Arnobius: ADVERSVS NATIONES LIBRI VII

1.1. Esto: ab ludentibus poetis cuncta illa sintprodita et immortalibus diis probra. - Quid? illa, quae historiae continent graves seriae curiosae quaeque in arcanis mysteriis traditis, poetarum sunt excogitata lascivia?

1.1. Granted: by playful poets all those things have beenbetrayed, and are reproaches to the immortal gods. - What? those things which grave, serious, curious histories contain, and which are handed down in arcane mysteries—have they been excogitated by the poets’ lasciviousness?

2. Quae si vobis viderentur ineptiarum talium fabulae, nequein usu retineretis quaedam suo neque per cursus annuos laetitias exerceretis ut festas neque ut rerum simulacra gestarum sacrorum conservaretis in ritibus. 3. Ex quibus tam multis unum interim ponam moderaminis temperamentum secutus, in quo stolidus et inprudens ipse ille inducitur Iuppiter, verborum ambiguitatibus lusus. 4. In secundo Antiatis libro [Ann. Fr. 6 Peter] - ne quis forte nos aestimet concinnare per calumnias crimina - talis perscripta est fabula: Numam illum regem, cum procurandi fulminis scientiam non haberet esset que illi cupido noscendi, Egeriae monitu custos duodecim iuvenes apud aquam celasse cum vinculis, ut cum Faunus et Martius Picus ad id locorum venissent haustum - nam illis aquandi | f. 98 | sollemne iter hac fuit - inviderent constringerent conligerent.

2. If these things seemed to you fables of such ineptitudes, you would neitherretain certain things in their own use nor, through the annual courses, exercise joys as feast-days, nor preserve, in the rites, the simulacra of deeds done in sacred things. 3. Of which, from so many, I will meanwhile set down one, following a moderation of temper, in which that Jupiter himself is brought on as stolid and imprudent, toyed with by ambiguities of words. 4. In the second book of Antias [Ann. Fr. 6 Peter] — lest anyone perchance think us to be piecing together crimes by calumnies — such a tale has been written out: that Numa, that king, when he did not have the science of procuring the lightning and there was to him a desire of learning, at Egeria’s monition a guard hid twelve youths by the water with bonds, so that when Faunus and Picus of Mars had come to that place to draw a draught — for to them for watering | f. 98 | a solemn route was this way — they might waylay, bind fast, and tie them.

5. Sed quo res fieri expeditius posset, regem pocula non parvi numeri vino mulsoque complesse circaque accessus fontis insidiosam venturis opposuisse fallaciam. 6. Illos more de solito bibendi adpetitione correptos ad hospitia nota venisse. Sed cum liquoribus odoratis offendissent fragrantia pocula, vetustioribus anteposuisse res novas, invasisse aviditer, dulcedine potionis expetos hausisse plus nimio, obdormivisse factos graves; tum bis senos incubuisse sopitis, iniecisse madidatis vincla, expergitos que illos statim perdocuisse regem quibus ad terras modis Iuppiter posset et sacrificiis elici, et accepta regem scientia rem in Aventino fecisse divinam, elexisse ad terras Iovem ab eoque quaesisse ritum procurationis morem.

5. But in order that the matter might be able to be done more expeditiously, the king filled no small number of cups with wine and honey-wine (mulsum), and around the approaches of the spring he set in the way of those about to come an insidious deceit. 6. They, seized by a desire of drinking beyond their wonted manner, came to their known hostelries; but when they encountered cups fragrant with perfumed liquors, preferring new things to the more time-worn, they attacked them eagerly, and, enticed by the sweetness of the potion, they drained more than overmuch, and, made heavy, fell asleep; then the twice six lay upon the sleeping ones, cast bonds upon the drenched, and, once they had been roused, they immediately thoroughly taught the king by what modes and by what sacrifices Jupiter could be elicited to the lands; and when the knowledge had been received, the king performed a divine rite on the Aventine, elicited Jupiter to the lands, and from him asked the rite of procuration the custom.

7. Iovem diu cunctatum: "Expiabis - dixe - capite fulgurita"; regem respondisse: "Caepicio"; Iovem rursus: "Humano"; rettulisse regem: "Sed capillo"; deum contra: "Animali"; "" subiecisse Pompilium. 8. Tunc ambiguis Iovem propositionibus captum extulisse hanc vocem: "Decepisti me Numa; nam ego humanis capitibus procurari constitueram fulgurita, non maena capillo caepicio: quoniam me tamen tua circumvenit astutia, quem voluisti habeto morem et his rebus quas pectus es procurationem semper suscipies fulguritorum".

