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P.Duk.inv. 230, an erotic spell
Jordan, D R
Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Summer 1999; 40, 2; ProQuest
pg. 159

P.Duk.inv. 230, an Erotic Spell 

D. R. Jordan 

A
ONG THE ANCIENT G REEK TEXTS from Egypt housed in the 

Special Collections Department of the Perkins Library of 
Duke University is an unpublished erotic spell, which I 

present here. 1 It is inscribed on a lead tablet and is meant to 
bring a woman to a man. 

From antiquity we have, on papyrus, pottery, gemstones, and 
thin tablets of lead, some forty other inscribed "working" erotic 

lHere I would thank John F. Oates and the Rare Book, Manuscript, and 
Special Collections Library of Duke University for permission to publish the 
tablet and Jaime Curbera and the anonymous referee for good advice about its 
personal names. The following are cited in abbreviated form: 
"Brashear 1992 = W. M. Brashear, "Ein neues Zauberensemble in Miinchen," 

Studien zur alt-iigyptischen Kultur 19: 79-109 
Brashear 1995 = W. M. Brashear, "The Greek Magical Papyri, an Introduction 

and Survey: Annotated Bibliography (1928-1994)," ANRW II 18.5: 3380-
3684 

DT Aud = A. Audollent, Defixionum tabellae quotquot innotuerunt (Paris 1904) 
GMPT = H. D. Betz, ed., The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation I (Chicago 

1986) 
Moraux 1960 = P. Moraux, Une defixion judicia ire au Musee d'Istanbul (= 

MemAcadBelg 54.2) 
NGCT = D. R. Jordan, "New Greek Curse Tablets (1985-2000)," GRBS 41 

(2000) 5-37 
Preisendanz 1935 = K. Preisendanz, "Nekydaimon," RE 16: 2240-2266 
SGD = D. R. Jordan, "A Survey of Greek Defixiones not included in the Special 

Corpora," GRBS 26 (1985) 151-197 
Suppl.Mag. = R. W. Daniel and F. Maltomini, Supplementum Magicum (= Pap. 

Colon. 16.1-2 [1990-92]) 
Winkler 1990 = J. J. Winkler, The Constraints of Desire (New York/London) 
Winkler 1991 = J. J. Winkler, "The Constraints of Eros," in C. A. Faraone and 

D. Obbink, edd., Magika hiera (New York/Oxford) 214-243 
I completed the present manuscript before I could see L. LiDonnici, "Burning 
for It: Erotic Spe1ls for Fever and Compulsion in the Ancient Mediterranean 
World," GRBS 39 (1998) 63-98, or C. A. Faraone, Ancient Greek Love Magic 
(Cambridge [Mass.] 1999), to which I refer the reader for further analysis of 
such spells as this. 

Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 40 (1999) 159-170 
© 2001 GRBS 

159 



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160 P.DUK.INV. 230, AN EROTIC SPELL 

spells in Greek or Latin,2 as well as dozens of recipes for such in 
Greek papyrus formularies, each intended to make its victim 
lust after the would-be beneficiary for whom it was written. 
Like all ancient magic, they are the means to an end; when this 
last is made explicit in the extant erotic spells, it is usually, 
perhaps contra exspectationem, not the sexual gratification of the 
beneficiary but something else.3 "Make Aplonous love me," we 
read on a lead tablet from Roman Egypt (Suppl.Mag. 39), " ... so 
that ... she'll give me whatever I say." Another (42): "Drive 
Gorgonia ... , drive, torment her body night and day, force her to 
rush forth from any place and any house, loving Sophia, she, 
surrendered like a slave, giving herself and all her possessions to 
her." In another (54), with the phrase "melt his flesh, his sinews, 
limbs, soul, so that he cannot be an opponent of (uv'ttos £I..9EtV) 
Ionikos or see or hear anything bad against me (i.e. Ionikos}," 
the intended victim is presumably a magistrate of some kind or 
a potential litigant whose good opinion Ionikos needs; to that 
end Ionikos attempts to attract his sexual desire: "take control 
of (or: bewitch) the qnAta of Annianos for Ionikos by means of 
fProS' (J'topy~, indissoluble [e.g. ciy(btll]."4 So too in the papyrus 
formularies, e.g. PGM IV 1806-1810 "turn her soul to me, so 

