From Ovid’s Amores 3.7.27-30, memorable primarily as his impotence poem.
Is my body limp, cursed by Thessalian poison? Are incantations and herbs doing me harm,
or has some sorceress bewitched my name with crimson wax and driven sharp needles into my liver?
Num mea Thessalico languent devota veneno
corpora? num misero carmen et herba nocent,
sagave poenicea defixit nomina cera
et medium tenuis in iecur egit acus?
There’s a very similar passage at Heroides 6.91 – only the purpose there is the more traditional securing of the target’s love.
Among sepulchres she stalks, ungirded, with hair flowing loose, and gathers from the yet warm funeral pyre the appointed bones. She vows to their doom the absent, fashions the waxen image, and into its wretched heart drives the slender needle
per tumulos errat passis discincta capillis
certaque de tepidis colligit ossa rogis.
devovet absentis simulacraque cerea figit
et miserum tenuis in iecur urget acus
The practice of piercing a doll to work some manner of magic on a target it represents is well documented in scholarship – Daniel Ogden’s Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman World: A Source Book has a full chapter of translated examples like the partial extract below (pg 248, PGM IV.296–466):
Take some wax or some clay from a potter’s wheel and mold two figures, male and female. Arm the male one like Ares, brandishing a sword in his left hand and striking the female’s neck on her right side. Put the female doll’s hands behind her back and make her kneel. You will fasten the stuff [ousia] on her head or on her neck. Inscribe the doll of the woman being attracted: on her head, “ISEÊ IAÔ ITHI OUNE BRIDÔ LÔTHIÔN NEBOUTOSOUALÊTH”; on her right ear, “OUER MÊCHAN”; on her left ear, “LIBABA ÔIMATHOTHO”; on her face, “AMOUNABREÔ”; over her right eye, “ÔRORMOTHIO AÊTH”; over the other one, “CHOBOUE”; on her right collarbone, “ADETA MEROU”; on her right arm, “ENE PSA ENESGAPH”; on the other one, “MELCHIOU MELCHIEDIA”; on her hands, “MELCHAMELCHOU AÊL”; on her breast, the name of the woman being attracted, with her metronymic; over her heart, “BALAMIN THÔOUTH”; under her stomach, “AOBÊS AÔBAR”; on her vulva, “BLICHIANEOI OUÔIA”; on her bottom, “PISSADARA”; on the soles of her feet, on the right one, “ELÔ”; on the other one, “ELÔAIOE.”
Take thirteen bronze needles and insert one of them into the brain while saying, “I pierce your brain (insert her name)”; insert two into her ears, two more into her eyes, one into her mouth, two below her rib cage, one into her hands, two into her vulva and anus, and two into the soles of her feet, while on each occasion saying once, “I pierce the (insert name of part) of (insert her name), so that she may think of no one, except me alone, (insert your name).” Take a lead tablet, inscribe the same spell on it, and say it through. Bind the tablet to the figures with the warp from a loom, in which you have made 365 knots while saying, as you know how to, “Abrasax, constrain her.”
Lay it as the sun sets beside the grave of one untimely dead or dead by violence, and lay flowers of the season there with it The inscribed and recited spell is this:
“I deposit with you this binding-curse [katadesmos], chthonic gods and Pluto; UESEMIGADON; Maiden Persephone Ereschigal and Adonis the BARBARITHA; underworld Hermes THÔOUTH PHÔKENTAZEPSEU AERCHTHATHOU MISONKTAI KALBANACHAMBRÊ; powerful Anubis PSIRINTH, holder of the keys to Hades; gods and demons of the underworld; untimely dead, male and female; lads and maidens; year on year, month on month, day on day, hour on hour. I adjure all demons in this place to assist this demon. Rouse yourself for me, whoever you are, whether male or female, and take yourself off to every district, every block, and every house. Bring her and bind her. Bring her (insert her name), the daughter of (insert her mother’s name), whose stuff you have, in love with me, (insert your name), whom (insert your mother’s name) bore. Let her not fornicate, let her not be buggered, and let her not do anything that brings pleasure with another man, unless with me alone, (insert your name), so that (insert her name) is not able either to drink or to eat, or hold out, or to endure it, or be calm, so that (insert her name) is not able to find sleep without me, (insert your name), because I adjure you in the name that inspires fear and trembling, the name at the sound of which the earth will be opened up, the name at the sound of which the frightening demons will be frightened, the name at the sound of which the rocks are shattered…..
There’s also a fascinating assemblage of items at the louvre – doll, curse tablet, storage vase – that give a better sense of at least the physical aspects of the cursing process. They’re off display for the moment but there are photos and a lovely writeup here – with additional curse examples.
Extracts 