немного англоязычного чтива-1

>>From dlupher@ups.edu Thu Mar 26 10:42:40 1998
Received: from mxu3.u.washington.edu (mxu3.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.7])
          by lists.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW97.05) with ESMTP
	  id KAA06250 for ; Thu, 26 Mar 1998 10:42:40 -0800
Received: from mail.ups.edu (mail.ups.edu [192.124.98.111])
          by mxu3.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW97.09) with SMTP
	  id KAA13253 for ; Thu, 26 Mar 1998 10:42:32 -0800
Received: by mail.ups.edu; id AB08911; Thu, 26 Mar 1998 10:41:15 -0800
Message-Id: 
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 10:44:04 -0800
To: classics@u.washington.edu
From: dlupher@ups.edu (David Lupher)
Subject: Re: Request [quasi-salacious]

James Baron passed along a query from a colleague in medieval French
literature who had asked:
>>Greetings from France.  I should like to ask your help in identifying the
>>source (author and, if possible, precise reference) of a Latin phrase:
>>                                        Post coitum animal triste.

This was in fact the subject of a pretty extensive thread on this list 
in early May of 1997.  The initatiator of the thread was yours truly,
but like Jim Baron I was acting as front man for someone else. At the
same time I submitted the same query to FICINO, a Ren./Ref. list.  I'll
attempt to summarize briefly what emerged.  (By the way, did not a 
French (?) movie with the title "Post Coitum" just open in New York?)

- To cut to the chase, there is no author to whom the exact phrase cited
above can be attributed with confidence.  It is apparently post-classical,
but it has classical antecedents, as we shall see.

- The mot often appears in the expanded form "post coitum animal triste 
praeter gallum mulieremque."

- The only actual piece of scholarship which those of us rooting about here
were able to turn up was a short note by Justin Glenn of Florida State
Univ., "Omne Animal Post Coitum Triste: A Note and a Query," in "American
Notes and Queries" 21 (1982): 49-51.  I wouldn't mind hearing of other
studies if anyone on the list happens to have come across one (or written
one!).  Glenn focused mainly on the modern career of the phrase.  He noted
that it has achieved its present renown through having been cited by Freud,
who claimed that "this quotation has not been traced"; Havelock Ellis, who
referred to it as anonymous; and Alfred C. Kinsey, who attributed it to
Galen.  Glenn inconclusively concluded, largely on the basis of the 
Kinsey passage, that "it is entirely possible...that this quotation is
derived ultimately from Galen, but this has yet to be confirmed."

- I couldn't find anything in what little Galen I could survey (more Loeb
Galens, PLEASE!), nor did anyone on Classics or FICINO supply a Galenic
passage.

- Glenn also cited Pseudo-Aristotle "Problems" Bk 4, 877b on the 
intriguing question, "Why do young men, when first they begin to have
sexual intercourse, hate those with whom they have associated when the 
act is over?"  He also cited Pliny, Hist. Nat. 10.83.171: "homini tantum
primi coitus paenitentia, augurium scilicet vitae a paenitenda origine"
("Man is the only animal whose first experience of mating is accompanied
by regret; this is indeed an augury for a life derived from a regrettable
origin.").  But it will be noted that both of these passages refer to
negative feelings after one's *first* act of intercourse.  Neither
implies that such feelings recur after subsequent acts.  Also, the Pliny
passage specifically limits this "paenitentia" to human beings---
no "omne animal" here!

- PETER GREEN wrote: "The latest edition of the ODQ flatly says "post-
classical" and leaves it at that.  But the notion is surely very close
to the hendecasyllables ascribed to Petronius:
        Foeda est in coitu et brevis voluptas
        Et taedet Veneris statim peractae."
(I wonder if this was one of the lamented PMG's "salacious" postings?
In passing, I'd recommend Ben Jonson's translation of the Petronius.
It begins "Doing a filthy pleasure is, and short; / And done, we
straight repent us of the sport...")

- BRIAN OGILVIE wrote: "The closest approximation to this sentiment
of which I am aware is Aristotle, De generatione animalium 1.18, 
725b5, b15, talking about the nature of semen as a very potent
residue:
        For the exhaustion consequent on the loss of even a very
        little of the semen is conspicuous because the body is 
        deprived of the ultimate gain drawn from the nutriment";
        "But still in most men and as a general rule the result of
        intercourse is exhaustion and weakness rather than relief."
        (Quoting from Arthur Platt's Oxford translation.  "Exhaustion
        and weakness" translate 'eklusis' and 'adunamia.')
It's not quite the same sentiment, but perhaps served as the source of
the later notion---if the sadness was due to the feeling of impotence 
subsequent to the loss of this precious bodily fluid...."
[That last phrase in Brian's contribution will indicate to the
initiated that there had been a reference---by yours truly and 
Alice Radin---to Gen. Ripper of "Dr. Strangelove" fame.  Alice also
quoted Julius Caesar De bell. gall. 6.21 on the Germans' belief
that the later a youth has sex the taller and tougher he will be.]

ROBERT KNAPP (a early modernist at Reed, not the Berkeley expert on Rmn.
Spain) wrote on the FICINO list: "Chadwyck-Healy's PL turns up one
hit on the proverb, in Joannes Murmellius and Rodulphus Agricola's
commentary on Boethius, Book III, Prose VII: 'Tristes vero esse]
Voluptati moerorem succedere cum norunt omnes, tum maxime libidinosi:
nam, teste philosopho, omne animal a coitu triste est.  Seneca Lucilio:
Voluptates praecipue exstirpa, inter res vilisimas habe, quae latronum
more in hoc nos amplectuntur, ut strangulent.  Aristotelis, teste 
Valerio Maximo, utilissimum est praeceptum, ut voluptates abeuntes
consideremus, quas quidem sic ostendendo [Co.. 1014B] minuit; fessas
enim poenitentiaeque plenas animis nostris subjicit, quominus cupide
repetantur.'  But this only takes us to the late 15th century."   [True,
but the passage does explicitly attribute the key phrase to Aristotle---
"teste philosopho."]

- EDWIN RABBIE on the FICINO list made the shortest contribution to
the twin threads, but perhaps it is the closest to hitting the bull's-
eye: "Latin translation of Ps.-Aristotle, Problems 955 a 23."  
[In English the translation of this passage would be: "After sexual 
intercourse most men are rather depressed, but those who emit much
waste product with the semen are more cheerful."  I don't have the med.
Latin trans. of Aristotle within reach.  Also, it will be noted that
"Aristotle" was talking specifically about men, not "omnia animalia."
But I humbly suspect that this is about as close as we're going to get.]

I trust that this replay of one of the list's "greatest hits" will not
be deemed unduly salacious.

David Lupher
Classics Program
Univ. of Puget Sound