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Five filthy, dirty, obscenely sexual poems from the past

Mike Pollitt | Wednesday 23 March, 2011 10:04

They don’t teach it in school history lessons, but rest assured that our ancestors were dirty. Want proof? Then gaze below. But be warned, this fetid sewer of depravity may offend those of a puritanical disposition.

1st century BC – Catullus’ facefuck
You read that right. The Romans did it enough to have a word for it. The first line of the frequently censored Catullus 16 is:

“Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo”

Which translates roughly as “I will sodomize and facefuck you”. He’s talking to some male rivals, so think of it as lads engaging in a bit of banter. Horrific, horrific banter.

10th century ribald riddles
The Anglo Saxons were an earthy people best known for inventing all of our favourite swearwords. They also loved a good riddle.

“Sometimes a pretty peasant’s daughter, eager armed, grabs hold of me, rushes my red skin, holds me hard, claims my head”

Read the whole thing here, where you will also find the solution. Then have a go at this equally suggestive little puzzler.

Ming Dynasty “do it on a table” verse
From the East comes some genuinely beautiful erotic poetry. Some examples here, perhaps the most overt of which runs thus:

“Her peony is raised high and dewed with fragrance
but his legs are too short to reach,
so he uses a small table
like a man climbing up a cloud ladder
or an old monk beating the temple drum”

Kind of makes me want to buy this book.

17th century wet dream verse
Robert Herrick was a curious chap who wrote poems such as the in no way patronising To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time in which he tells the maidens to get a move on and marry already. He also wrote The Vine, in which he dreams about surprising Lucia in a wood. It includes some slightly saucy stuff:

“Such fleeting pleasures there I took,
That with the fancie I awook;
And found (Ah me!) this flesh of mine
More like a Stock, than like a Vine.”

In other words, he woke up with a hard on. But how much do you love the word “awook”?!

18th century dildo verse
This recently got a bit of media attention. And rightly so, for The Discovery is a poetic description of female masturbation:

“Where, in her Pocket, was a bawdy Book;
Which she remov’d, and thence drew out a Tool,
Much like to that with which Men Women rule;
She it apply’d where I’m asham’d to tell,
And acted what I could have done as well.”

And you thought poetry was supposed to be suggestive and metaphorical? Ah well.

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