2Papyrus: PGM XV, XVI, XVI~~, XIXa, XXXII, XXXIIa, XXXIX, LXVIII, Suppl. 
Mag. 40,43-45, P.Monac. inv. AS 6792 (Brashear 1992). Pottery: Suppl.Mag. 
51 (a pot containing 49 and 50). Gemstones: Lesbos, C. Bonner, Studies in MagI­
cal Amulets chiefly Graeco-Egyptian (= U. Mich. Stud. Hum. Ser. 49 [1950]) 
118-119; unknown provenance: 116-117. Lead: Egypt, Suppl.Mag. 37-39, 
41-42, 46-50, 54 (= SGD 151-153, 155-156, 158-161, NGCT 93); Tunisia, 
DT Aud 227, 230-231, 264-271, 304; Germany, 100; Lebanon, unpublished 
(one); unknown provenance, unpublished (one). All are of Roman imperial date 
and all are in Greek except DT Aud 100, 227, 231, 264-271, and 304. Here I do 
not list spells intended merely to break up erotic relationships, e.g. PGM LXVI, 
01-2, SEG 35.219-221 (= SGD 30-32, Athens, IIIp). 

3Winklef (1990: 91-93, 1991: 228-230) apparently fails to notice this when 
depicting the "typical" user of these spells as the lover in his tortured sexual 
longing. 

4Using my own reading (see "Magica ~raeca parvula," ZPE 100 [1994] 
321-335, at 323), Ep]om, m:op[rn, a]OtUAu[t<O] rather than the ltp]W·tt<HOV, 
[a]OtaAu['tro~] of Suppl.Mag. 54.38.' . 



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D.R.JORDAN 161 

that she will love me (cptAf1), desire me (Ep~), give me what she 
has in her hands."5 

A few erotic spells that are inscribed for men specify that 
sexual intercourse is what the women who are their targets shall 
desire (e.g. PGM XIXa, Suppl.Mag. 38,45, Brashear 1992). Inter­
course with the woman is presumably envisaged in all these 
erotic spells to benefit men, but only three mention sexual desire 
on the part of the man himself.6 Of one, PGM XVIIa, the 
motivation is also economic gain: "Drive (her) to me ... until .. . 
she comes desiring me, her hands full, with generous soul ... , 
performing those things that befit women with men, and serving 
my desire (E1tteu~Lia) and hers unstintingly and ungrudgingly" 
(16-22). The others, XIc with its "make me, so-and-so, attain 
intercourse" (7-9) and the spell presented here, are rare in that 
their motivation is explicitly and apparently primarily male 
sexual gratification. 

The tablet, its letter-forms suggesting IVP, is almost wholly 
intact, with only a few areas missing from the left- and right­
hand sides. In its upper central part is a simple drawing of 
Seth-Typhon with his head that of an ass but with otherwise 
more or less human features? He is wearing a tunic-we see its 

5Presumably this is the import also of PGM VII 909-910 Ewe; EAeo\Jcra (for 
EAen) 1tpOe; EIlE ... 1tA"pO!popo\Jcra, "until she comes to me ... , paying up in full" vel 
sim., but the last word in the Greek is attested in less specific senses. 

