“puerile practice” known as Alish-Takish, the Lat. facere vicibus or mutuum facere.  Temperament, media, and atavism recommend the custom to the general; and after marrying and begetting heirs, Paterfamilias returns to the Ganymede.  Hence all the odes of Hafiz are addressed to youths, as proved by such Arabic exclamations as ’Afaka ’llah = Allah assain thee (masculine)[FN#400]:  the object is often fanciful but it would be held coarse and immodest to address an imaginary girl.[FN#401] An illustration of the penchant is told at Shiraz concerning a certain Mujtahid, the head of the Shi’ah creed, corresponding with a prince-archbishop in Europe.  A friend once said to him, “There is a question I would fain address to your Eminence but I lack the daring to do so.”  “Ask and fear not,” replied the Divine.  “It is this, O Mujtahid!  Figure thee in a garden of roses and hyacinths with the evening breeze waving the cypress-heads, a fair youth of twenty sitting by thy side and the assurance of perfect privacy.  What, prithee, would be the result?” The holy man bowed the chin of doubt upon the collar of meditation; and, too honest to lie, presently whispered, “Allah defend me from such temptation of Satan!” Yet even in Persia men have not been wanting who have done their utmost to uproot the Vice:  in the same Shiraz they speak of a father who, finding his son in flagrant delict, put him to death like Brutus or Lynch of Galway.  Such isolated cases, however, can effect nothing.  Chardin tells us that houses of male prostitution were common in Persia whilst those of women were unknown:  the same is the case in the present day and the boys are prepared with extreme care by diet, baths, depilation, unguents and a host of artists in cosmetics.[FN#402] Le Vice is looked upon at most as a peccadillo and its mention crops up in every jest-book.  When the Isfahan man mocked Shaykh Sa’adi by comparing the bald pates of Shirazian elders to the bottom of a lota, a brass cup with a wide-necked opening used in the Hammam, the witty poet turned its aperture upwards and thereto likened the well-abused podex of an Isfahani youth.  Another favourite piece of Shirazian “chaff” is to declare that when an Isfahan father would set up his son in business he provides him with a pound of rice, meaning that he can sell the result as compost for the kitchen-garden, and with the price buy another meal:  hence the saying Khakh-i-pai kahu = the soil at the lettuce-root.  The Isfahanis retort with the name of a station or halting-place between the two cities where, under presence of making travellers stow away their riding-gear, many a Shirazi had been raped:  hence “Zin o takaltu tu bi-bar” = carry within saddle and saddle-cloth!  A favourite Persian punishment for strangers caught in the Harem or Gynaeceum is to strip and throw them and expose them to the embraces of the grooms and negro-slaves.  I once asked a Shirazi how penetration was possible if the patient resisted with all the force of the sphincter muscle: