Phallus

“ Beyond question, a phallus-serpent comes frequently into view in studying mythology, but it would be very hard to prove that every serpent met with had its prototype in the phallus. It is to be regarded as beneficent, a life-giving power. The Agathodæmon is frequently so represented. ”

“ Ebers gives it as his opinion that “mythological figures of [80] snakes have quite as often a benevolent as a malevolent signification.” [259]
A word must be said about the phallic explanation of the origin of serpent-worship. Mr. Cox, an excellent writer on mythology, is friendly to this theory. After speaking of the phallus as a symbol, he says: “When we add that from its physical characteristics the Ashêrah, which the Greeks called the phallus, suggested the emblem of the serpent, we have the key to the tree- and serpent-worship.” ”

“ The sexual protuberance or phallus is the chief organ of the sexual sense (Chapter 2.25) ; the sexual nerves spread on it, and these are the principal organs of the specific sexual sensation. As erectile bodies (corpora cavernosa) are developed in the male phallus by peculiar modifications of the blood-vessels, it becomes capable of erecting periodically on a strong accession of blood, becoming stiff, so as to penetrate into the female vagina and thus effect copulation. In the male the phallus becomes the penis; in the female it becomes the much smaller clitoris ”

“ Xanthias mentions the Phallus.—Now about the Phallus itself the following story is told. Pegasus removed the statues of Dionysus at Eleutherae from there, and came to Athens with them. However the Athenians did not receive the god with due honour. But for this ill counsel they by no means got off scot-free; for the god was wroth, and a disease fell upon the private parts of the men. The plague was incurable; and after they had tried in vain every device of magic art and physician’s skill against the disease that only grew the more, envoys were despatched with all speed to the oracle. ”

“ All antiquaries of any experience know the great number of obscene subjects which are met with among the fine red pottery which is termed Samian ware, found so abundantly in all Roman sites in our island. “They represent erotic scenes, in every sense of the word, with figures of Priapus and Phallic emblems.”
PHALLUS The Phallus, or Lingam, which stood for the image of the male organ, or emblem of creation, has been worshipped from time immemorial. Payne Knight describes it as of the greatest antiquity, and as having prevailed in Egypt and all over Asia. ”

“ As a phallic symbol, the menhir must have been inseparably related to a Celtic sun-cult; because among all ancient peoples where phallic worship has prevailed, the sun has been venerated as the supreme masculine force in external nature from which all life proceeds, while the phallus has been venerated as the corresponding force in human nature. ”

“ The worship of the Phallus, or erect penis, is of the most remote antiquity, and derived its origin not from vulgar or obscene notions, but from a consideration that the generative powers of nature were thus best personified; and to render the type more complete, the Deities were often made Hermaphroditic or of a two-fold sex, to show that either alone would be incomplete without the other, to represent nature engendering and reproducing. ”

“ Phallus and Cteis symbolized the Active and Passive Principles of the Universe, 401-l. Phallus and Cteis worn by innocent and virtuous women, 402-m. Phallus appears on monuments a symbol of life-giving power, 427-m. Phallus consecrated in the Mysteries of Osiris and Isis in Egypt, 656-m. Phallus of the Kabalah represented by Yod, type of human Tetragram, 771-m. Phallus, probable origin of the symbol of the, 402-l. Phallus, the symbol of the creative and generative Power, 402-u. Pharaoh's dream, interpreted by Joseph, referred to the number seven, 729-u. ”

“ So in the old cults where the symbol of the gods of fertility, not simply their picture but the part, part of the whole, which represented concretely the fruitfulness, the phallus, was carried around in order to bring fertility to the fields, and still more, it was with the same object that young maidens were struck naked with a branch, a living branch, as a still more remote symbol, so that through this symbolic action the same object would be attained. ”

