[25]
A more than mere neutralizing influence, a positively idealizing influence
of the sexual focus on the excretory processes adjoining it, may take
place in the lover's mind without the normal variations of sexual
attraction being over-passed, and even without the creation of an
excretory fetichism.
Reflections of this attitude may be found in the poets. In the
_Song of Songs_ the lover says of his mistress, "Thy navel is
like a round goblet, wherein no mingled wine is wanting;" in his
lyric "To Dianeme," Herrick says with clear reference to the
mons veneris:--
"Show me that hill where smiling love doth sit,
Having a living fountain under it;"
and in the very numerous poems in various languages which have
more or less obscurely dealt with the rose as the emblem of the
feminine pudenda there are occasional references to the stream
which guards or presides over the rose. It may, indeed, be
recalled that even in the name _nymphae_ anatomists commonly apply
to the _labia minora_ there is generally believed to be a poetic
allusion to the Nymphs who presided over streams, since the
_labia minora_ exert an influence on the direction of the urinary
stream.
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