6The restorations of a.ye [1l0t Kat KataO"crov tr,]v Oetv', llv Oetva, [de;] I tOY 
E1t' Ep[Wtt autf1e; t"KOllevo]v at PGM VII 985-986, in instructions for an 
uyroytllOV, may be doubted. In addition, I know of no ancient erotic spell that 
alludes to sexual desire on the part of a female beneficiary. A recipe in the 
Demotic part of the bilingual formulary PGM LXI (IIIp) is no exception. The 
translation of J. H. Johnson (GMPT 289) runs: "Spell of giving praise [and] 
love in Nubian: 'SYMYTH KESYTH HRBABA BRASAKHS LAT, son of (?) NAPH, son of 
(?) BAKHA.' Say these; put gum on your hand; and kiss your shoulder twice, and 
go before the man whom you desire." Prof. Johnson tells me (per epistt.) that the 
Demotic for "whom you desire" is no more than "whom you seek" and has no 
sexual connotations. She also writes that the "you" of the spell is masculine. If 
it had been feminine, the beneficiary would necessarily have been a woman, but 
that it is masculine leaves his or her gender ambiguous. So too with the word 
translated here as "the man." 

7For references to representations of Seth-Typhon as ass-head see Moraux 
1960: 19-22, esp. 19 n.3. 



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162 P.DUK.lNV. 230, AN EROTIC SPELL 

fringe in the area of his thighs-and is holding in his proper right 
hand a whip (?) and in his left a staff (?). Above the latter are 
two squarish drawings possibly of beribboned flags or plaques. 
At his proper right are traces of (A) three columns of magical 
words, and to the right of his staff are traces of (B) a fourth and 
(C) a fifth. Beneath his feet is (D) a stylized drawing of a tabula 
ansata inscribed with a series of vowels (imperfect). The main 
text (E) of the spell itself occupies an area at the right of and 
beneath the drawings. This general arrangement, a figure flanked 
by letters in columns, is prescribed, at the beginning of the large 
scroll of formulae at Oslo (P.Oslo 11 = PGM XXXVI: IVP), in four 
recipes for writing spells. The figure in the third is a chicken­
headed anthropoid with an up-raised whip in his proper right 
hand and a small human dangling from his left. There are two 
columns of letters on each side of the anthropoid, the outer read­
ing IWEPP1l8 IW1t<XKEPP1l8 I IWPOAXOO'1l8 IW<X1tof..l\jf, the inner Lll 8 
L1l8 L1l8 I B<XK BP<XK BP<XK; beneath his feet is a plaque with the 
vocable APEPP<Xf..lEV8ou. The text that accompanies the figure is 
an erotic spell (aywyf)): 

7 7 EASE, TU<j>wv (, E1tt 'tTtv u1t'ttav 1tUAllv KaSTlJ,H:vOs, 
7 8 ImEp~llS Im1taKEp~llS Im~aAxocrllS Ima1tOIl'V 
79 ImcrEcrEvpm Im~tlla't IaKoull~lUt A~EppallEvSm 
8 0 OuAEpSE~: ~vc;t~ ESpeAuomS Mellape~a 1:OU LllS' Ws u-
81 IlEts KalwSe Kat 1tupoucrSe, ou'tms Kat 'h 'Vux~, 'h KapOta 
82 'tTls OEtVa. ~s £'tEKEV 'h OEtVa, Ems a.v £ASn <j>tAoucra EIlE 'tOY OEtVa 
83 Kat tTtV SllAUKltV au'tTls <j>ucrtv 'tn apcrEVtK111l0U KOA.A.~crn. 
84 "HOll i)Oll, 'taXD taxu. 

Come, Typhon sitting at the upper gate, 16ERBETH 16PAKERBETH 
16APOMPS 16sESENR6 16BIMAT IAKOUMBIAI ABERRAMENTH6 OULER­
THEX, lord ETHREL YOOTH MEMAREBA of Seth: as you burn and are 
in flames, so too the soul, the heart of so-and-so, whom so-and-so 
bore, until she comes loving me, so-and-so, and glues her female 
organ to my male. At once, at once, quickly, quickly! (transl. 
Eitrem) 



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D. R. JORDAN 163 

The loerbeth logos and other phrases figure in the Duke spell, 
which must, as careless mistakes show, have been copied from 
a formulary, no doubt from one like that at Oslo.8 In the 
translation below, I print its only personalized parts, the proper 
names, in italics. 

