count of its alternate swelling and subsiding again. If swollen up it stands erect, and if not sinks down flaccid.
It is called el hamama (the pigeon), because after having been swelled out it resembles at the moment when it returns to repose a pigeon sitting on her eggs.[1]
El teunnana (the tinkler).—So called because when it enters or leaves the vulva in coition it makes a noise.
El heurmak (the indomitable).[2]—It has received this name because when in a state of erection it begins to move its head, searching for the entrance to the vulva till it has found it, and then walks in quite insolently, without asking leave.
El ahlil (the liberator).—Thus called because in penetrating into the vulva of a woman thrice repudiated it gives her the liberty to return to her first husband.[3]
Ez zeub (the verge).—From the word deub, which means creeping. This name was given to the member because when it gets between a woman's thighs and feels a plump vulva it begins to creep upon the thighs and the Mount of Venus, then approaches the entrance of the vulva, and keeps creeping in until it is in possession and is comfortably lodged, and having it all its own way penetrates into the middle of the vulva, there to ejaculate.[4]
- ↑ In Arabic the word which signifies eggs is also used for testicles, hence the comparison made by the author.
- ↑ Heurmak is not a common Arabian word. It signifies a fiery, violent, indomitable stallion.
- ↑ Note of the autograph edition.—According to the Mussulman law a wife that has been divorced by the thrice repeated formula cannot marry again her first husband until she has married another man, and been divorced from him.
- ↑ In several passages of this work the man is advised when in coition to place his member well in the centre of the vagina at the crisis. The Arabian sages are not agreed upon the sense of this advice.
