned to work she realised that her health would not allow her to
sustain such a heavy practice and she made the decision to end with the
patients who came most frequently. These patients then had three months
to work towards closure. There were five patients who were less intensive
and with whom Emma ‘didn’t feel right about ending’, to whom she gave
the option of staying on. Work with these five continued for another year
until a scan showed that the cancer had recurred and another operation
would be needed within weeks. At that point Emma made the decision to
make a final emergency ending before having surgery. She was prompted
both by a duty of care to these remaining patients and by a tiredness which
she voiced in a most heartfelt way.
Celia was 69 when I met her in the middle stages of a retirement which
was being forced on her by a neurological condition. After more than three
decades as a therapist she was facing the deep uncertainty of symptoms
for which doctors were unable to give a diagnosis. The symptoms she
noticed most clearly were difficulty in finding words and difficulty in
handwriting. She reported that about 18 months earlier she had come to
the view that the changes she was experiencing were not going to go away
and she was therefore obliged to move towards retirement. Celia had had
a very full professional life both in organisations and in her private practice.
By the time I met her she had stepped back from what had been a very
active engagement in teaching and speaking. She was also in the final stages
of withdrawing from her work in an agency and, by virtue of not taking
on new patients, had reduced the size of her private practice. I had the
impression that the fact that scans and hospital appointments had offered
no clear diagnosis or prognosis was adding to the loneliness of this pathway
to retirement.
Rosemary’s story has much in common with the classic stories, but I
see her ending as a forced one because it was wholly motivated by duty
of care. Her case is unique in my sample as she accomplished her retirement
without imposing any forced endings on her patients. She arranged her
retirement as an organic process, allowing each patient to come to the end
of their work in their own time without any guillotine of a set retirement
date. Rosemary was 75 when she saw her last patient and I spoke to her
about 10 years after that. She had been in her mid-60s when she had noticed
22 Introduction to the contributors

that her memory for details of patients’ lives and of earlier sessions was
not as strong as it had formerly been. When I asked how long this organic
process had taken, Rosemary said she had no idea but thought it had been
less than eight years.

The older group: Beatrice and Alan (both

aged 88 at the point of retirement)
Beatrice and Alan were both aged 88 at the point of retirement but aside
from this detail of chronology their stories are very different. It is possible
that if I had met Alan two years earlier, just before he closed his practice, I
would have seen a closer correspondence in their experience. Prior to meeting
Beatrice I held the belief that working as a therapist to the age of 80 was
likely to be irresponsible. However, her clarity and insight into the effects
of her ageing on her work impressed me, and disturbed my assumption that
if therapists continue working to such an age they are exposing their patients
to unwarranted risk. In her case I did not have the feeling that at 88 she had
left retirement too late. Beatrice’s story showed me, not that retirement is
any less pressing a problem, but what a complex issue this is to address. My
intuitive assessment was that Beatrice in her 80s had a talent for the work
that most of us continue to strive for throughout our careers.
Beatrice was 88 when I interviewed her about nine months prior to her
retirement. The way she handled her retirement matches the classic pattern
in every respect except for her age: her case is different by virtue of her
being nearly 20 years older than most in the classic group. Beatrice had
allowed her practice to reduce organically over several years so that at the
time we spoke she was seeing a few supervisees and a handful of patients.
We met in May and the endings with her remaining patients were due to
happen in a staged process with one or two terminating at the summer
break, one at Christmas and the final ones at Easter. She anticipated that
she might continue to see supervisees further into the future. (The potential
ethical dilemma about supervisors continuing their work after they stop
seeing patients is explored in Chapter 6.) Like many participants, Beatrice
spoke of a duty of care to her patients. She felt that her analytic capacity
was reduced and described herself as being carried along by counter-
transference in a way that formerly she would have resisted. Although her
health was very good, she was also aware of being at increased risk of
dying by virtue of being old. Although Beatrice did not name her wish for
free time as a motivation for retiring, she speculated that she might enjoy
it so much she might after all cease to work as a supervisor.
Alan was the oldest contributor and he was the only retired man in the
study. He had been 88 when he had closed his practice and, when I met him
 Introduction to the contributors 23

two years later, his health had deteriorated considerably. Sadly this meant
that his recall of his retirement was missing in parts and so my understanding
of his experience was not as full as I would have wished. His account of his
working life was very engaging, and he spoke with pathos and eloquence
about the major losses which retirement had brought him. This meant that
I was able to gather a profound sense of his emotional experience of
retirement, but the details of timing and process were not available.

The contributor who had relocated

Alice was 61 when we met three years after she had closed her practice
in order to move house. She had been working in private practice for 18
years, with short- and long-term clients seen weekly. She had 10 or
12 clients at the time of ending and one of these had been seeing her for
11 years. Alice had made the decision to relocate at a point when her
partner was terminally ill and they wanted to be closer to family, then sadly
her partner died before they were relocated. Alice moved after the death
and she then established a new practice outside of London. Her story
reflects the challenge of managing a closure while living through very sad
and uncertain personal events.

The contributors who closed their practice

temporarily
These experiences of maternity leave and sabbatical are explored in
Chapter 9.
Flora was interviewed about 30 years after closing down her practice
to start a family. She had become unwell towards the end of her pregnancy
and her first baby tragically died. She went on to have another baby and
resumed a small practice before taking a six-month break to have a third
child. Her story reflects the unpredictability of pregnancy and the challenge
of holding the frame in the face of medical uncertainties. Her story includes
the experience of closing a practice (to have her first child) as well as that
of a short maternity break (for her third child).
Susannah was interviewed two years after her second maternity leave.
She had taken a break of four months for each of her two children, who
were born two years apart. Like Flora, she experienced a perinatal emerg-
ency as her second child was critically ill following her birth, before
making a full recovery. Susannah’s story includes the challenge of making
two maternity breaks in succession – a normal pattern for a mother but a
difficult experience for long-term patients.
24 Introduction to the contributors

Issy was 54 when we met six months into her sabbatical. After a year
of deliberating and planning, she had taken another year to close a busy
practice. There were various factors which contributed to her decision to
take time out, but the most specific trigger was a health scare which had
amplified her questions about the meaning of her work. She had told her
clients that she would not be seeing people for at least a year.
Paula was 65 when I interviewed her a year after a 10-week sabbatical
which she had taken in the summer, giving it the sense of an unusually
long annual break. The model she devised might be relevant to many
therapists who feel they would benefit from time out. By dividing her
sabbatical into two shorter breaks she effectively reduced the sense of
abandonment for clients. She returned to work for one week in the middle
of this period so that patients could check in for a session between the
two five-week breaks. Her thinking around this, and how it worked, are
described in Chapter 9.
Simon’s story combines the experience of retirement and sabbatical. I
went to interview Simon on the misunderstanding that he was in the process
of retiring. It turned out that he had taken a very small step towards
retirement, having devised a working schedule which gave him every fifth
week off. I have placed his story with those of sabbatical as I came to see
his personal solution as an alternative to both retirement and sabbatical.
Through his reimagined frame he has achieved some of the benefits of both.
Simon was 62 when I interviewed him two years after adapting his working
hours to give him frequent short breaks.
Chapter 1
Why retire?

I want a life after work finishes and a good life with energy and
creativity. I don’t want to retire to die.
(Denise)

Gradually I began to find it too difficult to be constantly putting my

centre of gravity into somebody else – that exquisite self-control.
(Emma)

I want to explore why therapists retire and also why they might sometimes
neglect to do so. This book follows the stories of those who prepared for
their retirement. The exception to this is Emma, whose sudden cancer
diagnosis pushed her into imposing a hurried ending on some patients and
later obliging the remaining ones to end extremely suddenly. In making
the case for planning our retirement, this opening chapter will look briefly
at the consequences of not planning and the impact on patients when an
emergency ending is imposed. As in each of the subsequent chapters I will
begin by referring to attachment theory to reflect on the question in hand.

Attachment implications
Can attachment theory help us to understand the reluctance which many
therapists feel about closing a practice? The losses at the end of a career
could be very significant, but does it make any sense to think of this an
attachment wound? The therapist is clearly not losing her own attachment
figure as, unless something has gone very wrong, patients do not function
as attachment figures for their therapists. What the therapist is losing is
her role as an attachment figure; the role which may have given her a sense
of purpose, meaning and affirmation over decades and which may have
been contributing to her own secure base. As with any loss, our way of
managing ourselves will reflect our default attachment pattern and residual
26 Why retire?

insecure traits will determine whether we lean towards a more avoidant/

dismissing or ambivalent/preoccupied pattern.

Basic principles of attachment theory

Bowlby (1969, 1973, 1980) proposed that, in the interests of survival, an
infant develops an attachment bond with its primary caregiver. Attachment
behaviour includes seeking proximity to a safe person who is viewed as
‘stronger and/or wiser’ (Bowlby, 1977: 203) and protesting at separation
from this attachment figure at times of fear, tiredness, illness and other
stress. Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters and Wall (1978) observed that infants
develop patterns of attachment in response to the caregiving style of their
primary carer. These secure, avoidant and ambivalent patterns of relating
have been found to be relatively stable through childhood and into
adulthood (Fraley and Brumbaugh, 2004), and a further category of
disorganised/disoriented was identified by Main and Solomon in 1990. An
attachment pattern is the visible reflection of a set of internal working
models – a set of beliefs about the self and the self in relation to others.
These are the mechanisms by which early attachment experiences con-
tinue to colour development through the whole lifespan (Bretherton and
Munholland, 1999).
When parents are able to be sufficiently accessible, reliable and
responsive an infant will develop a secure attachment pattern and the
capacity to make use of this secure base (Bowlby, 1969, 1977). This
securely attached child will able to use the parent to regulate distress: once
attachment needs have been met and the child feels soothed, she will be
able to launch back into playful exploration of the world. Gradually the
secure base offered by the attachment figure becomes internalised so that
the child can cope with an appropriate degree of separation. Key aspects
of security are described by Fonagy and Target (1996): a secure parent
can mirror the child’s feelings (but not too closely), contain the child’s
arousal, make sense of her experience, recognise difficulties and deal with
them effectively. In a similar way a good-enough therapist is able to field
strong emotions without being overwhelmed and can provide the
recognition and containment which supports integration of thinking and
feeling in the client.
An infant will develop an avoidant strategy (Ainsworth et al., 1978)
when their primary caregiver indicates reluctance to engage with their
distress. The child internalises a sense of the other as uncaring and a sense
of self as undeserving of love. These children achieve a modicum of
proximity by apparently deactivating their attachment system and making
 Why retire? 27

few demands on parents, hiding their needs first from their parents and
eventually from themselves. In contrast, an ambivalent strategy (Ainsworth
et al., 1978) develops when a parent is intermittently available. The child
finds that hyper-activation of attachment behaviour may elicit parental care
but for these children and adults, even when care is forthcoming, it is
difficult to take it in and to feel soothed.
The most troubled individuals will have an attachment pattern with
disorganised qualities (Main and Solomon, 1990), and they lack the
coherent strategies of those with avoidant and ambivalent patterns. In
infancy these children may have experienced the impossible dilemma of
feeling both drawn to and repelled by the same person because their
primary caretaker has been a source of fear. For these infants whose parents
are themselves very troubled, there is no single strategy which will provide
a better outcome. A fallback position for these children may be to attempt
to control their caregivers as a way to feel safer, and this might be the
position they would adopt with a retiring therapist who is threatening
abandonment.
Following this understanding of attachment patterns in children, the
1980s brought the application of this thinking to adults. Main, Kaplan and
Cassidy (1985) demonstrated patterns in adult discourse that correspond
to the attachment relationships which Ainsworth et al. (1978) had identi-
fied in children. Main and colleagues identified how in adulthood these
patterns reflect particular states of mind in relations to attachment figures,
and they named them as autonomous, dismissing and preoccupied. Any
one of these three patterns may be overshadowed by unresolved grief if
an individual has suffered loss or other trauma without the opportunity for
working it through. The principal insecure, but organised, patterns are thus
described as avoidant/dismissing or ambivalent/preoccupied, though from
now on I will generally use a single word rather than the double-barrelled
term.
One of the great contributions of attachment theory is its understanding
of the tension we all manage between our need for closeness and for
separation. The more secure a person is, the more able they are to manage
that tension. For people with a disorganised pattern the oscillation between
those two needs will be particularly disorderly. It is not that people with
a dismissing style have any less need for closeness or that people with a
preoccupied style have less need for autonomy. The difference is in how
they manage these needs. At times behaviour will clearly reflect the
underlying attachment pattern, at other times interactions are less easy to
decode. When faced with a retiring therapist, a patient with either of these
patterns might suddenly bolt, the difference between a preoccupied or a
28 Why retire?

dismissing style being felt in the countertransference. For example, if a

client with a preoccupied pattern left suddenly the manner of their going
might convey more sense of ‘Come and get me’, and the therapist’s feelings
in relation to this patient would probably contain more guilt or frustration.

The therapist’s own attachment experience

Bowlby proposed that attachment needs remain significant ‘from the
cradle to the grave’ (1979: 129). The quality of our own internalised secure
base will be important throughout life, but in old age, when our actual
attachment figures (parents and partners) are more likely to have died, this
internal capacity to sooth ourselves could arguably be even more crucial
if we are to keep on exploring and engaging with the world. This kind of
security would make it more possible for an older therapist to sustain
critical and creative reflection on her own work and perhaps make it easier
to resolve the dilemmas around retirement. Although I have presented these
attachment patterns as though they were discrete categories, their value is
not as a system of labels but, in Slade’s terms, to sensitise ourselves ‘to
observing the functioning of the attachment system and to the internal and
interpersonal functions of attachment processes’ (2004: 269).
While we hope that practising therapists have achieved a good measure
of earned security (Main and Goldwyn, 1998), we know anecdotally that
we are a profession of wounded healers and there is some evidence that
many of us have insecure attachment histories (Sussman, 2007; Adams,
2014). This means that at times of stress our original attachment patterns
tend to impact both internally and on the people around us. A therapist
who is contemplating retirement is therefore likely to be managing either
a tendency to minimise the meaning of the transition, if dismissing is
her core pattern, or a pull to hold on longer if she is inclined towards
a more preoccupied pattern. Holmes (1997) observes how the fit between
attachment patterns in the patient and the therapist can lead to ending a
therapy too soon or too late. Perhaps something similar may happen in
terms of bringing an end to a whole practice. Where there is residual
disorganised attachment, in either client or therapist, there is scope for
inversion in the relationship and confusion about who is looking after
whom. In the worst cases clients have become carers to ailing therapists.
We may speculate that where there is a residual insecure pattern of
avoidance in a retiring therapist, she may find it relatively easy to make a
clean break. In this case the risk may be of underestimating and overlooking
the impact on clients and minimising her importance in the client’s internal
world. For preoccupied clients this could result in their distress being
 Why retire? 29

uncontained and the ending being insufficiently processed. For dismissing

clients the risk would be of replaying an old relational script in which their
pain goes unrecognised by themselves as well as by those around them,
sometimes surfacing indirectly in the body.
Where the therapist’s residual insecurity is preoccupied then the longing
and yearning which is normal in grief may persist: ruminative thoughts
and regrets may weigh heavily. These retirees may struggle more than their
avoidant peers with ambivalence about taking the step to retire. It is
possible that this more anxious style of caregiving may communicate itself
unconsciously to the clients: there could be an underestimation of patients’
resilience and consequently an undermining of it, leading to a messy
ending. A strength of therapists with this residual pattern is the ability
to identify and empathise deeply with clients’ feeling of abandonment;
there will be times where this means that the hard-to-reach grief of the
dismissing client is affirmed in a way which finally helps them to
acknowledge it. Some individuals with strongly ambivalent or disorganised
patterns may try to get their attachment needs met through compulsive
caregiving. Anecdotal evidence suggests that this type of insecure group,
who had an inverted caring relationship with their own parents, may be
highly represented among therapists. A possible example of this is given
by one of Adams’s interviewees, who describes herself as a parenting child:

my mother needed care, as it were, not my father, but I was definitely

a parenting child. It’s a sort of way of life really, and I think I just
professionalised it.
(Adams, 2014: 74)

For these therapists, the challenge at the point of retirement would be

to adequately process their own anxiety about separation, so that they can
more effectively tune in to how each client is taking the news. One of the
difficulties for the retiring therapist is that her own feelings about ending
may interfere with her capacity for containment. Thus at the point when
clients may have extra need of responsive attunement, therapists may
struggle to supply it. If the therapist is retiring under pressure of illness
she will be managing uncertainty about her own future as well as guilt
about decamping. At the same time, negative transference from some
clients may increase to unfamiliar levels.
Our own internalised secure base, formed from our attachment history
as well as our current attachment network, will be a factor in how we come
to the decision about retirement and how we carry it through. The context
of our current attachment relationships will also impact. At the point of
30 Why retire?

retirement some will be in satisfying long-term relationships, some in less

fulfilling ones and some will be happily or unhappily single or bereaved.
It may make sense to think of our work, our profession and our circle of
colleagues as jointly providing a secure base through their validation and
responsiveness. This constitutes a valuable package which may have
compensated for disappointments in our own attachment relationships. It
is also interesting to think in terms of our theoretical secure base. What is
the impact of our chosen theory? The question of why we are drawn to
train and work in one style rather than another seems reflective of our own
internal worlds. We might justify our choice in intellectual terms but surely
we are drawn to that theory which best helps us manage ourselves. The
enmity between different schools suggests that we may then cling to that
theory as though to a life raft because naturally we want to believe we are
in the right lifeboat. Does our specific choice of theory impact on how we
handle ourselves through the retirement? I see my own interest in the
subject as arising from my own concerns about attachment and loss which,
of course, influenced my original attraction to a training based on
Bowlby’s ideas.
As well as loss of what we value in our work, the threat of ageing and
dying carried by retirement may also contribute to a testing of our secure
base. The principles of attachment theory might suggest that we would
respond to old age as we would to other types of loss. We might thus expect
those of us with dismissing traits to tend to deny the losses involved in
ageing and those with an ambivalent pattern to be more preoccupied with
their losses. Studies on this age group are rare and as yet inconclusive
(Magai, 2008). What is clear is that the secure group at this age, as in
younger years, are better equipped to face losses. They are both more
resilient and more able to accept and use help.

The valuable contribution of older therapists

In a book which supports a timely retirement, it seems important to
acknowledge that older therapists may have particularly rich qualities which
they bring to the work. Eissler’s (1993) paper looks at changes in the
older analyst and emphasises the benefits that age can bring. He suggests
that in favourable circumstances ambition and illusions are lessened, anxiety
about failure is reduced and tolerance is increased. However, he ended
by concluding that he ‘may have exaggerated the positive contribution of
ageing’ (1993: 331) and suggested that increased narcissism could manifest
in rigidity, or in the analyst eliciting the patient’s admiration and awe.
Beatrice, retiring at 88, also offered a very balanced outlook:
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
amore puerorum intemperantes fuerunt, quod postea in Laconas
et totam Graeciam translatum est. (Of the Cretans we have been
told that they were excessive in their love of boys, a practice
afterwards imported into Laconia and all parts of Greece.) Comp.
K. O. Müller, “Die Dorier”, (The Dorians), Vol. II. pp. 240 sqq. K.
Höck, “Kreta”, (Crete), Vol. III. p. 106. Though in Crete as in all
Dorian States Paedophilia was a universal and official institution,
yet paederastia too was common enough, as is shown by the
censure expressed by Plato (De Legibus bk. I. 636., bk. VII. 836.)
and Plutarch, (De puerorum educatione ch. 14.).—as also by the
expression Κρῆτα τρόπον (Cretan fashion) given in Hesychius;
and probably the word κρητίζειν (to play the Cretan) is to be
understood from this point of view also. Pfeffinger, “De Cretum
vitiis,” (Of the Vices of the Cretans). Strasbourg 1701. 4to. From
this Aristotle (Politics II. 7. 5.) may have got the idea that the
lawgiver in Crete introduced paederastia in order to check the
increase of population. Hesychius says at any rate κρῆτα τρόπον,
παιδικοῖς χρῆσθαι. (Cretan fashion, i.e. to indulge in boy-loves).
Of the Scythians later on.
243 Thus Plutarch, Eroticus, ch. 5., Ἡ δὲ ἀπὸ τῶν ἀῤῥένων
ἀκόντων, μετὰ βίας γενομένη καὶ λεηλασίας, ἂν δὲ ἑκουσίως, σὺν
μαλακίᾳ καὶ θηλύτητι β α ί ν ε σ θ α ι κατὰ Πλάτωνα ν ό μ ῳ
τετράποδος καὶ παιδοσπορεῖσθαι παρὰ φύσιν
ἐνδιδόντων, χάρις ἄχαρις παντάπασι καὶ ἀσχήμων καὶ
ἀ ν α φ ρ ό δ ι τ ο ς. (But the pleasure that is won from males
against their will by dint of force or robbery, or if voluntarily, then
only because in their wantonness and effeminacy they consent to
men treading them, as Plato puts it, like a four-footed beast, and
emitting seed with them unnaturally—this pleasure is a graceless
one altogether, and unseemly and loveless). The passage of Plato
referred to here is in the Phaedrus, p. 250 E., ὥστε οὐ σέβεται
προσορῶν, ἀλλ’ ἡδονῇ παραδοὺς τ ε τ ρ ά π ο δ ο ς ν ό μ ο ν
β α ί ν ε ι ν ἐπιχειρεῖ καὶ παιδοσπορεῖν, καὶ ὕβρει προσομιλῶν οὐ
δέδοικεν οὐδ’ αἰσχύνεται παρὰ φύσιν ἡδονὴν διώκων. (And so he
feels no reverence when he looks on him, but giving way to
pleasure endeavours to tread like a four-footed beast and to emit
his seed, and using insolent violence in his intercourse, has no
fear and no shame in pursuing pleasure in an unnatural way). As
something παρὰ φύσιν (contrary to nature) we find paederastia
further characterized in Athenaeus, Deipnosoph., bk. XIII. p. 605.
Lucian, Amores, 19. Philo, De legg. spec., II. p. 306. 17. Libanius,
Orat., XIX. p. 500. ἡ παράνομος Ἀφροδίτη. (Unlawful Love).
Galen, De diagnos. et curat. anim. effect. (On the Diagnosis and
Treatment of Diseases of Animals). edit. Kühn. Vol. V. p. 30. τῆς
παρὰ φύσιν αἰσχρουργίας (of unnatural viciousness). In the
Anthologia Graeca, bk. II. tit. 5. No. 10. is the distich following by
an unknown author:
Υἱὸς Πατρικίου μάλα κόσμιος, ὃ ς δ ι ὰ Κ ύ π ρ ι ν
Ο ὐ χ ὁ σ ί η ν ἑτάρους πάντας ἀ π ο σ τ ρ έ φ ε τ α ι.
(Son of Patricius, a very discreet man, who by unholy love
seduces all his comrades). But above all the passage in
Aeschines, Orat. in Timarch. edit. Reiske, p. 146., is to the point
in this connection: ὁρίζομαι δ’ εἶναι, τὸ μὲν ἐρᾶν τῶν καλῶν καὶ
σωφρόνων, φιλανθρώπου, πάθος καὶ εὐγνώμονος ψυχῆς· τὸ δὲ
ἀσελγαίνειν ἀργυρίου τινὰ μισθούμενον, ὑβριστοῦ καὶ ἀπαιδεύτου
ἀνδρὸς ἔργον εἶναι ἡγοῦμαι· καὶ τὸ μὲν ἀδιαφθόρως ἐρᾶσθαι,
φημὶ καλὸν εἶναι· τὸ δὲ ἐπαρθέντα μισθῷ πεπορνεῦσθαι, αἰσχρόν.
(Now I make this distinction, that to love honourable and prudent
friends is the passion of an amiable and reasonable soul; whereas
to behave licentiously, hiring anyone for the purpose, I consider
the act of a ruffianly and uncultivated man. Similarly, to be loved
purely, I declare to be a noble thing; but, induced by pay, to allow
oneself to be debauched, a foul thing). Anyone who has read this
passage attentively, together with what follows in the Speech,
cannot possibly any longer confound Paedophilia with
Paederastia, or maintain that the latter was approved by the
Greeks.
244 Aelian, Var. Hist., III. 12.—Xenophon, De republ.
Lacedaem, II. 13., Sympos., VIII. 35. Plato, De leg., VIII. p. 912.
245 Lucian, Amores, 41., Μηδὲν ἀχθεσθῇς, εἰ ταῖς Ἀθήναις ἡ
Κόρινθος εἴζει, (Do not be annoyed, if Corinth yields to Athens),
on which the scholiasts add the explanation: ἢ ὡς τῆς Κορίνθου
μὲν ἀνακειμένης Ἀφροδίτῃ (διὸ καὶ πολλὴ ἐν Κορίνθῳ ἡ γυναικεία
μίξις) Ἀθηνῶν δὲ παιδεραστίᾳ κομώντων ἤτοι τῇ κατὰ φιλοσοφίαν
καὶ σώφρονι ἢ τῇ τῷ ὄντι μιαρᾷ καὶ διαβεβλημένῃ. (while Corinth
is devoted to Aphrodité (wherefore in Corinth there is much
varied intercourse with women), Athens prides herself on
paederastia, whether a love of boys that is philosophic and wise,
or a love that is veritably vile and despicable). Aristophanes,
Plutus, vv. 149-152.,
 Καὶ τὰς χ’ ἑταίρας φασὶ τὰς Κορινθίας,
Ὅταν μὲν αὐτάς τις πένης πειρῶν τύχῃ
Οὐδὲ προσέχειν τὸν νοῦν· ἐὰν δὲ πλούσιος,
Τὸν πρωκτὸν αὐτὰς
ε ὐ θ ὺ ς ὡ ς τ ο ῦ τ ο ν τ ρ έ π ε ι ν.
(And they say that the Corinthian hetaerae, should any poor
man chance to solicit them, pay no attention whatever; but if it
be a rich man, at once they turn their posterior to him).
246 Clouds, vv. 973 sqq.—see also F. A. Wolf’s German
translation.
247 Lysias, Contra Pancl., 731., from which passage it would
seem that each “Deme” had its own κουρεῖον (barber’s shop) in
the city. Demosthenes, Contra Aristogit., 786, 7. Theophrastus,
Charact., VIII. 5. XI. Plutarch, Sympos., V. 5. Aristophanes, Plut.,
339.
248 Aristophanes, Knights, 1380., where the expression τὰ
μειράκια τἀν τῷ μύρῳ (the striplings, those in the myrrh-market)
is intentionally ambiguous.
249 Aelian, Var. Hist., VIII. 8. Aeschines, In Timarch., § 40.
says that Timarchus resided at the Surgery of Euthydicus, not to
learn medicine, but to sell his person.
250 Theophrastus, Charact., V. edit. Ast, p. 183.
251 Theophrastus, Charact., VIII. 4.
252 Xenophon, Memorab., IV. 2. 1. Diogenes Laertius, III. 21.
253 Aeschines, In Timarch., p. 35., τὰς ἐρημίας καὶ τὸ σκότος
ἐν πλείστῃ ὑποψίᾳ ποιούμενος. (regarding the lonely localities and
the darkness as in the highest degree suspicious). p. 112. p. 90.,
ἡ πρᾶξις αὕτη εἴωθε γίγνεσθαι λάθρα καὶ ἐν ἐρημίαις. (this
practice is usually carried on secretly and in lonely places). p.
104, it is said that Timarchus had more experience περὶ τῆς
ἐρημίας ταύτης καὶ τοῦ τόπου ἐν τῇ Πνυκὶ. (about this lonely spot
and the locality of the Pnyx) than of the Areopagus. Comp. Plato,
Sympos., p. 217 b.
254 Plato, Sympos. p. 182. 6. Xenophon, Sympos. VIII. 34.—
Cicero, De Republ., IV. 4., Apud Eleos et Thebanos in amore
ingenuorum libido etiam permissam habet et solutam licentiam.
(Among the Eleans and Thebans, in the love of free men, lust has
actually a permitted and unchecked licence). Maximus Tyrius,
Diss. XXXIX. p. 467. Plutarch, De pueror. educat., ch. 14. The
Elean “boy-loving” was even more notorious than the Boeotian.
Xenophon, De Republ. Lacedaem., II. 13. Maximus Tyrius, Diss.,
XXVI. p. 317.
255 Theognis, Sentent., 39.
256 Descript. Graeciae, Bk. I. ch. 43., Μετὰ δὲ τοῦ Διονύσου τὸ
ἱερόν ἐστιν Ἀφροδίτης ναός· ἄγαλμα δὲ ἐλέφαντος Ἀφροδίτῃ
πεποιημένον, Πρᾶξις ἐπίκλησιν· τοῦτ’, ἐστιν ἀρχαιότατον ἐν τῷ
ναῷ·
257 Pollux, Onomast., bk. VII. ch. 33. says: εἰ δὲ χρὴ καὶ τὰς
αἰσχίους π ρ ά ξ ε ι ς τέχνας ὀνομάζειν, (if that is we must call the
more disgraceful πράξεις—doings, modes of intercourse—arts);
and then cites the different designations of whores, brothels, etc.
258 Hesychius under the word χαλκιδίζειν. Athenaeus Deipnos.,
bk. XIII. p. 601 e. Plutarch, Amat., 38. 2.
259 Σ ι φ ν ι ά ζ ε ι ν· ἐπὶ τῶν τὰς χεῖρας προσαγόντων τοῖς
ἰσχίοις, ὥσπερ λ ε σ β ι ά ζ ε ι ν ἐπὶ τῶν παρανομούντων ἐν τοῖς
ἀφροδισίοις· σιφνιάζειν δὲ καὶ λεσβιάζειν, ἀπὸ τῆς νήσου Σίφνου
καὶ τῆς Λέσβου· ὡς καὶ τὸ κ ρ η τ ί ζ ε ι ν ἀπὸ τῆς Κρήτης· καὶ τὸ
Σίφνιος δὲ ἀῤῥαβὼν, ὁμοίως σ ι φ ν ι ά ζ ε ι ν γὰρ τὸ
ἅ π τ ε σ θ α ι τ ῆ ς π υ γ ῆ ς δ α κ τ ύ λ ῳ. Λεσβιάζειν δὲ τὸ τῷ
στόματι παρανομεῖν. H e s y c h i u s s. v. Σίφνιοι· ἀκάθαρτοι· ἀπὸ
Σίφνου τῆς νήσου. Σ ί φ ν ι ο ς ἀ ῤ ῥ α β ώ ν· περὶ τῶν Σιφνίων
ἄτοπα διεδίδοτο, ὡς τῷ δακτύλῳ σκιμαλιζόντων· δηλοῖ οὖν τὸν
διὰ δακτυλίου αἰδούμενον ἐπὶ τοῦ κακοσχόλου. (To play the
Siphnian: said of those who apply the hands to the loins; as “to
play the Lesbian” of those who act viciously in carnal pleasures.)
Σιφνιάζειν and λεσβιάζειν from the islands Siphnos and Lesbos;
just as the expression κρητίζειν (to play the Cretan) from Crete.
Also the phrase “Siphnian surety”; for in the same way “to play
the Siphnian” means to finger the posterior. But “to play the
Lesbian”; to act viciously with the mouth.—Hesychius under the
word Σίφνιοι: Siphnians, i.e. unclean persons; from the island of
Siphnos. “Siphnian surety”: of the Siphnians abominable tales
were told, to the effect that they poked the posterior with the
finger. Signifies therefore one who acts disgracefully in connection
with the anus, said of the idle voluptuary. Comp. σκιμαλίσαι,
σκινδαρεύεσθαι in the same—Hesychius.
 260 Comp. Libanius, In Florent., p. 430. Toup, Opusc. critic.,
Leipzig 1780. p. 420.
261 Athenaeus, Deipnos., bk. XIII. p. 517 f.
262 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Exc. p. 2336. Valerius Maximus,
Bk. VI. 1. 9. Suidas, under Γαΐος Λαιτώριος (Caius Laetorius).
263 Bk IX. Epigr. 9. Comp. Suetonius, Nero 28, 29. Dio Cassius,
LXII. 28., LXIII. 13. Juvenal, Satir. I. 62., and especially Tacitus,
Annal., Bk. XV. 37.—Tatian, Orat. ad Graec., p. 100., Παιδεραστία
μὲν ὑπὸ βαρβάρων διώκεται, προνομίας δὲ ὑπὸ Ῥωμαίων ἠξίωται,
παίδων ἀγέλας, ὥσπερ ἵππων φορβάδων, συναγείρειν αὐτῶν
πειρωμένων. (Paederastia is followed by barbarians generally, but
is held in pre-eminent esteem by Romans, who endeavour to get
together herds of boys, as it were of brood mares). Justin Martyr,
Apolog., I. p. 14., Πρῶτον μὲν ὅτι τοὺς πάντας σχεδὸν ὁρῶμεν ἐπὶ
πορνείᾳ προάγοντας, οὐ μόνον τὰς κόρας, ἀλλὰ καὶ τοὺς ἄρσενας·
καὶ ὃν τρόπον λέγονται οἱ παλαιοὶ ἀγέλας βοῶν, ἢ αἰγῶν, ἢ
προβάτων τρέφειν, ἢ ἵππων φορβάδων, οὕτω νῦν δὲ παῖδας, εἰς
τὸ αἰσχρῶς χρῆσθαι μόνον, καὶ ὁμοίων θηλειῶν, καὶ ἀνδρογύνων,
καὶ ἀῤῥητοποιῶν πλῆθος κατὰ τὸ πᾶν ἔθνος ἐπὶ τούτου τοῦ ἅγους
ἔστηκεν. (First because we behold nearly all men seducing to
fornication not merely girls, but also males. And just as our
fathers are spoken of as keeping herds of oxen, or goats, or
sheep, or of brood mares, so now they keep boys, solely for the
purpose of shameful usage, treating them as females, or men-
women, and doing unspeakable acts. To such a pitch of pollution
has the multitude throughout the whole people come).
264 That boys were kept in the brothels at Rome as paramours
is seen from a host of passages in Ancient authors, e. g. Martial,
bk. XI. Epigr. 45.,
Intrasti quoties inscriptae limina cellae
Seu puer arrisit, sive puella tibi.
(As oft as you have crossed the threshold of a “chamber”
inscribed with name on door, whether it were boy that threw you
a smile, or girl). They, as well as women, had to pay the Whore-
tax. Comp. above p. 118. Note 6.
265 Bk. III. Epigr. 71.
266 Caelius Aurelianus, Acut. morb. (Acute Diseases), bk. III.
ch. 18., Aliorum autem medicorum, excepto Themisone, nullus
hanc passionem conscribit, cum non solum raro, verum etiam
coacervatim, saepissime invasisse videatur. Memorat denique
Themison, apud Cretam multos satyriasi interfectos. (But of other
physicians none, with the exception of Themison, describes this
complaint, though it appears to have attacked the population very
frequently not only sporadically, but actually as an epidemic. In
fact Themison records that in Crete men died of Satyriasis).
267 “Handbuch der medicin. Klinik” (Manual of Clinical
Medicine), Vol. VII. pp. 88 and 670.
268 Bk. VI. Epigr. 37.
269 Martial, Bk. XI. Epigr. 99.
270 Martial, XI. 88.
271 Martial, VI. 49.
272 Martial, Bk. XII. Epigr. 33.
273 Martial, Bk. I. Epigr. 66. The old Grammars had the
following lines:
Haec ficus, fici vel ficus, fructus et arbor,
Hic ficus, fici, malus est in podice morbus.
(Feminine:—ficus, gen. -i and -us, fig and fig-tree; masculine:—
ficus, gen. -i, is an evil disease of the fundament.)
274 Satir. Bk. I. Sat. VIII. 46.
275 Martial, Bk. VII. Epigram 71.
276 There still remains some doubt in our mind as to the
meaning of another Epigram of Martial’s, Bk. IV. Epigr. 52.
Gestari iunctis nisi desinis, Hedyle, capris
Qui modo ficus eras, iam caprificus eris,
(Unless you cease, Hedylus, to go with “she-goats” in
copulation, you who were but now a fig-tree, will presently be a
wild fig-tree (goat-fig)).
If capra (she-goat) here has the meaning of scortum (common
strumpet),—and it cannot very well signify anything else,—the
passage is an undoubted proof that such swellings were a
consequence of coition with common prostitutes, and that the
latter were ordinarily affected with them.—In Petronius, Sat. ch.
46., it is said of some one: Ingeniosus est et bono filo etiamsi in
nave morbosus est. (He is of good abilities and good fibre, but he
is diseased with swellings on the fundament.) Burmann notes on
this: In nave—id est mariscas habet. Navis est podex ficosus.
Hinc dictum illud Casellii apud Quintilianum, (De Instit. Orat. VI.
3. 87.) Consultori dicenti, navem dividere volo, respondentis,
perdes. (In nave—that is, he has swellings. Navis (literally a ship)
means a fundament afflicted with swellings. Hence the bon mot
of Casellius, quoted in Quintilian. In reply to a client who said “I
wish to cut (divide into shares) my ship” (navis,—means also
diseased fundament), he retorted, “It’ll be fatal!”)
277 Bk. VII. Epigr. 34. Persius, Satir. I. 33., Hic aliquis—
Rancidulum quiddam balba de nare locutus. (Hereupon some one
spoke something offensive through stuttering nose—in a
stuttering nasal voice). Sidonius Apollinaris, Epist. bk. IX.,
Orationem salebrosas passam iuncturas per cameram volutatam
balbutire. (To stammer out through the palate’s vault all a-
tremble a speech where the periods are joltingly united).
278 Joannes Jac. Reiske, and Joannes Ern. Faber, “Opuscula
medica ex monumentis Arabum et Ebraeorum,” (Medical Tracts—
from Arabic and Hebrew Writings), edit. Ch. G. Gruner. Halle
1776. 8vo., p. 61 Note: Ita tamen miror, ab antiquitatis patronis
argumentum inde allatum non fuisse, quod veterum cinaedi passi
fuerint in naribus et in palato vitium, a quo clare non potuerint
eloqui, sed ῥέγχειν, stertere et rhonchissare debuerint. Cf. diserta
sed acris oratio Dionis Chrysostomi Tarsica prior etc. (Yet I
wonder at this, that the advocates of its antiquity have not drawn
an argument from the fact that among the Ancients the cinaedi
suffered from an affection of the nose and palate, that prevented
their speaking distinctly, and made them ῥέγχειν, snore and snort,
Comp. the eloquent, but censorious, Speech of the Rhetor Dio
Chrysostom, First Tarsica, etc.) Gruner in his Antiq. Morborum
(Antiquity of Diseases), p. 77., likewise cited this reference, but it
appears without having personally compared the passages with
precision.
279 Speeches, edit. by Joannes Jac. Reiske. 2 Vols. Leipzig
1784 large 8vo., Vol. II. Speech XXXIII (not XXXII, as given in
Reiske and Gruner), pp. 14 sqq.
 280 Ἀκολάστοις (intemperate). This word often occurs in the
sense of paederast, especially when the latter is spoken of as
pursuing the vice passionately. Thus Aeschines, in Timarch., pp.
63, 183. Plato, Sympos., 186 c.
281 Τὸν δέ γε ἄγριον τοῦτον καὶ χαλεπὸν ἦχον. (This rough
and harsh tone of voice). The word ἄγριος (rough, savage) is
specially used of the paederast, Aristophanes, Clouds 347., and
the Scholiast on the passage; the same is true of χαλεπὸς (hard,
harsh). The Scholiast on Aeschines, In Timarch., p. 731 R.,
ἀγρίους τοὺς σφόδρα ἐπτοημένους περὶ τὰ παιδικὰ καὶ χαλεποὺς
παιδεραστάς. (rough men that are above measure agog for boy-
loves,—hard paederasts.) All through the Speech are found a host
of allusions to the expressions in common use to signify
paederastia, which may well make the right understanding of it
difficult.
282 Τὸ πρᾶγμα (the thing) has the same meaning here as
πρᾶξις (doing, intercourse) in Aeschines, In Timarch., pp. 159,
160. Plato, Sympos., 181 b.
283 Κινεῖται (is raised, is stirred), from which the word
Κίναιδος, cinaedus, is derived.
284 On the digitus medius (middle finger) or infamis compare
Upton on Arrian’s Diss. Epictet, II. 2. p. 176.—“Abhandlung von
den Fingern, deren Verrichtungen und symbolischen Bedeutung.”
(Treatise on the Fingers, their Gestures and Symbolic Meaning).
Leipzig 1756. pp. 172-221. But in particular Forberg, loco citato p.
338. note h.: Cum digitus medius porrectus, reliquis incurvatis,
tentam repraesentet mentulam cum coleis suis, factum est, ut
medium digitum hoc modo ostenderent (Graeci uno verbo
dixerunt σκιμαλίζειν) cinaedis, sive pelliciendis, sive irridendis. (In
as much as the middle finger stretched out, the other fingers
being bent under, represents the extended penis with its bags
(testicles), it came about that the Greeks used to show the
middle finger in this way (the Greeks expressed it by one word
σκιμαλίζειν) to cinaedi, whether to beckon them or by way of
derision.). Martial, I. 93., Saepe mihi queritur Celsus.... Tangi se
digito, Mamuriane, tuo. (Often Celsus complains to me that he is
touched by your finger, Mamurianus.) VI. 70., Ostendit digitum,
sed impudicum. (He shows a finger, but an indecent one). Οἱ δὲ
Ἀττικοὶ καὶ τὸν μέσον τῆς χειρὸς δάκτυλον καταπύγωνα
ὠνόμαζον. (Now the Attics used to call the middle finger of the
hand the lewd finger.) Pollux, Onomast., II. 4. 184. Suetonius,
Caligula, ch. 56., Osculandam manum offerre, formatam
commotamque in obscoenum modum. (To offer his hand to be
kissed, put into an obscene shape and moved in an obscene way.)
Th. Echtermeyer, “Progr. über Namen und symbol. Bedeut. der
Finger bei den Griechen und Römern.” (Names and Symbolic
Meaning of the Fingers amongst the Greeks and Romans.) Halle
1835. 4to., pp. 41-49., treats very exhaustively of this subject.
285 On account of the resemblance of its harsh, screeching
note? Reiske remarks on this passage: Est autem κερχνίς avis
quaedam a stertendo sic dicta, vel stridore, quem edit similem iis
qui stertunt. (But the κερχνίς,—hawk, is a bird so called from the
snoring, or harsh note it utters, like men who snore). Comp.
Schneider, Lexicon, under words κέρχνος and κέρχω (hoarseness,
to make hoarse).
286 Horace, Odes II. 8.,
Ulla si iuris tibi peierati
Poena, Barine, nocuisset unquam,
Dente si nigro fieres, vel uno Turpior ungui,
Crederem.
(If any punishment for perjured faith had ever hurt you,
Barinus, if you had had but a blackened tooth, or had been
disfigured in one single nail, I would believe).
287 Epistle to the Romans, Ch. I. vv. 24, 26, 27.
288 Names of noted women are given by Martial, bk. XI. Epigr.
95. Comp. below. p. 118. note 3.
289 Rerum Gestarum bk. XIV. ch. 19.—Petronius, Satir., ch. 68.,
says of a slave: duo tamen vitia habet, quae si non haberet, esset
omnium nummorum: recutitus est et stertit. (Yet has he two
faults, lacking which he would be a man above price: he is
circumcised and he snorts.)—Terence, Eunuch., Act V. sc 1. v. 53,
Fatuus et insulsus, bardus, stertit noctes et dies. Neque istum
metuas ne amet mulier. (Foolish and silly, a stupid fellow, he
snores all night and all day. Have no fear that a woman could
love him.)
290 Bk. XII. Epigr. 87.,
 Paediconibus os olere dicis.
Hoc si sic, ut ais, Fabulle, verum est,
Quid tu credis olere cunnilingis?
(You say paederasts’ breath smells foul. If what you allege is
true, Fabullus, what sort of a breath think you have cunnilingi?—
cunnilingi, i. e. illi qui pudenda mulierum lingunt, men who lick
women’s private parts).
291 Lucian, Philopatr., ch. 20. relates: Ἀνθρωπίσκος δέ τις,
τοὔνομα Χαρίκενος, σεσημμένον γερόντιον, ῥ έ γ χ ο ν τ ῇ ῥ ι ν ὶ,
ὑπέβηττε μύχιον, ἐχρέμπτετο ἐπισεσυρμένον· ὁ δὲ πτύελος
κυανώτερος θανάτου· εἶτα ἤρξατο ἐπιφθέγγεσθαι κατισχνημένον.
(But a little man, whose name was Charicenus, a tiny mouldy old
man, snorting through his nose, gave a deep cough and cleared
his throat with a long-drawn hawking,—and his spittle was
blacker than death. Then he began to speak in a thin voice). The
same is said of an Egyptian boy in Lucian’s Navigium, ch. 2. Aulus
Gellius, Noct. Attic., Bk. III. ch. 5., gives the following story:
Plutarchus refert, Arcesilaum philosophum vehementi verbo usum
esse de quodam nimis delicato divite, qui incorruptus tamen et
castus et perinteger dicebatur. Num cum vocem eius infractam,
capillumque arte compositum et oculos ludibundos atque
illecebrae voluptatisque plenos videret: Nihil interest, inquit
quibus membris cinaedi sitis, posterioribus an prioribus. (Plutarch
reports a biting phrase made use of by the philosopher Arcesilaus
of a certain rich and over-dainty man, who yet had the name of
being unspoiled and temperate and highly virtuous. Noting his
broken voice, and hair artfully arranged, and rolling eyes full of
allurement and wantonness, “It makes no odds,” he said, “which
members ye play the cinaedus with, whether those behind or
those in front.”) Comp. § 16. below.
292 Paedagog., bk. III. ch. 4. p. 230.
293 E.G. Bose, νόσῳ θηλείᾳ· (Discussion of the νόσος θήλεια of
the Scythians). Leipzig 1774. 4to.—Chr. Heyne, “De maribus inter
Scythas morbo effeminatis et de Hermaphroditis Floridae.” (On
the transformation of males into females among the Scythians as
the result of disease, and on the Hermaphrodites of Florida).
Göttingen 1779., Vol. I. pp. 28-44.—E. L. W. Nebel, “De Morbis
Veterum obscuris.” (On some Obscure Diseases of the Ancients)
Sect. I. Giessen 1794. No. I. pp. 17, 18.—Graaf, “Morbus
femineus Scytharum.” (Feminine Disease of the Scythians).
