ithyphallus

See also: Ithyphallus

English

Etymology

From the Ancient Greek ἰθύφαλλος (ithúphallos, “Bacchic phallus," literally "straight penis”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: ĭthĭfăʹləs, IPA^(key): /ɪθɪˈfæləs/

Noun

ithyphallus (plural ithyphalli)

1. A depiction of an erect penis.
   • 1653, Thomas Urquhart, The Works of Mr. Francis Rabelais Doctor in Physick. Containing Five Books of the Lives, Heroick Deeds and Sayings of Garantua and His Sonne Pantagruel, Book IV, Chapter XXXVIII:

     The Serpent that tempted Eve too was of the Chitterling kind, and yet it is recorded of him, that he was more subtle than any Beast of the Field. Even so are Chitterlings: Nay, to this very Hour they hold in some Universities that this same Tempter was the Chitterling call'd Ithyphallus, or Standing, into which was transform'd bawdy Priapus, Arch-Seducer of Females in Paradise, that is, a Garden in Greek.

   • 1757, John-Henry Grose, A Voyage to the East-Indies with Observations on Various Parts There, Chapter VIII (Of the Gentoo Religion):

     At the first view indeed one would imagine that this Indian effigy was, especially from this application of it, meant for a kind of representation of a Phallus, or Ithyphallus […]

   • 1936, Jacques LeClercq, translation of François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel, Book III, Chapter 19:

     "First," he said deliberately, "whatever women see, they never think, imagine or conceive it save in terms of the stout, stiff-standing deities Ithyphallos and Penis Erectus. […] "

   • 1968, Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period, volume 10, Pantheon Books, page 50:

     On a much-discussed marble plaque from Aquileia she stands beside a figure whose body is a winged ithyphallus, but which has human legs. Disagreement as to whether this grotesque figure should be called Tychon or something else should not divert us from the fact that she could be represented in such company. Whatever name the ithyphallic figure had, if any, the plaque shows that Tyche has association with the most direct symbol not only of luck but of fertility for men and the fields, which may explain, at least in part, why she seemed proper to represent the eastern goddess of fertility.

   • 1971, Walter O. Moeller, “Nochmal the Word Anoyaton”, in Classical Philology, volume 66, number 2:

     Priapus was the personified membrum virilex erectum; it is therefore logical that the physical characteristics of the ithyphallus were incorporated into the iconography of the god.

   • 1990, Raymond B. Waddington, "'All in All': Shakespeare, Milton, Donne and the Soul-in-Body Topos," English Literary Renaissance, Vol. 20, no. 1 (describing engravings by Marcantonio Raimondi to which Pietro Aretino wrote his Sonetti Lussuriosi ("lust sonnets) (1526) to accompany):

     The eyebrow is a small, curved penis, as are the lips; the swell of the cheekbone is indicated by testes; likewise the chin; the nose and nostril are doubled by the penis and testes combination. The phalli, except those curved for anatomical verisimilitude, are depicted erect; a prominent ithyphallus in the hair configuration, extending forward from where the ear would be located and ending beneath the chin, is presented in the act of ejaculation.

Related terms

• ithyphallian (obsolete)
• ithyphallic
• phallus