P.Duk.inv.230 H. 0.104, W. 0.075 m. 

A. At the left of the figure, in columns: 
1 [ca 4? ]AAOSuO]([~] 

2 l1~~r ]pe[i11.2]OU~t[~] 
3 [~]a~e~eSU~ffi~Ve~ap 

B. At the rigl:t of his staff, in a column: 
4 Iaffi[ill..J].l1(H[~] 

C. In a column farther to the right: 
5 Iffi Iffi aJmax.3-4] ... r] 

D. Within the tabula ansata: 
6 aelltOUOtllVaVVV 

E. At the right of and beneath the designs: 
7 'E~OPKi~ffi (Jat, 

8 

9 

10 
11 

12 (Drawing) 

Oat~ffiV, Ka'ta 
'tou ~qaAou 
Scou EpllKtO"l1-
q>ST) Apapa-

xapapa Ht-

IVP 

8Eitrem on P.Oslo I 1 (p.31): "It was said to have come originally from 
Batn-Harit [in the Fayum]. We may raise the question whether there was here, 
or in some neighbouring town, a 'factory' for producing such magical papyri." 
Of this type there was at least one other formUlary, represented by PGM LVIII, 
a fragmentary leaf from a fourth-century codex with magical recipes, its hand 
very 1ike-to my eye perhaps identical to-that of the Oslo scrol[ One side of 
the leaf preserves part of a drawing, evidently as crudely done as those at Oslo, 
of some shaggy creature 0. Schawe, Die Universitiitsbibliothek Gieflen. Eine 
kleine Fiihrung [Giessen 1962-63] 20). The other side has instructions for 
inscribing a lead curse tablet. The text of DT Aud 188 (vidi) in fact follows that 
or a similar recipe, which probablYI like several in the Oslo scroll, originally 
included drawings of the magical charakteres, for such cover the back of the 
extant tablet. 



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164 P.DUK.INV. 230, AN EROTIC SPELL 

D. R. J. 

--+--t-~I ~~ ~t 
3 04 .05 ffi . . 02 .0 . .00 . 01 

PDuk.inv.230, IVP H. 0.104, W. 0.075 ffi. 



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D.R.JORDAN 

13 <pel1(HKl1P-
14 [f :] <PfP~OYf-
15 r:]v 10}11 10}-

16 fp~l1e 10}-
17 1WKfP-

18 ~l1e 100~oAxoalle 100\jIfvXaV Kal-
19 ~XO}O}X· KAo}1ta'tptv I1a'tpaKlvou, 
20 &~ov {'tf} 'tllv TfPllOU(v), llv f'tfKfV A1tta, 
21 1tpO~ Ejlal, MDUjlO}V, roy f'tfKfV Tat1ttajl, 

22 1tUPOUjlEVllV, <PAfYOjlEVl1(V), ~aaavtI~OjlEvll(v) 

23 'tllv \jIUXtlV, 'tOY VOUV, 'to yuvatov arojla, 

24 £(t)<; fAen 1tpO~ f.jlal, MDUjl(t)V, (rov f'tfKfV) Tf7ttajl, 

25 Kat KOAAtlan au'tll<; ['t]a. XlAll d<; 'to. XlAll 
26 jlou, 'tllv 'tpiXav d~ 'tllv 'tpiXav jlou, 'tllv ya-
27 a'tEpav d~ 'tllv yaa'tEpav jlou, 'to jlfAaVtoV 
28 d<; 'to jlfAaVtOV jlou, £0}<; 'tfAfa(t) 'tllv auvouala(v) 
29 jlou Kat 'tllV apafVtKtlv jlou <puatv jlf'ta. 'tll~ yuv-
30 atKia~ au'tll~ <puaf(t)~. "HDll, 'taxi> W. 

165 

1 A or a, ° or a 2 a or A 3 e or 0, A or a corr. from E 14 a or E 18 
Icoo/Evxuv:· X co~r. fro~ e· 22 ~acra~l~oIlEV~ tab. 28 cruvoucrlii tab. 

