The Anatomy of Melancholy

Semiramis coupled with a horse, Pasiphae with a bull, Aristo of Ephesus with a she-ass, Fulvius with a mare; others with dogs, goats and so on. From these unions monsters are sometimes born—centaurs, woodland spirits and prodigious apparitions to terrify human beings. Nor do they have intercourse only with animals, but with other human beings, in what is commonly called the sin of sodomy. This vice was once frequent among those peoples of the East—namely Greeks, Italians, Africans and Asians.

Hercules had Hylas, Polycletus, Dion, Perithoon, Abderus and the Phrygian; others also report that Hercules loved Eurystius. Socrates often visited the gymnasium for the sake of handsome young men and feasted his eyes on the disgraceful spectacle, as Philebus, Phaedo, Rival Lovers, Charmides and Plato’s other dialogues amply testify. As for what Alcibiades says about that same Socrates, I gladly keep silent; indeed, I recoil from it, so greatly does it incite lust.

But Theodoret censures him in the final chapter of his Cure of Greek Maladies. Indeed, Plato himself admires his Agathon, Xenophon his Clinias, Virgil his Alexis, and Anacreon his Bathyllus. As for what is recorded about the monstrous lust of Nero, Claudius and the others, I would rather you sought it from Petronius, Suetonius and the rest than expected it from me, since it exceeds all belief. But we are complaining about ancient times.

Among Asians, Turks and Italians this wicked vice has never been more frequent than today. Sodomy is the Romans’ Diana; in some places among the Turks there are establishments for these practices—

Those who entrust seed to rocks—ploughing the sands;

There are frequent complaints about it, even between married couples: wives report their husbands’ illicit intercourse to the magistrate by turning a shoe the opposite way. Among Italians no sin is more familiar or more prevalent; following Lucian and Achilles Tatius, they defend it in written books. Giovanni della Casa, bishop of Benevento, calls it a divine work, a delightful crime, and even boasts that he has enjoyed no other sexual pleasure. Nothing is more usual among monks, cardinals and petty priests. This frenzy leads even to death and madness.

Angelo Poliziano laid violent hands upon himself for love of a boy. And it is truly dreadful to say how fiercely this detestable crime raged among our own people within our fathers’ memory!

For when, in 1538, the most prudent King Henry VIII had the monasteries of the hooded orders and the colleges of priests and vowed religious inspected by the venerable doctors of law Thomas Lee and Richard Layton, so many whoremongers, catamites, debauchees, men who practise anal intercourse, pursuers of boys, pederasts, sodomites and Ganymedes were found among them—I use Bale’s words—that you would have thought each establishment a new Gomorrah.