“ The Indian designation of this idol was Lingam, and those who dedicated themselves to its service were to observe inviolable chastity. “If it were discovered,” says Crawford, “that they had in any way departed from them, the punishment is death. They go naked, and being considered as sanctified persons, the women approach without scruple, nor is it thought that their modesty should be offended by it.”
SYMBOLS OR EMBLEMS The Phallus and its emblems were representative of the gods Bacchus, Priapus, Hercules, Siva, Osiris, Baal, and Asher, who were all Phallic deities. ”

“ The phallical serpent is the cause of the fall of the first man.
[565] Vinatâ is also the name of a disease of women; and, as far as we can judge from the passage of the Mahâbhâratam (iii. 14,480) , which refers to it, it is the malignant genius who destroys the fœtus in the womb of the pregnant mother. He is defined as çakunigrâhî, properly the seizer of the bird. Kaçyapas, the universal phallos, the Praǵâpatis, certainly unites himself to Vinatâ in the form of a phallos-bird, as to Kadrû in that of a phallos-serpent. ”

“ The middle and ungueal phalanx, as well as the portions of armour, are given of the natural size, in Pl. XXXII. The upper and outer surface of the phalanx, is shown in fig. 2. It is smooth and flat; joins the inner surface by a sharp edge, which runs along the upper and inner side of the bone; and passes by a gradual convexity to the under surface; the ridge corresponding with the base of the claw, is feebly developed at the under and lateral parts of the base of the claw. Below the double trochlear joint for the middle phalanx, there are two articular surfaces for two large sesamoid bones. ”

“ The phalangia deposit their ova in a thick basket which they weave, upon this they incubate. The smooth kinds produce a small number, the phalangia a great many. When they are grown, they surround their parent in a circle, kill and throw her out. They often seize the male in the same way if they can catch him, for he assists the female in incubation. Sometimes there are as many as three hundred round a single phalangium. ”

“ The cells are vacuolated at their bases like some of the cells of the ampulla, and contain a comparatively large nucleus with nucleolus. The flagella are long and slender, quite like those described for the cells of the ampulla, except that there is only one to each cell. The basal bodies of the flagella are of a peculiar shape. They may be described as a bent spindle, continuous at their distad ends with the cilia and at their centrad ends with a fiber that can be traced quite to the neighborhood of the nucleus. ”

“ The first pair of legs are always the shortest, and the second the longest.
The sexual organs of Phalangids are ordinarily concealed, and the sexes can only be distinguished by certain very variable secondary characters, the males being usually smaller of body and longer of leg than the females, besides being more distinctly coloured and being armed with more numerous and longer spines. ”

“ As will be seen in Fig. 31, each of the endoderm cells of the tentacles has a flagellum that extends into the lumen of the tentacle. Each flagellum has a thickening just within its cell, which may be regarded as a basal body. From this basal body, again, a small fiber extends centrad into each cell. It does not appear that the flagella are thrown off with the distal parts of the cells ”

“ In addition there is an undulating membrane, bordered by a trailing flagellum, that commences at the anterior extremity and proceeds obliquely backwards. The nucleus, which is vesicular, is situated near the anterior extremity, and behind it are one or more vacuoles, none of which seems to be contractile. These flagellates are parasitic in vertebrate animals, and live chiefly in the intestine. ”

“ Phacoid shell two and a half times as broad as the medullary shell, with eight pores on its radius, surrounded by one perfect chambered ring. Arms nearly lanceolate, in the middle part one and a half times as broad as at both ends, twice as long as the phacoid shell, at the distal end with a strong pyramidal terminal spine. Through the spongy framework of each arm shine sixteen to eighteen transverse bars (as septa of the joints) and six to eight longitudinal piercing beams. ”

“ The flagellate stage is characterized by the formation of the flagellum, a single stout filament which projects freely from a point in close proximity to the blepharoplast (fig. 4) ; the resulting flagellates elongate and later divide by simple longitudinal division (figs. 5, 6 and 7) . The nucleus of the adult flagellate lies about the centre, and the blepharoplast, a large rod-shaped body, is nearly always situated a short distance from the anterior end; the flagellum is a single filament which projects freely almost at once from the rounded anterior end. ”