7 aE 8oatllOV 18-19 Ba'ivxcococox 19 KAE01t<itplOV 
ov 24 EIlE, .1tOUIlOV, (ov 25 XElAll bis 26 tptXa bis 
bis 29-30 yuvaucdw; 

21 EIlE, .1tOUIlOV, 
26-27 yaatEpa 

E: I adjure you, ghost, by the great god EREKISEPHTHE ARARACHARARA 
EPHTHESIKERE [:]PHERSOGEC]N WE WERBETH IL>PAKERBETH IL>BOLCHO­
SETH IL>PSENCHAN BAINCHL>L>CH: Kleopatrion, daughter(?) of Patraki­
nos (?), drive Tereous, whom Apia bore, to me, Didymos, whom 
Taipiam bore, burning, inflamed, wracked in her soul, her mind, her 
female parts, until she comes to me, Didymos, whom Tepiam bore, 
and glues her lips to my lips, hair to my hair, belly to my belly, wee 
black to my wee black, until I accomplish my intercourse and my male 
nature with her female nature. At once, quickly (twice). 



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166 P.DUK.INV. 230, AN EROTIC SPELL 

1-5. These lines, inscribed more shallowly than the rest of the 
text, have been difficult to read. I have not succeeded in identi­
fying here any usual logos such as those beside the figures in the 
Oslo scroll. In line 4 we have law (Yahweh), with whom the ass­
headed Seth-Typhon was sometimes associated (Moraux 1960: 
26-27), followed in line 5 by the Coptic for "ass," tW, a vocable 
common in magical texts (Brashear 1995: 3588). 

6. Strings of vowels were common in Graeco-Egyptian magic, 
the indices in the unpublished third volume of PGM including 
over forty examples (for bibliography see D. E. Aune, "lao," 
RLAC 17 [1996] 1-12, at 7). Here, after aElllOU, something 
seems to have gone wrong with the order. 

7. The text proper opens with an adjuration of a oai/lwv, the 
word here no doubt with the sense YEKUOai/lwv, the ghost, dead 
before his or her time, into or near whose grave or sarcophagus 
the lead tablet would have been placed: see Preisendanz 1935 
and, for further bibliography, Brashear 1995: 3468 n.429. 

11-14. The palindrome EpllKHHSCPTl Apapaxapapa HcpSHH­
KllpE (here imperfect: EpllKHJllCPSTl A. HtcpSTlatKllP[E]) is frequent 
in magical texts in Roman imperial times, the indices of PGM, 
DTAud, and Suppl.Mag. revealing 19 examples. Usually the 
texts in which it occurs have a Jewish flavor, invoking e.g. 
archangels (PGM IV 1797) or the SEOY 'tOY Iapa/la (for IapallA), 
who is also called 'tOY SEOY 'tou A~paav Kat 'tOY law (for ('tou) 
IaaaK (Kat)?) 'tOY 'tou IaKou (DTAud 271, Hadrumetum), but 
its second and third elements occur, rather forcibly fitted, in 
hexametric hymns to Apollon-Helios at PGM II 100 (Xa'iPE, 
1tUPO~ /lEOEWV apapaxxapa llCPStatKllPE) and Hekate-Selene­
Artemis at IV 2849 (au Of xaou~ /lEOEWY apapaxapapa 
llCPStatKllPE). E. Rohde (Psyche9 II [Berlin 1925] 81 n.2) and inde­
pendently R. Merkelbach ("<I>StaiKTlPE," ZPE 47 [1982] 172), 
both articulating II cpS., have interpreted cpStaiKllPE as Greek 
(Merkelbach: "Vernichter des Todesloses"), but K. Preisendanz 
has argued ("Palindrom," RE 18 [1949] 133-139, at 135) that 



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D.R.JORDAN 167 

the epithet would be inappropriate in at least the first of the 
two hymns cited here. S. Eitrem (P.Oslo I p.94) considered that 
the phrase in the second must have been interpreted as 
"destroying death." See Preisendanz's basic treatment of the 
vocable (esp. 135-136), in which he summarizes and assesses 
speculations as to its sense. 

14-19. [?]<pEpcrOYEi[?]V (cr or E) is apparently new, as is 
ICo\VEvxav (X corr~ fro~ 8). r'aTj is ~ommon, especially in magical 
expressions with clusters of vowels, e.g. PGM IV 1564-1565 
laffi taTj tffia at 0 cOv. For discussion of the Ioerbeth logos (here 
IffiEp~Tj8 ... Iffi~oAxocr1l8, though usually with more elements, as 
at P.Oslo I 1.78-79), characteristically associated with Seth­
Typhon, see Moraux 1960: 19-39. Kal~XffiffiX is a scribal error 
for BalvXffiffiffiX, Egyptian b3 n kkw "spirit of darkness" (Bra­
shear 1995: 3581), and is not part of the logos. 

19. After Kall~XffiffiX we have a Greek female name and 
patronymic, KAffirta'tptv I1a'tpaKlvou. The first has as its initial 
element KA£O- with the shift [eo] --t [0] as in 8086'tll (Lefebvre, 
Rec. inscr. gr.-chret. d'Egypte 795), AffivlOll~ (MAMA VII 982), 
etc., and no doubt KAcorta~ On. 19:25, pace W. Bauer, Greek­
English Lexicon of the New Testament, s. V., who assumes this last 
to be Semitic); its second is a syncopation of -rta'tptOv. The 
canonical spelling would be KA£Orta'tptov, the vocative of either 
the masculine KAEorta'tplffiv (attested once: O. Wilck. 1434, lIP) or 
the feminine diminutive, here new. Unless the patronymic as 
spelled here is a deformation of a name like I1a'tptKtav6~, it is 
apparently new (I1a'tpalClvll~? I1a'tpaKtVo~?). 

Kleopatrion is the ghost addressed in lines 7-8. Although in 
magical addresses to the dead these last usually go unnamed 
(e.g. Suppl.Mag. 48 J-K 20 vElCuOalllcov, ocr'tt~ rto't' 1:, El-rE apPll~ 
et'tE %Ata), we do have erotic spells that name them: those from 
Egypt roughly contemporary with the Duke tablet are PGM 
XXXII and Suppl.Mag. 37, 47; cf. the recipe at PGM IV 2180-
2181, where the nekydaimon is addressed as 0 OElva, the name 



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168 P.DUK.lNV. 230, AN EROTIC SPELL 

to be supplied. (See Preisendanz 1935: 2249 for ghosts named 
on earlier Attic lead curse tablets.) With one other exception, 
'OPlwv Lupcmoihoc; at Suppl.Mag. 37.1, their identifications as 
preserved are simple personal names without lineage. F. Boll, 
the initial editor of this last text, assumed that the scribe knew 
the young Horion before the latter died.9 That scribe and ours 
may, though, have merely read the burial markers, which would 
have recorded at least name, patronymic, and age at death. If 
the name Kleopatrion is in fact feminine, we have our first in­
stance of a female ghost named in a Greek magical text. 

20. 'tE is superfluous. No doubt the scribe began to write 
TEP110U and then, having decided that he should have used the 
Greek article (rather than its Coptic equivalent, T€), inserted 
'tllv without deleting 'tE. Articles are in fact seldom used before 
the names of the intended victims and beneficiaries of magical 
spells (of the forty or so other "working" Greek erotic spells 
[supra n.2], for example, only ten have articles in this position) 
and never before the mother's name in the formula for maternal 
lineage. Like ours, one other spell (lead tablet, unpublished) 
gives the article before the victim's name but not before the bene­
ficiary'S. As for the woman's name itself, TEP110UC; is attested 
elsewhere at least once, at P.Land. V 1652.8 (IvP), where it has 
the genitive TEP11ou'toC;. The accusative would be TEP11oU'tu or 
TEp£OUV. 