Würzburg N. D. 8vo., is cited by Friedreich. p. 33.—C. W. Stark,
“De νούσῳ θηλείᾳ apud Herodotum Prolusio.” (Disquisition on the
νούσος θήλεια in Herodotus). Jena 1827. 64 pp. 4to.—J. B.
Friedreich, “Νοῦσος θήλεια”, a Historical fragment in his “Magazin
für Seelenheilkunde” (Magazine of Medical Psychology). Pt. I.
Würzburg 1829., pp. 71-78., and in his “Analekten zur Natur- und
Heilkunde” (Selections in Natural and Medical Science) Würzburg
1831. 4to., pp. 28-33.
294 Herodotus, Hist. Bk. I. ch. 105. Τοῖσι δὲ τῶν Σκυθέων
συλήσασι τὸ ἱρὸν τὸ ἐν Ἀσκάλωνι, καὶ τοῖσι τούτων αἰεὶ ἐκγὁνοισι,
ἐνέσκηψε ἡ θεὸς θ ή λ ε ι α ν ν ο ῦ σ ο ν· ὥστε ἅμα λέγουσί τε οἱ
Σκύθαι διὰ τοῦτό σφεας νοσέειν, καὶ ὁρᾷν παρ’ ἑωυτοῖσι τοὺς
ἀπικνεομένους ἐς τὴν Σκυθικὴν χώρην ὡς διακέαται, τοὺς
καλέουσι Ἐ ν α ρ έ α ς οἱ Σκύθαι.—for translation see text.
295 “Recherches et Dissertations sur Herodote.” (Researches
and Dissertations on Herodotus). Dijon 1746. 4to., pp. 207-212.
Ch. XX., Ce que c’étoit que la maladie des femmes, que la Déesse
Venus envoya aus Scythes. (What was the nature of the
“Women’s Disease” which the goddess Venus sent on the
Scythians).
296 Costar, “Defence des Œuvres de Voiture.” (Defence of the
Works of Voiture), and “Apologie” p. 194.
297 Sprengel, “Apologie des Hippocrates.” (Defence of
Hippocrates). Leipzig 1792. Pt. II. p. 616.
298 De Girac, “Réponse à l’Apologie de Voiture par Costar.”
(Reply to Costar’s Apology of Voiture). p. 54.
299 Bayer, “Memoria Scythica in Commentat. Petropolitan,”
(Memoir on the Scythians,—in St. Petersburg Commentaries).
1732., Vol. III. pp. 377, 8.
300 Part. VI. p. 35.
301 Patin, “Comment. in vetus monument. Ulpiae Marcellin.”
(Commentary on the ancient Monument of Ulpia Marcellina) p.
413.
302 Hensler, “Geschichte der Lustseuche.” (History of Venereal
Disease). Altona 1783., Vol. I. p. 211.
 303 Degen, Translation of Herodotus (German), Vol. I. p. 81.
note.
304 Mercurialis, Various Readings. Bk. III. d. 64.
305 Sauvages, “Nosologia methodic.” (Systematic Nosology).
Lyons 1772., Vol. VII. p. 365.
306 Koray on Hippocrates, “De aere aq. et loc.” (On influence of
Air, Water and Locality)., Vol. II. p. 326.
307 In Euripides’ Hippolytus, v. 5., Venus says of herself:
τοὺς μὲν σέβοντας τἀμὰ πρεσβεύω κράτη,
σφάλλω δ’ ὅσοι φρονοῦσιν εἰς ἡμᾶς μέγα.
(I love and protect him who recognises my right, and undo him
whose pride rebels against me).
308 Plato, Sympos. 192 b., πρὸς γάμους καὶ παιδοποιΐας οὐ
προσέχουσι τὸν νοῦν φύσει, ἀλλὰ ὑπὸ τοῦ νόμου ἀναγκάζονται,
ἀλλ’ ἐξαρκεῖ αὐτοῖς μετ’ ἀλλήλων καταζῆν ἀγάμοις. (To marriage
and the procreation of children they pay no attention whatever
naturally, but are only forced by the law to do so. It is enough for
them to live out their lives with one another unwed).
309 “Histoire d’Herodote, par M. Larcher.” (Herodotus’ History,
translated (French) by Mons. Larcher). Vol. I. Paris 1786., p. 368.
Un homme d’esprit, mais peu instruit, croyoit que le sentiment de
M. le President Bouhier se detruisoit de lui-même. Peut on
supposer, disoit il, que Vénus aveugle en sa vengeance, se soit
fait à elle même l’affront le plus sanglant, et qu’aux dépens de
son culte, elle ait procuré des adorateurs au Dieu de Lampsaque,
qu’elle ne doit chérir que lorsqu’il vient sacrifier sur ses autels. (A
witty but superficial critic considered the opinion of the president
Bouhier to be self-contradictory. Can Venus be supposed, he
argued, so blind in her vengeance as to have put on herself the
deadliest of affronts, and at the expense of her own worship to
have given adorers to the god of Lampsacus, whom she must
only patronize when he comes to sacrifice at her altars?)
310 Natalis Comes, Mythologia p. 392., according to the report
of several Scholiasts. The Scholiast on Lucian, Amores ch. 2.,
writes Ἐπεὶ καὶ ταῖς Λημνίαις γυναιξὶν ἔγκοτος Ἀφροδίτη γενομένη,
εἶτα δ υ σ ώ δ ε ι ς αὐτὰς ποιήσασα, ἀποκοίτους
α ὐ τ ὰ ς π ο ι ῆ σ α ι τ ο ὺ ς ἄ ν δ ρ α ς α ὐ τ ῶ ν ἠ ν ά γ κ α σ ε ν.
(When Aphrodité, angered with the women of Lemnos, had then
made them malodorous, and so compelled their husbands to
expel them from their beds). Similarly the Scholiast on Apollonius
Rhodius, Argonaut., I. 609., αἱ Λήμνιαι γυναῖκες ... τῶν τῆς
Ἀφροδίτης τιμῶν κατολιγωρήσασαι, καθ’ ἑαυτῶν τὴν θεὸν
ἐκίνησαν· π ά σ α ι ς γ ά ρ δ υ σ ο σ μ ί α ν ἐ ν έ β α λ ε ν , ὡ ς
μ η κ έ τ ι α ὐ τ ὰ ς τ ο ῖ ς ἀ ν δ ρ ά σ ι ν ἀ ρ έ σ κ ε ι ν. (The
Lemnian women, by neglecting the honours due to Aphrodité,
stirred the goddess’ anger against them. For she inflicted on them
all an ill-odour, so that they were no longer pleasing to their
husbands). To the same purport the Scholiast on Euripides,
Hecuba v. 887., who cites Didymus as authority:
Ἐν Λήμνῳ γυναῖκες ἐτέλουν ἐτήσιον ἑορτὴν Ἀφροδίτῃ· ἐπεὶ οὖν
ποτε καταφρονήσασαι τῆς θεοῦ, ἀπέλιπον τὸ ἔθος, ἡ
Ἀφροδίτη ἐνέβαλεν αὐταῖς δυσωδίαν, ὡς μὴ
δύνασθαι τοὺς ἑαυτῶν ἄνδρας αὐταῖς
π λ η σ ι ά σ α ι· αἱ δὲ νομίσασαι, ὑπὸ τῶν ἀνδρῶν καταφρονεῖσθαι,
τούτους πάντας ἀπέκτειναν. ὁ δέ Δίδυμος οὕτω. (At Lemnos the
women used to celebrate a yearly festival in honour of Aphrodité.
And so when on one occasion they scorned the goddess and
neglected the custom, Aphrodité afflicted them with an ill odour,
so that their own husbands could not come near them. And they
concluding they were scorned by their husbands, killed them all.
Didymus confirms this). The Lesbian Myrtilus or Myrsilus gives a
different account of the origin of the evil smell of the Lesbian
women, representing it in the First Book of his “Lesbica” as a
consequence of the magic arts of Medea, who had landed with
Jason at Lemnos. The story was taken from the lost Work of
Myrtilus by Antigonus Carystius, Histor. mirab. collect., edit. J.
Meursius. Leyden 1629. 4to., ch. 130. p. 97., Τὰς δέ Λημνίας
δυσόσμους γενέσθαι, Μηδείας ἀφικομένης μετ’ Ἰάσονος καὶ
φάρμακα ἐμβαλλούσης εἰς τὴν νῆσον· κατὰ δέ τινα χρόνον καὶ
μάλιστα ἐν ταύταις ταῖς ἡμέραις, ἐν αἷς ἱστοροῦσι τὴν Μήδειαν
παραγενέσθαι, δυσώδεις αὐτὰς οὕτως γίνεσθαι ὥστε μηδένα
προσϊέναι. (And that the Lemnian women became malodorous,
when Medea came thither with Jason and cast poisonous drugs
on the island; and that for some length of time and particularly in
those days when Medea is related to have been there, they were
so ill-smelling that no man could approach them.) Also the
Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius, I. 165., says: τῶν ἄλλων
ἱστορούντων, ὅτι κατὰ χόλον τῆς Ἀφροδίτης αἱ Λημνιάδες
δύσοσμοι ἐγένοντο, Μυρτίλος ἐν πρώτῳ Λεσβικῶν διαφέρεται· καὶ
φησὶ τὴν Μήδειαν παραπλέουσαν, διὰ ζηλοτυπίαν ῥίψαι εἰς τὴν
Λήμνον φάρμακον, καὶ δυσοσμίαν γενέσθαι ταῖς γυναιξίν, εἶναί τε
μέχρι τοῦ νῦν κατ’ ἐνιαυτὸν ἡμέραν τινὰ, ἐν ᾗ διὰ τὴν δυσωδίαν
ἀποστρέφονται τὰς γυναῖκας ἄνδρές τε καὶ υἱεῖς. (Whereas others
relate that in consequence of the anger of Aphrodité the women
of Lemnos became evil-smelling, Myrtilus in the first Book of the
“Lesbica” tells a different tale. He says that Medea, sailing past
the land, moved by envy cast a poison on the island, and so an ill
odour fell on the women; further that there is down to the
present time a day once a year, on which owing to this foul odour
husbands and sons turn and flee from the women.) Finally there
is an Epigram of Lucillius in the Greek Anthology (edit. H. de
Bosch, Vol. I. p. 416.) Bk. II. Tit. 14. no. 4., mentioning the evil
smell of the Lemnian women:
Οὔτε Χίμαιρα τοιοῦτον ἔ π ν ε ι κακὸν, ἡ καθ’ Ὅμηρον,
Οὐκ ἀγέλη ταύρων (ὡς ὁ λόγος) πυρίπνους,
Ο ὐ Λ ῆ μ ν ο ς σ ύ μ π α σ ’, οὐχ Ἁρπυιῶν τὰ περισσὰ,
Οὐδ’ ὁ Φιλοκτήτου ποὺς ἀποσηπόμενος,
Ὥστε σε παμψηφεὶ νικᾶν, Τελέσιλλα, Χιμαίρας,
Σηπεδόνας, ταύρους, ὄρνεα, Λ η μ ν ι ά δ α ς.
(Neither the Chimaera of Homer had so ill a smell, nor yet the
herd (as the story goes) of fire-breathing bulls, not all Lemnos,
not the foulest of the Harpies, nor even Philoctetes’ putrefying
foot. So you see, Telesilla, you outdo—the vote is unanimous,—
Chimaeras, putrefactions, bulls, birds, Lemnian women!) The
stench of Telesilla outdid, we see, all known evil smells, even that
of the Lemnian women, etc. Also in Valerius Flaccus, bk. II. 99-
241., is found this myth of the Lemnian women.
311 Hence Iphis, in Ovid, Metam., IX. 723 sqq., says:
Iphis amat, qua posse frui desperat, et auget
Hoc ipsum flammas: ardetque in virgine virgo.
Vix tenens lacrimas: Quis me manet exitus, inquit,
Cognita quam nulli, quam prodigiosa novaeque
Cura tenet Veneris? si dii mihi parcere vellent.
Naturale malum saltem et de more dedissent.
Nec vaccam vaccae, nec equas amor urit equarum.
Femina femineo correpta cupidine nulla est.
Vellem nulla forem.
(Iphis loves one that she knows, alas! she can never enjoy, and
this fact itself increases her passion. A maiden burns for a
maiden. Hardly keeping back her tears she cries: What fate
awaits me,—me who suffer sorrow of Venus known to none, a
sorrow monstrous and of strange new sort? If the gods were
willing to spare me, they would have given me a natural curse
surely, one of ordinary kind. No cow burns for a cow, no mare for
the love of mares, nor any woman is taken with love for a
woman. Would I were no woman!)
Similarly Lucillius says of the paederast Cratippus in the Greek
Anthology, bk. II. Tit. V. no. 1.;
Τὸν φιλόοπαιδα Κράτιππον ἀκούσατε· θαῦμα γὰρ ὑμῖν
Καινὸν ἀπαγγέλλω· π λ ὴ ν μ ε γ ά λ α ι ν ε μ έ σ ε ι ς·
Τὸν φιλόπαιδα Κράτιππον ἀνεύρομεν ἄλλο γένος· τί;
Τῶν ἑτεροζήλων ἤλπισα τοῦτ’ ἂν ἐγὼ;
Ἤλπισα τοῦτο, Κράτιππε; μανήσομαι, εἰ λύκος εἶναι
Πᾶσι λέγων ἐφάνης ἐξαπίνης ἔριφος.
(Of the boy-loving Cratippus will I tell you; for a strange new
wonder I report. Yea! great are the penalties he pays. The boy-
loving Cratippus we have found has another character. What
character? I should have thought him to be of those whose love
is eager on one side only. Did I think so, Cratippus? Well, I shall
seem a madman, if—professing the while to all to be a wolf,—you
of a sudden appear in the character of a kid).
But most important in this connection is the passage of
Aeschines, Orat. in Timarch., p. 178., μὴ γὰρ οἴεσθαι, ὦ Ἀθηναῖοι,
τὰς τῶν ἀτυχημάτων ἀρχὰς ἀπὸ θεῶν, ἀλλ’ οὐχ ὑπ’ ἀνθρώπων
ἀσελγείας γίνεσθαι, μηδὲ τοὺς ἠσεβηκότας, καθάπερ ἐπὶ ταῖς
τραγῳδίαισι, Ποινὰς ἐλαύνειν καὶ κολάζειν δᾳσὶν ἡμμέναις· ἀλλ’ αἱ
προπετεῖς τοῦ σώματος ἡδοναὶ, καὶ τὸ μηδὲν ἱκανὸν ἡγεῖσθαι. (For
you must not dream, Athenians, that the causes of calamities are
from the gods, and that such are not rather due to the
wickedness of mankind. Do not imagine the impious are driven by
Furies, as is represented in the Tragedies, and chastised with
blazing torches; nay! it is reckless indulgence in bodily pleasures
that is the scourge, and immoderate desires). Comp. Theon,
Progymn., ch. 7.—Cicero, Orat. in Pison., 20., Nolite putare, Patres
Conscripti, ut in scena videtis homines consceleratos impulso
deorum terreri Furiarum taedis ardentibus. Sua quemque fraus,
suum facinus, suum scelus, sua audacia de sanitate ac mente
deturbat. Hae sunt impiorum Furiae, hae flammae, hae faces.
(Dream not, Conscript Fathers, that wicked men, as you see
represented on the stage, are driven in terror, at the instigation of
the gods, by the blazing torches of the Furies. ’Tis his own
dishonesty, his own wickedness, his own baseness, his own
recklessness, that destroys each man’s health and sanity. These