“ The members of the genus possess a single flagellum, which arises posteriorly, adjacent to a blepharoplast or kinetic nucleus. The flagellum forms a margin to an undulating membrane, and may or may not be continued beyond the body as a free flagellum. Many species are parasitic in vertebrate blood and in the digestive tracts of insects. ”

“ In Phalanger maculatus the two sections of the gut are as nearly as possible equal in length, while in Phaseolarctos the large intestine is considerably longer than the small, the lengths being respectively 160 inches and 111 inches. It is common among the Marsupials and also among the Rodents for these proportions to exist, i.e. for the large intestine to be as long as, or longer than, the small. But there are so many exceptions that no general statements can be extracted from the facts. ”

“ In most European Phalangids the under surface of the cephalothorax is almost entirely concealed by the forwardly-projecting portion of the abdomen bearing the generative opening, and by the gnathobases, not only of the pedipalpi, but of the first and sometimes of the second legs. As in Spiders, however, there is always present a “sternum” and generally a “labium.” ”

“ The hand is capable of pronation and supination on the fore-arm; and except in man, the chimpanzee and the gorilla there is a centrale in the carpus. The phalanges are the same in number in apes and monkeys as in man, except that in Ateles and Colobus the thumb may have but one small nodular phalange or none. The phalanges are generally more curved than in man, and, except in the Hapalidae, the terminal ones are flattened from back to front. In the Hapalidae they are laterally compressed, curved, and pointed to support the claws characteristic of that family. ”

“ The main body of Antigonus's troops was the phalanx. The Macedonian phalanx is considered one of the most extraordinary military contrivances of ancient times. The invention of it was ascribed to Philip, the father of Alexander the Great, though it is probable that it was only improved and perfected, and brought into general use, but not really originated by him. The single phalanx was formed of a body of about four thousand men. These men were arranged in a compact form, the whole body consisting of sixteen ranks, and each rank of two hundred and fifty-six men. ”

“ Sometimes the male chelicerae are highly characteristic.
Phalangids are usually destitute of spinning organs, but such have been discovered, in a rudimentary state, in the Cyphophthalmi, which are said to spin slight webs.
Internal Structure.—In Phalangium the mouth leads upwards into a membranous pharynx, wider than that of Spiders, but narrowing into an oesophagus which passes between the cerebral and thoracic ganglionic nerve-masses. It then turns backwards over the thoracic ganglion, being slightly dilated at 445that point. ”

“ Each of the metacarpals is seen in the young animal to have its distal end formed by a prominent epiphysis, and each of the phalanges, except those bearing the claws, has a similar epiphysis at its proximal end.
The pollex (fig. 80, A, I ) is far shorter than the other digits, and normally does not touch the ground in walking. It has only two phalanges, while each of the other digits has three. A pair of small sesamoid bones are developed on the ventral or flexor side of the metacarpo-phalangeal articulations of all the digits except the pollex. ”

“ The other basals and the intermediate phalanges are stout, moderately long, and their distal, pulley-shaped, articular surfaces are strongly marked. The unguals are large, long, straight, and sharply pointed. They have a very conspicuous marginal claw-groove. The third is the stoutest toe; and although it has one phalanx less, it is longer than the 4th, the basal 2nd, 3rd, and 4th phalanges of which are shorter than any others, in which respect they somewhat resemble those of the corresponding toe of the Iguanodon. ”

“ What is the meaning of polimina, omenta, palasea, or, as some call it, plasea?—of which that named omentum is a certain part enclosed by the reservoirs of the belly are kept within bounds; the plasea is an ox’s tail [5] besmeared with flour and blood; the polimina, again, are those parts which we with more decency call proles,—by the vulgar, however, they are usually termed testes. What is the meaning of fitilla, frumen, africia, gratilla, catumeum, cumspolium, cubula?—of which the first two are names of species of pottage, but differing in kind and quality ”