Caditheleil

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Caditheleil exponit Stephanus quod dicitur grece aedion elafu.


Apparatus:

Caditheleil AC p | Cadith el eil f | Cada̩tel eil j {with a̩ expunged and corrected with i superscript } | Cadicheleil (Cadichel eil B) B e {'b' misread as 't' or 'c'}
aedion elafu (-onela- p) AC p | aedionelasu B {‘f’ misread as “long s”} | aedione lasu j + added by different hand: ebionelasu | ardionolasu ms. e | ardione sasu f {'e' misread as 'r'}


Translation:

{Arabic} Caditheleil is explained by Stephanus to be in Greek aedion elafu.


Commentary:

Caditheleil:
ﻗﻀﻴﺐ ﺍﻼﻳﻞ / qaḍīb al-ayyil/ “deer’s penis”
Wehr (1976: 771): ﻗﻀﻴﺐ /qaḍīb/ “penis”; ﺍﻳﻞ /ayyil/, dialectal /ēyil/ “deer, stag”

aedion elafu:
αἰδοῖον ἐλάφου /aidoîon eláphou/, itacist /edíon eláfu/, means “penis of the stag”.
αἰδοῖον /aidoîon/ “privy parts , pudenda, both of men and women” (LSJ); ἔλαφος /élaphos/ “deer, stag, hind”.
See also Aedyonelasu

Stephanus in his Breviarium writes: aediõelafu … cadit eleiel [[1]].
N.b. Arabic cadit < *cadib {‘b’ misread as ‘t’}

Cf. also Burnett (2013: 74) [[2]].

Simon does not translate the foreign lemmata Caditheleil and aedion elafu. In fact in the sister entry Aedyonelasu q.v. he maintains that he does not know what either of the two mean. This is puzzling since the transcriptions of Greek αἰδοῖον /edíon/ and ἐλάφου /eláfu/ are phonetically quite close. Is it likely that de did not know αἰδοῖον /aidoîon/, a word already attested in the Iliad?

The transcription of the Arabic lemma is more corrupt, but Simon must have had Arabic speaking informants at hand who could have cleared up the matter. Perhaps Simon as a man of the cloth did not want to promote an agent that was supposed to incite carnal desire.


Historical remarks:

The use of animal genital parts, especially testicles and penis, has a long tradition, still surviving to this day in certain parts of the world, and it was common in Antiquity, mostly but by no means always, as an aphrodisiac.

As early as in the Hippocratic Corpus [Loeb], vol. X, ΠΕΡΙ ΑΦΟΡΩΝ /PERI APHORŌN/ Barrenness p. 360, § 434, where after some ablutions and fomenting, a woman who wants to conceive is advised to do this: “After this fomentation also fumigate with the genital parts of a deer, and when you see that these are dried out, scrape some off over diluted white wine, and give this to drink for three days” – {translated by Paul Potter, editor and translator}.

Furthermore αἰδοῖον ἄρρενος ἐλάφου /aidoîon árrhenos eláphou/ “male deer’s penis” is also mentioned in the Greek Dioscorides, 2, 134, ed. Wellmann (1906-14: I. 134) [[3]], where it is suggested that stag’s genitalia ground up and taken with wine are good against viper bites.

In the later relevant Latin medical literature Sextus Placitus - ca. 370 AD - in his Liber medicinae ex animalibus, etc. {i.e. medicines from animal parts and products} has a chapter on Cervus {“stag”}, and in 13, ed. Howald (1927: 237) [[4]], he says:
Ad concubitum excitandum.
Testiculum cervinum siccum, aliquam partem, potui cum vino dato tritum, concubitum excitat.
- "To arouse carnal desire.
The dried testicle of a stag, any part of it, pounded and given as a drink with wine, arouses carnal desire".
And he continues:
Item mojum ejus tritum et potui sumptum idem facit ad quod supra. - "Also his {i.e the stag's} penis pounded and taken in a drink does the same as what is said above".

The persistence of this belief is shown in a publication of 1721, entitled: Introductio in medicinam practicam generalem specialem et specialissimam (etc.) by D. Michaelis Albertus [[5]], who lists a number of remedies against barrenness, p. 993, § xvii [[6]], and amongst which there are testiculi cervi {“stag’s testicles”}, priapus cervi et tauri {“stag’s and bull’s penis”}.

WilfGunther (talk) 15:44, 14 January 2016 (GMT)

See also Aedyonelasu


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