are the furies that torment the impious, these the flames and
torches).
312 De Bello Peloponnesiaco, Bk. I. ch. 12. (edit. Bauer. Leipzig
1790. 4to., p. 33.), καὶ Φιλοκτήτης διὰ τὸν Πάριδος θάνατον
θ ή λ ε ι α ν ν ό σ ο ν νοσήσας, καὶ μὴ φέρων τὴν αἰσχύνην,
ἀπελθὼν ἐκ τῆς πατρίδος, ἔκτισε πόλιν, ἣν διὰ τ ὸ π ά θ ο ς
Μ α λ α κ ί α ν ἐκάλεσε.—for translation see text above. Our view
on this passage is shared by Manso, pp. 46 and 70.
313 Bk. II. Epigr. 84. How Meier, loco citato p. 160., could
derive a proof from this passage that Philoctetes had been the
pathic of Hercules is beyond our comprehension, seeing that
Hercules had long been dead when Philoctetes was punished with
this vice by Venus.
314 Bk. II. Epigr. 89.
315 Works of Ausonius; Delphin edition, revised by J. B.
Souchay. Paris 1730. 4to., p. 4. Carm. 71. Following a ridiculous
custom the “Obscoena e textu Ausoniano resecta” (Objectionable
passages removed from the text of Ausonius) are printed
together at the end of the Book, and separately paged.
316 Instit. orat, Bk. X. ch. 1.
317 Fab. 148.—Barth on Statius’ Thebaid. V. 59.
318 Tragoed. Hippolyt., 124.; and Servius on Virgil, Aeneid, Bk.
VI. v. 14., Venus vehementer dolens stirpem omnem Solis
persequi infandis amoribus coepit. (Venus, exceedingly indignant,
proceeds to afflict all the descendants of the Sun with abominable
loves.)
319 Amores, ch. 2., οὕτω τις ὑγρὸς τοῖς ὄμμασιν ἐνοικεῖ μύωψ,
ὃς ἅπαν πάλλος εἰς αὑτὸν ἁρπάζων ἐπ’ οὐδενὶ κόρῳ παύεται· καὶ
συνεχὲς ἀπορεῖν ἐπέρχεταί μοι, τίς οὗτος Ἀφροδίτης ὁ χόλος· οὐ
γὰρ Ἡλιάδης ἐγώ τις, οὐδὲ Λημνιάδων ἔ ρ ι ς, οὐδὲ Ἱππολύτειον
ἀγροικίαν ὠφρυωμένος, ὡς ἐρεθίσαι τῆς θεοῦ τὴν ἄπαυστον
ταύτην ὀργήν. (for translation see text above.) The word ἔρις—
strife, in this passage is obviously corrupt, having got into the
text probably by confusion with ἐρεθίσαι—to provoke, standing
just below in the MS. Jacobs proposed ἔρνος—scion, but
according to Lehmann this is too poetical a word for Lucian;
ἐρεὺς—in the sense of heir, might very well be read, giving the
same meaning. Could ὕβριν—insolence, have been the original
word in the text? Lucian must have written the passage with a
reference to the above mentioned punishment of the Lemnian
women by Venus, and by Λημνιάδων—Lemnian women, we must
understand not the descendants of the women of Lemnos, but
these women themselves, Apollonius Rhodius (Argon., I. 653.)
also using Λημνιάδες δὲ γυναῖκες—Lemnian women, of these
same inhabitants of the island. Now the Greeks characterized
every form of behaviour of a kind to incur the anger of the
goddess by the word ὕβρις—overbearing insolence; and this
would exactly fit in the passage, for the οὐδὲ ... οὐδὲ—neither ...
nor, calls for a correspondence of phrase in each clause, and
ὕβρις and ἀγροικία—brutal insensibility, tally excellently. For ὕβρις
in the sense indicated comp. Clement of Alexandria, Paedag., Bk.
II. ch. 10., ἐπιθυμία γὰρ κακὴ ὄνομα ὕβρις, καὶ τὸν τῆς ἐπιθυμίας
ἵππον, ὑβριστὴν ὁ Πλάτων (Phaedr. pp. 1226, 27.) προσεῖπεν,
Ἵπποι θηλυμανεῖς ἐγενήθητέ μοι, ἀναγνούς. (for evil
concupiscence is called ὕβρις, and the horse of concupiscence
Plato named Ὑβριστὴς—Overbearing, having read “Wild horses ye
became to me.”) We should then have to translate, supposing we
read ὕβριν in the text, “I am neither puffed up with the insolence
of the women of Lemnos, nor yet with the brutal insensibility of
Hippolytus.” Very possibly an Attic writer would not have
expressed himself so; but we must remember that Fr. Jacobs, a
man of fine discrimination of Classical diction, denied from the
first Lucian’s authorship of the passage ob orationem difficilem
valdeque impeditam—because of its difficult and exceedingly
awkward style. The unfavourable judgement which Lehmann in
his edition passes on this Work (Lucian’s Amores) so far as its
general tenor is concerned, is based we may observe almost
entirely on the confusion of paedophilia with paederastia.
However under no circumstances has any actual allusion been
made to the lewdness of the Lemnian women, if Belin, de Ballu,
and others agree in this rendering.
320 De special legib., Opera Vol. II. p. 304.
321 Ovid, Metamorphos., bk. X. 238.
322 Ovid, Metamorphos., bk. X. 298.—Servius on Virgil, Eclog.
X. 18. Fulgentius, Mytholog. III. 8.
 323 Ausonius, Epigr. C.,
De Hermaphrodito
Mercurio genitore satus, genetrice Cythere,
Nominis ut mixti, sic corporis Hermaphroditus,
Concretus sexu, sed non perfectus, utroque:
Ambiguae Veneris, neutro potiundus amori.
(Of Hermaphroditus.—Born of Mercury as sire, of Cythera as
mother, Hermaphroditus, at once of compound name and
compound body, combined of either sex, but complete in neither;
a being of ambiguous love, that can enjoy the joys of neither
passion.)
324 Orat contra Alcibiad., I. p. 550., οἱ μὲν πολλοὶ αὐτῶν
ἡταιρήκασιν. (the majority of them have become prostitutes.)
Comp. Meier, loco citato p. 173., who in another place, p. 154
note 79., has authenticated the meaning of ἑταιρεῖν (to be a
hetaera, prostitute, used of men, viz. to submit the body for pay
to another to violate.)
325 “De morbis acutis et chronicis, lib. VIII.” (On acute and
chronic Diseases—8 Books.) edit. Amman. Amsterdam 1722. 4to.
Chronic Diseases, Bk. IV. ch. 9. In this book diseases of the
intestinal canal are treated, and immediately preceding the
subject of Worms. So the vice must have been regarded as if it
were a disease of the rectum, though the author says it had its
origin in a mental derangement. Comp. C. Barth, Adversar., bk. IV.
ch. 3., bk. XLIII. ch. 21, bk. XLVIII. ch. 3., bk. XXIII. ch. 2. bk.
XIII. ch. 13., where several emendations are to be found of the
corruptions of the text.
326 Tribades dictae a τρίβω, frico, frictrices, sunt quibus ea
pars naturae muliebris, quam clitoridem vocant, in tantam
magnitudinem excrescit, ut possint illa pro mentula vel ad
futuendum vel ad paedicandum uti. “Tribades”, so called from
τρίβω,—I rub, women that rub, are such as have that portion of
the woman’s parts which is called the clitoris grown to a size so
excessive that they can use it as a penis whether for fornicating
or for paederastia. So says Forberg, loco citato p. 345. Comp.
Hesychius ἑταιρίστριαι τριβάδες (lewd women, tribades.) The
Lesbian women were especially notorious for it. Lucian, Dialog.
meretr. 5., τοιαύτας (ἑταιριστρίας) ἐν Λέσβῳ λέγουσι γυναῖκας,
ὑπὸ ἀνδρῶν μὲν οὐκ ἐθελούσας αὐτὸ πάσχειν, γυναιξὶ δὲ αὐτὰς
πλησιαζούσας, ὥσπερ ἄνδρας. (such women—tribades, they say
there are in Lesbos, who will not suffer it from men, but
themselves go with women, as if they were men). But we must
beware of connecting the word λεσβιάζειν (the act the Lesbian)
with this; it means something quite different, as we shall see later
on. The Milesian women were skilled Tribades, employing an
artificial penis made of leather, which was called by the Greeks
ὄλισβος. Aristophanes, Lysistrat. 108-110.,
οὐκ εἶδον οὐδ’ ὄλισβον ὀκταδάκτυλον,
ὃς ἦν ἂν ἠμῖιν σκυτίνη ’πικουρία.
(Since when the Milesians betrayed us, I have never seen even
an eight-inch olisbos, that would have been a leathern succour for
us.) Suidas, s. v. ὄλισβος· αἰδοῖον δερμάτινον, ᾧ ἐχρῶντο αἱ
μιλήσιαι γυναῖκες, ὡς τ ρ ι β ά δ ε ς, καὶ αἰσχρουργοί. ἐχρῶντο καὶ
αὐτοῖς καὶ αἱ χῆραι γυναῖκες.—s. v. μισήτης· μισῆται δὲ γυναῖκες
ὀλίσβῳ χρήσονται. (under the word ὄλισβος: a member of
leather; which the Milesian women used, such as tribades and
bad women. They were used by widows also.—under the word
μισήτης (lewd person): and lewd women will use the olisbos.)
Comp. the Scholiast to the passage of Aristophanes quoted.
There were also cakes shaped like an olisbos and called
ὀλισβόκολλοξ (olisbos-loaves)—Hesychius, which remind us of the
cakes in the shape of a penis that were sold in Italy at the feast
of SS. Cosmus and Damian. (see Knight, loco citato p. 62.)
327 Longao or Longano signifies the rectum—straight gut, the
large intestine, the longus anus, prolonged anus, as it were. The
word is found frequently in Caelius Aurelianus and in Vegetius, De
re veterin. (On Veterinary medicine). II. 14., 21., 28. IV. 8. Since
the large intestine was used for sausages (Apicius. De re coq.)
(On Cookery, Bk. IV. ch. 2.), the sausage was also called longano
or longavo. Varro, De ling. lat. V. 111.
328 We have not been able to ascertain whether the Fragment
here quoted is extant in Greek as well, for the Fragments of
Parmenides, by G. G. Fülleborn. Züllichau 1795. 8vo. were as
inaccessible by us as were Brandis’ Commentationes Eleaticae.
329 Physiognomicon ch. 3., in Scriptores Physiognomiae
veteres (Ancient Writers on Physiognomy), edit. J. G. Fr. Franzius.
Altenburg 1780 large 8vo., p, 51., Κ ι ν α ί δ ο υ σ η μ ε ῖ α, ὄμμα
κατακεκλασμένον, γονύκροτος, ἐγκίσεις τῆς κεφαλῆς εἰς τὰ δεξιά·
αἱ φοραὶ τῶν χειρῶν ὑπτίαι καὶ ἔκλυτοι, καὶ βαδέσεις διτταὶ, ἡ μὲν
περινεύοντος, ἡ δὲ κρατοῦντος, τὴν ὀσφύν, καὶ τῶν ὀμμάτων
περιβλέψεις· οἷος ἂν εἴη Διονύσιος ὁ σοφιστής. (for translation see
text above). On p. 77. γονύκροτος (knock-kneed) is laid down as
a characteristic of a woman. On p. 155 we read, οἱ ἐγκλινόμενοι
εἰς τὰ δεξιὰ ἐν τῷ πορεύεσθαι, κίναιδοι. (those who bend to the
right in walking are cinaedi.); on p. 50. καὶ ἰσχνὰ ὄμματα
κατακεκλασμένα—ἅμα δὲ καὶ τὰ κεκλασμένα τῶν ὀμμάτων, δύο
σημαίνει, τὸ μὲν μαλακὸν καὶ θῆλυ. (and withered, broken-down
looking eyes,—and this broken-down appearance of the eyes
denotes two things, the one being softness and effeminacy).
Clement of Alexandria, Paedagog. bk. III. ch. 11., οὐδὲ
κατακεκλασμένος, πλάγιον ποιήσας τὸν τράχηλον, περιπατεῖν
ὥσπερ ἑτέρους ὁρῶ κιναίδους ἐνθάδε πολλοὺς ἄστει. (nor yet
with broken-down look, bending the neck askance, to walk about
as I see others do here, cinaedi,—yea, many of them in the city).
330 Physiognom. bk. II. 9. l. c. p. 290., Ἀ ν δ ρ ο γ ύ ν ο υ
σ η μ ε ῖ α . Ὑγρὸν βλέπει καὶ ἰταμὸν ὁ ἀνδρόγυνος, καὶ δονεῖται τὰ
ὄμματα, καὶ περιτρέχει· μέτωπον σπᾶ, καὶ παρειάς, αἱ ὀφρύες
οἰδαίνουσι κατὰ χώραν, τράχηλος κέκλιται, ὀσφὺς οὐκ ἀτρεμεῖ·
κινεῖται πάντα τὰ μέλη ἅλματι· γονάτων κρότος καὶ χειρῶν
φαίνεται· ὡς ταῦρος περιβλέπει εἰς ἑαυτὸν καὶ καταβλέπει· φωνεῖ
λεπτὸν, κράζει δὲ λιγυρὰ, σκολιὰ πάνυ καὶ πάνυ ἔντρομα. (for
translation see text above.) p. 275., οἱ τὰ γόνατα ἔσω νεύοντες,
γυναικεῖοί τε καὶ θηλυδρίαι. (men that bow the knees inwards are
womanish and effeminate).
331 Physiognom. bk. II. 38. l. c. p. 440., Ε ἶ δ ο ς
ἀ ν δ ρ ο γ ύ ν ο υ. Ὁ ἀνδρόγυνος ὑγρὸν βλέπει, καὶ ἰταμὸν καὶ
δονεῖται τὰ ὄμματα καὶ περιτρέχει· μέτωπον σπᾶ καὶ παρειάς. αἱ
ὀφρύες μένουσι κατὰ χώραν, τράχηλος κέκλιται, ὀσφὺς οὐκ
ἀτρεμεῖ· κινεῖται πάντα τὰ μέλη καὶ ἐπιθρώσκει· ἁλματίας ἐστὶ,
γονύκροτος, χειρῶν φοραὶ ὕπτιαι· περιβλέπει ἑαυτὸν· φωνὴ
λεπτὴ, ἐπικλάζουσα, λιγυρὰ, σχολαία πάνυ. (Appearance of the
Man-woman. The man-woman has a lecherous and wanton look,
he rolls his eyes and lets his gaze wander; forehead and cheeks
twitch, eyebrows remain drawn to a point, neck bowed, hips in
continual movement. All the limbs move and jump; he is
spasmodic, knock-kneed, the movements of the hands with backs
downwards; he gazes round him; his voice is thin, plangent,
shrill, very uncertain.) p. 382., οἱ τὰ γόνατα ἔσω νεύοντες ὥσπερ
συγκρούειν, γυναικεῖοι καὶ θηλυδρίαι. (men that bow the knees
inwards as if to strike them together are womanish and
