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  • Article

The meanings of hurt

In the early modern period, gruesome incidents of self-castration and other types of self-injury garnished the literature of the time. Alanna Skuse explores the messages these wounds conveyed.

  • Book extract

The castration effect

Discover how testosterone – or the lack of it – affects the male body, from eunuch slaves to castrato singers, and on to hormone reduction in modern prostate cancer treatment.

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Images

  • A furious cuckold rushes at his rival with a sword; representing vice as its own punishment. Engraving after O. van Veen (Vaenius), 1612.
  • A man is selling horns from his basket, as emblems of cuckoldry: husbands reply that they will not buy any because they already have plenty. Engraving by Frs. Hubert after Le Nain (?).
  • A skimmington or charivari: people make noise and are violent in the street as a form of rough justice exercised by women against men; on the right Hudibras enters on horseback, and is hit in the eye by a thrown egg. Etching by W. Hogarth, 1726.
  • An artist dreams that he is painting the portrait of the Devil disguised as a virtuoso: episode in a fable by John Ogilby. Etching attributed to F. Barlow, 1673.
  • A doctor tells a farm labourer that he has never touched his wife. Process print after J-A. Faivre, 1902.
  • A portly, well-to-do physician leaves his house, while his wife cavorts in the window with a young dandy. Lithograph by P. Numa, c. 1832.
  • A physician beds a young woman; her husband looks on pensively, hoping that the physician will not charge him for this 'operation'. Colour process print after Cuiliale (?), c. 1905.
  • Casting his contract into the sea, Tom Idle in a rowing boat heads towards a sailing ship past a point of land with four windmills and a prominent gibbet. Engraving by Thomas Cook after William Hogarth, 1795.
  • A crowd of figures with the heads of animals carry banners and beat drums as they form a procession; representing the City of London Volunteers. Engraving by William Henry Toms after E. Heemskerk.
  • A shell fish, a cow fish and a buffalo trunk fish swimming in the sea. Colour line block after H. Murayama.
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