Maternal lineage, as here, is found in Greek magic from the 
early centuries of our era, although there are Egyptian ante­
cedents from the Middle Kingdom.lO In Greek formularies the 
phrase was often abbreviated to I;. ov(i]v 1;., 1;.111;., or even 1;.1;.. 

9 Ein griechischer Liebeszauber aus Agypten (SBHeid 1910.2). 
lOSee D. R. Jordan, "eIL VIII 19525(B).2 QPVVLVA = q(uem) p(eperit) 

vulva," Philologus 120 (1976) 127-132; J. B. Curb era, "Maternal Lineage in 
Greek Magical Texts," in D. R. Jordan, H. Montgomery, E. Thomassen, edd., The 
World of Ancient Magic. Papers from the First International Samson Eitrem 
Seminar at the Norwegian Institute at Athens, 4-8 May 1997 (= Papers from the 
Norwegian Institute at Athens 4 [Bergen 1999]) 195-204. 



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D.R.JORDAN 169 

Evidently our scribe had one of these shorter abbreviations in 
the model for lines 20, 21, and 24, for in resolving it he has intro­
duced his own spelling into 2t mv for OV (cf. his ~i8ullffiV for 
-IlOV), and has neglected to include the phrase linking the two 
names in 24. 

21. Tal7ttall here and TE1ttall in line 24 are variant spellings of 
a female name that occurs elsewhere as Ta1ttaIlO~, Ta1ttffillt~, 

TwPtallt~, and Ta1ttEllt~ (see Namenbuch s.vv.). 
22-23. If the first word at P G M XIXa 50, [Kat]oll£v11v. 

1tUPOUIlEV11v. K£V'tEt <~a)aavt1~oll£v11v, may be restored as 
[<PA.EY]OIl£v11V, the three participles on the lead tablet occur there 
too. The omission in <PA.qOIlEV11(V) is no doubt scribal rather 
than phonetic, i.e. <pA.QOIlEV11v ~ <pA.qoll£vl1 (cf. ~aaavl1~oll£vl1 
following, auvouatii in line 28) ~ <PA.EYOIl£v11. 

25-28. The gluing or fastening together of bodily parts finds 
parallels in other "working" erotic spells on papyrus (XVIIa 
22-23, thighs, bellies, "blacks"; P.Monac. inv. As 6972.50-51 
[Brashear 1992], thighs, lips) and lead (Suppl.Mag. 38.12, 
thighs, <puaEt~) and in recipes for them (PGM IV 400-404, 
heads, lips, bellies, thighs, "blacks"; XXXVI 83, 113-114, 150, 
female <puat~ to male; Suppl.Mag. 78 II 7-8, thighs? "blacks"?). 
F. Maltomini (Suppl.Mag. 38.12) has collected instances in erotic 
poetry, e.g. Archil. fr.189.1 West, Ka1tt yampt yaa'tEpa 1tpoa­
~aA.EtV ll11pou~ 'tE Il11POt~. 

28. As far as I know, IlEA.aV has the sense "pubic area" only 
in the passages cited above. IlEA.aVlOV here is the first example 
of its diminutive. 

29. <puat~ in the passages cited in the note on line 25 (see 
Winkler 1990: 217-220 for other examples) means "sexual 
organ." If 'tEA.Eaffi is to govern both auvouata(v) and <puatv, 
however, the latter here probably has its abstract sense. 

30. I.e. 11811 11811. 'taxu 'taxu, as in the Oslo text quoted above 
and as often found at the ends of spells. The 11811 'taxu W of the 
lead tablet is an unresolved abbreviation from the scribe's for-



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170 P.DUK.INV. 230, AN EROTIC SPELL 

mulary: cf. e.g. PGM XII 143, 396 ~81l W, -ruxu W. For these and 
other abbreviations of the phrase in formularies see my "Notes 
from Carthage," ZPE 111 (1996) 115-123, at 119. 

November, 2000 Athens