I was the pleased recipient this week of a consignment of books by the philosopher Michel Onfray which included L’invention du plaisir: fragments cyrénaïques. Good stuff there, such as many variants on Aristippus’s retort to those who remonstrated with him for patronizing the courtesan Lais: “I possess Lais, but am not possessed by her.” Also an appropriate epigram by Nietzsche from Human, All Too Human (#104): “No life without pleasure; the struggle for pleasure is the struggle for life.” But, shallow fellow that I am, I was immediately struck most by the ErosBloggable illustration that the good folks at Livres de Poche found for the cover, and which I now pass on to you:

woman watering phalluses

A vase painting from about 430 BCE, “Woman watering phalluses.” Invention of pleasure indeed.