effeminate.)
 332 Tarsica I. p. 410., These distinguishing marks were
adequate for the Romans too, as we see from the passage of
Aulus Gellius quoted on p. 143 above; side by side with which
may be put another passage of the same author, Bk. VIII. ch. 12.
333 Still another explanation would seem possible, according to
Clement of Alexandria, Paedag. bk. II. ch. 7. p. 179., ναὶ μὴν καὶ
τῶν ὤτων οἱ γαργαλισμοὶ κ α ὶ τῶν πταρμῶν οἱ
ε ρ ε θ ι σ μ ο ὶ, ὑώδεις εἰσὶ κνησμοὶ, πορνείας ἀκολάστου (Yea! and
moreover ticklings of the ears, and irritations causing sneezing,
these are swinish itches, signs of excessive licentiousness). For
the rest Seneca, Epist. 114., also says, Non vides—si ille
effeminatus est, in ipso incessu apparere mollitiam? (See you not
—if he is effeminate, that his lasciviousness is apparent in his
very walk?)
334 Lucian, Adversus indoctum ch. 23., ...... μυρία γάρ ἐστι τὰ
ἀντιμαρτυροῦντα τῷ σχήματι, βάδισμα καὶ φωνὴ, καὶ τράχηλος
ἐπικεκλασμένος, καὶ ψιμύθιον, καὶ μαστίχη καὶ φῦκος οἷς ὑμεῖς
κοσμεῖσθε, καὶ ὅλως, κατὰ τὴν παροιμίαν, θᾶττον ἂν πέντε
ἐλέφαντας ὑπὸ μάλης κρύψειας, ἢ ἕνα κίναιδον. (for translation
see text above).
335 Clement of Alexandria, Paedog. Bk. II. ch. 7. p. 173., also
says ἀλλὰ τὸ τεθρυμμένον τῆς φωνῆς, θηλυδρίου. (but the
broken character of the voice is a mark of the womanish man).
336 Martial, Bk. VII. Epigr. 57.,
—sed habet tristis quoque turba cinaedos,
Difficile est, vero nubere, Galla, viro.
(... but the dismal throng contains cinaedi as well; ’tis a difficult
matter, Galla, to marry a real man). Comp. Bk. IX. Epigr. 48.; and
Juvenal, Satir. II. 8-13.,
Quis enim non vicus abundat
Tristibus obscoenis? castigas turpia, cum sis
Inter Socraticos notissima fossa cinaedos:
Hispida membra quidem et durae per brachia setae
Promittunt atrocem animum? sed podice laevi
Caeduntur tumidae, medico ridente, mariscae.
(For what street has not its crowd of dismal debauchees? you
inveigh against vice, when you are the most notorious pit of
abomination of all the host of Socratic cinaedi. Shaggy limbs
indeed and sturdy bristles on your arms promise a rugged virtue;
but your fundament is smooth, and the great bursting swellings
on it are cut, the doctor grinning the while.) Seneca, Epist. 114.,
Ille et crura, hic nec alas vellit. (One man plucks bare his very
legs, another not even the armpits.)
337 Aeschines, Orat. in Timarch. p. 179., expresses it
excellently, οὕτω τοὺς π ε π ο ρ ν ε υ μ έ ν ο υ ς, κᾂν μὴ παρῶμεν
τοῖς αὐτῶν ἔργοις, ἐκ τῆς ἀναιδείας καὶ τοῦ θράσους καὶ τῶν
ἐπιτηδευμάτων γινώσκομεν. (So with regard to debauchees, even
though we are not present at their actual doings, we recognize
them by their bold, shameless bearing and their general habits.)
338 This was the special adornment of the woman, and was
sacred to Venus; we read in Ausonius,
Barba Iovi, crines Veneri decor; ergo necesse est,
Ut nolint demi, quo sibi uterque placet.
(The beard is Jove’s pride, her locks Venus’s: they must needs
then object to the removal of that wherein each takes special
delight). Hence Ambrosius too, Hexamer. bk. VI., writes, Haud
inscitum extat adagium: nullus comatus qui non idem cinaedus.
(There is a familiar proverb that says: never a long-haired man
but is a cinaedus.) In Martial, III. 58., they are called capillati
(long-haired.)
339 Diogenes Laertius, Vita Diogenis Bk. VI. 54.
340 Clouds, 340 sqq. See also (German) Translation of
Aristophanes by Fr. A. Wolf.
341 Satir. II. 16. W. E. Weber (“Die Satiren des D. J.
Juvenalis.”—The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis. Halle 1838.)
is mistaken in his way of taking this passage. Not only does he in
his translation assign Peribomius’ words to Juvenal himself, but
also in the notes, pp. 286 sqq., gives quite wrong explanations of
several words. For instance he says, “inter Socraticos ... cinaedos,
(amongst the Socratic cinaedi), the Socratic breed of wantons,
the kind that give themselves an air of sober and highly moral
habits, like Socrates;” but really the poet merely meant to express
the idea of later times that Socrates had been a paederast.
Discussing the passage Weber remarks of Peribomius, “One who
in looks and gait, as being effeminate and of a womanish
dandified bearing, confesses his evil state,—one of enervation
and womanish amorousness,” whereas as a matter of fact
Peribomius makes no other confession than simply that he is a
pathic. We are not to suppose any sort of intentional suppression
of the facts, as indeed is shown both by the rest of the translation
and also expressly on p. VI of the Preface; so we are bound to
characterize what is said in these places as the result of
downright mistake.
342 When Juvenal, V. 50., says: Hippo subit iuvenes et morbo
pallet utroque, (Hippo submits to young men, and is pale with a
double disease), this must be understood to mean that Hippo is
not only a pathic, but also a Fellator (see subsequently). Further
Epigr. 131. of Ausonius is to the point in this connection:
Inguina quod calido levas tibi dropace, causa est:
Irritant volsas levia membra lupas;
Sed quod et elixo plantaria podice vellis,
Et teris incusas pumice Clazomenas,
Causa latet: bimarem nisi quod patientia morbum
Appetit et tergo femina, pube vires.
(The reason why you make the private parts smooth with hot
pitch-ointment (as a depilatory) is this: Smooth limbs excite the
passions of the harlots, plucked smooth themselves. But why you
pluck the hair from your fundament, soaked in hot water first,
and polish with pumice your well-pounded Clazomenae (i. e.
buttocks) the reason is obscure: unless indeed your long-suffering
lust hankers for a double disease (vice),—a woman behind, in
your member a strong man).
Manilius, Astronomica bk. V. vv. 140-156., says:
 Taurus, in aversos praeceps cum tollitur artus,
Sexta parte sui certantes luce sorores
Pleiades ducit: quibus aspirantibus, almam
In lucem eduntur Bacchi Venerisque sequaces:
Perque dapes, mensamque super petulantia corda,
Et sale mordaci dulces quaerentia risus.
Illis cura sui cultus, frontisque decorae
Semper erit: tortos in fluctum ponere crines,
Aut vinclis revocare comas et vertice denso
Fingere et appositis caput emutare capillis,
Pomicibusque cavis horrentia membra polire,
Atque odisse virum, sterilesque optare lacertos.
Femineae vestes; nec in usum tegmina plantis,
Sed speciem; fractique placent ad mollia gressus.
Naturae pudet atque habitat sub pectore caeca
Ambitio et morbum virtutis nomine iactant.
Semper amare parum est: cupient et amare videri
(When the Bull tending downwards lifts his head with limbs
bent back, he brings with him in his sixth house the sister
Pleiades, his equals in brilliancy. When these are in the
ascendent, there are brought forth to the light of day such as
follow after Bacchus and Venus; and hearts that wanton at feast
and board, and that seek to raise the merry laugh by biting wit.
These will ever be giving thought to their bedizenment and
becoming appearance; to curl the hair and lay it in waving ripples
or else to gather in the locks with circlets and arrange them in a
heavy top-knot, and to alter the head by adding false ringlets; to
polish the shaggy limbs with hollow pumice-stone; yea! and to
hate the very sight of a man, and long for arms without growth of
hair. Women’s robes they wear; the coverings of their feet are
less for use than show; and steps broken in to an effeminate gait
are their delight. Nature they scorn; indeed in their breast there
lies a pride they cannot avow, and they vaunt their disease (vice)
under the name of virtue. Ever to love is a little thing in their
eyes; their wish will be to be seen to love).
Seneca, Quaest. nat. bk. VII. ch. 31., Egenus etiam in quo
morbum suum exerceat, legit. (The poor man too chooses one on
whom he may practise his disease (vice).—Seneca, Epist. 114.
Cum vero magis vires morbus exedit et in medullas nervosque
descendere deliciae. (But when the disease (vice) has eaten
deeper into a man’s vigour, and its delights penetrated to the very
marrow and nerves).—Comp. Epist. 75.—Cicero, De finibus I. 18.,
in Verrem II. 1. 36., Tusc. quaest. IV. 11.—Wyttenbach, in
Bibliothec. critic. Pt VIII. p. 73.—Horace, Sat. I. 6. 40., Ut si qui
aegrotat quo morbo Barrus, haberi ut cupiat formosus. (As if one
who is sick of the same disease as Barrus, as if he should long to
be considered handsome.) Another passage of the same author
(Odes I. 37. 9.) must be mentioned:
Contaminato cum grege turpium
Morbo virorum.
(With her (Cleopatra’s) herd of foul men stained with disease—
vice). It is taken by Stark as by most of the commentators to
mean castrated persons, though strictly speaking it implies
nothing more than a contemptuous circumlocution for Egyptians.
The boys that were kept in the brothels at Rome for purposes of
paederastia were for the most part from Egypt, whence they were
imported in flocks. Accordingly the poet calls the whole entourage
of Cleopatra pathics. There can be no mistake, if only we
translate thus: cum contaminato grege virorum, morbo turpium,
(with a polluted herd of men, defiled with disease—vice). In this
Horace was all the more justified, because as a matter of fact
Cleopatra did keep cinaedi, as we learn from Suidas: s. v. κίναιδα
καὶ κιναιδία· ἠ ἀναισχυντία· ἀπὸ τοῦ κινεῖν τὰ αἰδοῖα. Ὁ τ ῆ ς
Κ λ ε ο π ά τ ρ α ς κ ί ν α ι δ ο ς Χελιδὼν ἐκαλεῖτο. (under the words
κίναιδα and κίναιδία: shameless practice; from the moving (τὸ
κινεῖν of the genitals. Cleopatra’s cinaedus was called Chelidon.
True Terence, Eunuch. I. 2. 87., makes Phaedria say:
Porro eunuchum dixisti velle te,
Quia solae utuntur his reginae, repperi,
(I have discovered wherefore you said you wanted a eunuch,
because only queens use them) and Donatus observes on the
passage that reginae (queens) stands for feminae divites (rich
ladies). Accordingly just as Eunuchus is used for cinaedus or
pathicus, in the same way cinaedus might very well stand in
Suidas for eunuch, and as a matter of fact the entourage of
Cleopatra may have consisted of actual eunuchs. Still it is
Horace’s main point that they were pathics. As to the reason why
reginae (queens, rich ladies) kept castrati (eunuchs) at all, comp.
p. 125 above.—The Latin grex (herd) is sufficiently explained by
the παίδων ἀγέλας (herds of boys) in the passages already
quoted (p. 131.) from Tatian and Justin Martyr, along side which
we may put the μειρακίων ὡραίων ἀγέλαι (herds of lads in the
bloom of youth) of Clement of Alexandria, Paedag. bk. III. ch. 4.
The word is used in the same sense by Seneca, Epist 95., Transeo
puerorum infelicium greges, quos post transacta convivia aliae
cubiculi contumeliae expectant. Transeo agmina exoletorum per
nationes coloresque descripta. (I pass over the herds of unhappy
boys, whom after the feast is done, other affronts of the bed-
chamber await. I pass over the serried ranks of debauchees
(cinaedi) marshalled by nation and complexion.) Cicero, Ad
Atticum I. 13., Concursabant barbatuli iuvenes, totus ille grex
Catilinae, (Thither flocked the youths of the baby beards, all the
herd of Catiline’s friends.) Petronius, Sat. ch. 40., Grex agit in
scena mimum. (The common herd plays the mime on the stage.)
Grex was used generally for any crowd of common men.—The
use of the word contaminatus (polluted) brings to mind
catamitus, which bears the sense of pathic, e. g. in Cicero,
Philipp. II. 31., Appuleius, Metam. I. p. 107 and especially is used
as a nickname for Ganymede. Plautus, Menaechm. I. 2. 34.—
Festus: Catamitum pro Ganymede dixerunt, qui fuit Jovis
concubinus, (Men said catamitus for Ganymedes, who was
Jupiter’s bed-fellow),—which probably led to the ridiculous idea
being entertained, e.g. by Scheller, that the word was derived
from Ganymedes by corruption in the pronunciation! The fact that
the word is metrically a “Paeon tertius”, that is to say the i in the
third syllable is long, might have led us at once to the conclusion
that originally the word was catamytus, and derived from the
Greek καταμύσσω (to tear), and so has the same meaning as the
Latin percisus (cut), or else that it stands for καταμίκτος (mixed),
and is connected with καταμίγνυμι (to mix), and so in fact
concubinus (sharing the bed), as Festus says! At any rate the
passages quoted above from Cicero and Seneca, which might
easily be multiplied, prove that Stark’s supposition expressed on
p. 22., to the effect that morbus (disease) is used in this sense
only in the poets, is unfounded.
343 Menander, in Lucian, Amores ch. 43., says: νόσων
χαλεπωτάτη φθόνος (of diseases the cruellest is envy.) It is used
of envy by Aristophanes, Birds 31. νόσον νοσοῦμεν τὴν ἐναντίαν
Σάκᾳ. (we are sick of the disease that was Saces’ enemy.)
Euripides, Medea 525., γλωσσαλγία αἴσχιστος νόσος
(garrulousness, a most shocking disease.) But in a special way
νόσος (disease) was used of Love (Pollux) Onomast. Bk. VI. 42.,
εἰς Ἀφροδίτην νοσῶν. (being sick of Love). Eubulus, in Nannio,
quoted by Athenaeus, Deipnos. Bk. XIII. ch. 24., says:
μικροῦ πρίασθαι κέρματος τὴν ἡδονήν
καὶ μὴ λαθραίαν Κύπριν (αἰσχίστην
νόσων
πασῶν) διώκειν, ὕβρεος, οὐ πόθου χάριν.
(To buy pleasure for a small coin, and not pursue secret
amours,—most base of all diseases,—for overmastering lust’s
sake and not for love.) Νόσημα (disease) is used in the same
sense in Lucian, Amores 3., and πάθος (suffering, passion) in
many passages in the same Work. Plutarch, Amator. p. 763., καὶ
λελάληκε (Μένανδρος) περὶ τοῦ πάθους φιλοσοφώτερον. (And he
—Menander—has talked about the passion more like a
philosopher). The following passage in Philo, De specialibus
legibus,—Opera. edit. Mangey, Vol. II. p. 301., is of interest: Ἔχει
μὲν οὖν καὶ ἡ κατὰ φύσιν ἡδονὴ πολλάκις μέμψιν, ὅταν ἀμέτρως
καὶ ἀκορέστως χρῆταί τις αὐτῇ, καθάπερ οἱ ἄπληστοι περὶ
ἐδωδὴν, κἂν εἰ μηδὲν τῶν ἀπηγορευμένων προσφέροιντο· καὶ οἱ
φιλογυναίοις συνουσίαις ἐπιμιμηνότες, καὶ λαγνίστερον
προσομιλοῦντες γυναιξὶν οὐκ ἀλλοτρίαις, ἀλλὰ ταῖς ἐαυτῶν. Ἡ
δὲ μέμψις σώματός ἐστι μᾶλλον ἢ ψυχῆς κατὰ
τοὺς πολλοὺς, πολλὴν μὲν ἔχοντος εἴσω
φλόγα, ἣ τὴν παραβληθεῖσαν τροφὴν
ἐξαναλίσκουσα ἑτέραν οὐκ εἰς μακρὰν ἐπιζητεῖ
πολλὴν ἰκμάδα, ἧς τὸ ῥοῶδες διὰ τῶν
γενητικῶν ἀποχετεύετο, κνησμοὺς καὶ
ὀδαξισμοὺς ἐμποιοῦν καὶ γαργαλισμοὺς
ἀ π α ύ σ ο υ ς.
(So the gratification even of natural pleasure is often
blameworthy, when it is indulged immoderately and insatiably,
just as men who are insatiably greedy about eating are
blameworthy, even though they should not partake of any
forbidden meats. So too men who are madly devoted to
intercourse with women, and go with women lewdly,—not strange
women but their own wives. And the blame lies rather with the
body than with the mind in most cases, for the body has within it
a great flame, which using up the fuel cast to it, does not for long
lack much moisture, the watery humour of which is drawn off by
intercourse with women, producing ticklings and gnashings with
the teeth and unappeasable itchings.) Immoderate copulation
then with a man’s own wife is only a reproach that concerns the
body more than the mind; on the other hand Philo in the
succeeding sentences speaks of those who practise fornication
with strange women as, ἀνίατον νόσον ψυχῆς νοσοῦντας (sick of
an incurable sickness of the soul., Clement of Alexandria) Paedag.
bk. II. ch. 10., μικρὰν ἐπιληψίαν τὴν συνουσίαν ὁ Ἀβδηρίτης ἔλεγε
σοφιστής, νόσον ἀνίατον ἡγούμενος. (the sophist of Abdera used
to speak of coition as a miniature epilepsy, deeming it an
incurable disease). Gellius, bk. XIX. ch. 2., indeed attributes this
expression to Hippocrates, Stobaeus, Florileg. I. 6. De
intemperantia, to Eryximachus.
344 Eroticus ch. 19. in Plutarch, Opera Moralia, edit. A. G.
Winckelmann, Vol. I. Zürich 1836. large 8vo.
345 Manetho, Astronom. bk. IV. 486.,
ἐν αἷς ὕ β ρ ι ς, οὐ Κύπρις ἄρχει.
(women in whom overmastering insolence, not Love, rules).
346 Plutarch, De capt. util. ex host. p. 88. f., οὐκοῦν μηδὲ
μοιχὸν λοιδορήσῃς, αὐτὸς ὢν παιδομανής. (Therefore you must
not reproach even an adulterer, being yourself a paedomaniac).
Comp. Jacobs, Animadv. in Antholog. (Notes on the Anthology), I.
II. p. 244. Athenaeus, XI. p. 464.
347 Isocrates, Paneg. 32., ὕβρις παίδων (violence towards—
violation of—boys). Aeschines, Timarch. pp. 5. and 26.,
πιπράσκειν τὸ σῶμα ἐφ’ ὕβρει and ὕβριν τοῦ σώματος (to buy the
body for violation, violation of the body).
348 Aristotle, Nicomach. Ethics bk. VII. ch. 5., ἀλλὰ μὴν οὕτω
διατίθενται οἱ ἐν τοῖς πάθεσιν ὄντες· θυμοὶ γὰρ καὶ ἐπιθυμίαι
ἀφροδισίων καὶ ἔνια τῶν τοιούτων ἐπιδήλως καὶ τὸ σῶμα
μεθιστᾶσιν, ἐνίοις δὲ καὶ μ α ν ί α ς ποιοῦσιν· δῆλον οὖν ὅτι ὁμοίως
ἔχειν λεκτέον τοὺς ἀ κ ρ α τ ε ῖ ς τούτοις. cap. 6. αἱ δὲ
νοσηματώδεις ἢ ἐξ ἔθους, οἱον τριχῶν τίλσεις καὶ ὀνύχων τρώξεις,
ἔτι δ’ ἀνθράκων καὶ γῆς, πρὸς δὲ τούτοις ἡ τῶν ἀ φ ρ ο δ ι σ ί ω ν
τ ο ῖ ς ἄ ρ ρ ε σ ι ν· τοῖς μὲν γὰρ φύσει τοῖς δ’ ἐξ ἔθους
συμβαίνουσιν, οἱον τοῖς ὑβριζομένοις ἐκ παίδων· ὅσοις μὲν οὖν
φύσις αἰτία, τούτους μὲν οὐδεὶς ἂν εἴπειεν ἀκρατεῖς, ὥσπερ οὐδὲ
τὰς γυναῖκας, ὅτι οὐκ ὀπυίουσιν ἀλλ’ ὀπυίονται.—πᾶσα γὰρ
ὑπερβάλλουσα καὶ ἀφροσύνη καὶ δειλία καὶ ἀκολασία καὶ
χαλεπότης αἱ μὲν θηριώδεις αἱ δὲ νοσηματώδεις εἰσίν. ch. 8.
ἀνάγκη γὰρ τοῦτον μὴ εἰναι μεταμελητικόν, ὥστ’ ἀνίατος· ὁ γ ὰ ρ
ἀ μ ε τ α μ έ λ η τ ο ς ἀ ν ί α τ ο ς·—ὁ δ’ ἐλλείπων πρὸς ἃ οἱ πολλοὶ
καὶ ἀντιτείνουσι καὶ δύνανται, οὗτος μαλακὸς καὶ τρυφῶν· καὶ γὰρ
ἡ τρυφὴ μαλακία τίς ἐστιν· ὅς ἕλκει τὸ ἱμάτιον, ἵνα μὴ πονήσῃ τὴν
ἀπὸ τοῦ αἴρειν λύπην κ. τ. λ. ... ἀλλ’ εἴ τις πρὸς ἃ οἱ πολλοὶ
δύνανται ἀντέχειν, τούτων ἡττᾶται καὶ μὴ δύναται ἀντιτείνειν, μὴ
διὰ φύσιν τοῦ γένους ἢ διὰ νόσον, οἷον ἐ ν τ ο ῖ ς Σ κ υ θ ῶ ν
β α σ ι λ ε ῦ σ ι ν ἡ μ α λ α κ ί α δ ι ὰ τ ὸ γ έ ν ο ς, καὶ ὡς τὸ θῆλυ
πρὸς τὸ ἄρρεν διέστηκεν· δοκεῖ δὲ καὶ ὁ παιδιώδης ἀκόλαστος
εἶναι, ἔστι δὲ μαλακός.—ἀ κ ρ α σ ί α ς δὲ τὸ μὲν προπέτεια τὸ δ’
ἀ σ θ έ ν ε ι α· οἱ μὲν γὰρ βουλευσάμενοι οὐκ ἐμμένουσιν οἷς
ἐβουλεύσαντο διὰ τὸ π ά θ ο ς, οἱ δὲ διὰ τὸ μὴ βουλεύσασθαι
ἄγονται ὑ π ὸ τ ο ῦ π ά θ ο υ ς. (ch. 5., But this is the very
condition of people who are under the influence of passion; for
fits of anger and the desires of sensual pleasures and some such
things do unmistakably produce a change in the condition of the
body, and in some cases actually cause madness. It is clear then
that we must regard incontinent people as being in much the
same condition as people so affected, i.e. people asleep or mad
or intoxicated.—ch. 6., Other such states again are the results of
a morbid disposition or of habit, as e.g. the practice of plucking
out one’s hair, or biting one’s nails, or eating cinders and earth, or
of committing unnatural vice; for these habits are sometimes
natural,—when a person’s nature is vicious,—and sometimes
acquired, as e.g. by those who are the victims of outrage from
childhood. Now whenever nature is the cause of these habits,
nobody would call people who give way to them incontinent, any
more than we should call women incontinent for being not males,
but females.—For all excess whether of folly, cowardice,
incontinence, or savagery is either brutal or morbid.—ch. 8., for
he is necessarily incapable of repentance and is therefore
incurable, as to be incapable of repentance is to be incurable:—If
a person gives in where people generally resist and are capable of
resisting, he deserves to be called effeminate and luxurious; for
luxury is a form of effeminacy. Such a person will let his cloak trail
in the mud to avoid the trouble of lifting it up, etc.—if a person is
mastered by things against which most people succeed in holding
out, and is impotent to struggle against them, unless his
impotence is due to hereditary constitution or to disease, as
effeminacy is hereditary in the kings of Scythia, or as a woman is
naturally weaker than a man. But the man addicted to boys would
seem to be incontinent, and is effeminate.—Incontinence
assumes sometimes the form of impetuosity, and at other times
that of weakness. Some men deliberate, but their emotion
prevents them from abiding by the result of their deliberation;
others again do not deliberate, and are therefore carried away by
their emotion).
This passage has been quite misunderstood by Stark, loco
citato p. 27, for he has made it too refer to the νοῦσος θήλεια
(feminine disease); in this error indeed Camerarius, (Explic. Ethic.
Aristot. Nicomach.—Explanations of Aristotle’s Nicomachean
Ethics—Frankfort 1578, 4to., p. 344) whom he cites, had
preceded him. Stark says: Excusat autor eos, qui propter naturae
quandam mollitiem et levitatem vitiorum illecebris resistere
nequeant. Haec infirmitas vel ex morbo procreata vel a sexus
differente natura profecta esse potest. Quarum rationum exempla
et quidem alterius δ ι ὰ ν ό σ ο ν, Scytharum morbum, alterius διὰ
φύσιν τοῦ γένους mulierum debilitatem affert. (The author is
excusing such as on account of a certain softness and lightness of
nature cannot resist the allurements of vice. This weakness may
have been either induced by disease, or have sprung from the
different nature of the sexes. Of which cases he gives two
examples—of the one διὰ νόσον (on account of disease), the
disease of the Scythians, of the other διὰ φύσιν τοῦ γένους (on
account of congenital nature), the relative weakness of women).
But Aristotle says expressly in the passage that the μαλακία
(softness, effeminacy) of the Scythians, as well as of a woman,
was διὰ γένους (congenital),—that Scythians equally with women
are weakly by birth; while his examples of the διὰ νόσον (on
account of disease) do not come till further on. The Scythians, he
says, like women, are μαλακοί (soft), and the same is true of the
man who practises vices with boys (παιδιώδης); it is a part of
their nature, and so they are not ἀκόλαστοι (“intemperate”), for
the ἀκόλαστος is such a man as cannot owing to disease govern
himself (ἀκρασία, ἀσθενεία, διὰ τὸ πάθος—incontinence,
weakness, owing to passion). Thus the question cannot possibly
be here of the νοῦσος θήλεια (feminine disease), but merely of a
weakly, effeminate mode of life; and this is properly speaking
μαλακία, while the vice of the pathic is called μαλθακία,—but the
two words were constantly interchanged, and thus a part of the
blame for the mistake may very well lie with the transcribers. A
Pathic is habitually μαλακός, but the μαλακὸς is not necessarily
also a Pathic. Hence it might very probably be right to read, as
Aspasius and other editors have actually done, Περσῶν for
Σκυθῶν (kings of the Persians for kings of the Scythians), even
though the MSS. show no variants; and indeed to confirm this