7. Jupiter, long delaying, hesitated: "You shall expiate — he said — the lightning-prodigies with a head"; the king answered: "With an onion-head"; Jupiter again: "Human"; the king returned: "But with hair"; the god in turn: "Of an animal"; "," Pompilius subjoined. 8. Then, caught by the ambiguous proposals, Jupiter uttered this word: "You have deceived me, Numa; for I had determined that lightning-prodigies be expiated with human heads, not with a maena, with hair, with an onion-head: since, however, your craft has outflanked me, have the rite you wished, and with these things which your heart has set you will always undertake the procuration of lightning-prodigies."

2.1. Quid primum, quid ultimum vel exsequatur animus | f. 98b | vel conticiscat, nec facile dictu est neque ullis considerationibus expeditum. Ita enim sunt omnia et excogitata et comparata derisui, ut sit vobis conitendum falsa ut credantur haec esse, etiam si sint vera, quam optinere velle pro veris et velut quiddam mirabile non sine ipsius numinis insinuare contemptu. 2. Quid enim dicitis o isti?

2.1. What first, what last the mind should either execute | f. 98b | or fall silent about, is neither easy to say nor expedited by any considerations. For so are all things both excogitated and prepared for derision, that you must strive that these be believed to be false, even if they are true, rather than wish to maintain them as true and to insinuate them as something marvelous, not without contempt of the numen itself. 2. For what, indeed, do you say, O you there?

Credimusne illum Faunum et Martium Picum, si ex numero sunt deorum et ex illa perpetua immortalique natura, sitis aliquando ariditate siccatos atque, ut aestum possent inrigare venarum, fluenta isse per fontium? Credimusne captos mero et dulcedine inlectos mulsi tamdiu se poculis ingurgitavisse fallacibus, ut usque ad ebrietatis periculum veniretur? Credimusne vinctos somno atque altissimi soporis oblivione demersos vinciendi copiam sui animalibus praebuisse terrenis?

Do we believe that that Faunus and the Martial Picus, if they are of the number of the gods and of that perpetual and immortal nature, were ever dried out by thirst and aridity and, in order that they might irrigate the heat of their veins, went to the streams of springs? Do we believe that, captured by wine and enticed by the sweetness of mead, they ingurgitated themselves with fallacious cups so long that it came even to the peril of drunkenness? Do we believe that, bound by sleep and plunged in the oblivion of the deepest slumber, they offered to terrestrial animals the opportunity of binding them?

3. Quibus deinde partibus vinculorum illae iniectae sunt nexiones? Soliditatis habebant quicquam aut ex duris ossibus informatae fuerant eorum manus, quae constringi laqueis et nodorum possent inligationibus coerceri? 4. Non enim requiro, non exigo, an aliquid potuerint fari ebrietatis alienatione nutantes, an Iove invito vel potius nescio protrahendi ad terras eius ritum quisquam potuerit publicare: illud solum audire desidero, cur si Faunus et Picus sunt divini generis et potestatis, non ipsi potius edidere quaerenti id quod ab ipso Iove periculosius Numa cupiebat audire.

3. Into what parts, then, of their bonds were those knottings cast? Did their hands have anything of solidity, or were they formed out of hard bones, such as could be constrained by nooses and by the ligations of knots to be coerced? 4. For I do not inquire, I do not exact, whether, reeling with the alienation of drunkenness, they were able to speak anything, or whether, with Jove unwilling—or rather, I know not—anyone could publish his rite of being drawn down to the earth: this alone I desire to hear, why, if Faunus and Picus are of divine race and power, they themselves did not rather set forth to the inquirer that which Numa was desiring to hear more perilously from Jove himself.

| f. 99 | 5. An numquid Iuppiter solus huius rei scientiam noverat? Ad ipsum enim decidunt fulmina, ut inminentia procurare alicuius debeat scientiae disciplina? An cum ipse iaculetur hos ignes, aliorum sit operis scire quibus modis conveniat iras eius atque animos temperare?

| f. 99 | 5. Or did Jupiter alone know the science of this matter? For the thunderbolts fall to him, so that the discipline of some science ought to manage what is threatening. Or, since he himself hurls these fires, is it the work of others to know by what methods it is fitting to temper his wraths and spirits?

Etenim revera stultissimum credere est, ipsum remedia scire, quibus averti possint ea quae per fulminis iactum in humanis fieri constituerit rebus. Hoc est enim dicere: Illo ritus genere meas iras placabitis, et si quando per fulgura significavero aliquid imminere, facite hoc et illud, <ut> quod fieri statui inane fiat et vacuum et sacrorum >vi> vanescat.

For indeed, truly it is most foolish to believe that he himself knows the remedies by which those things which he has decreed to be done in human affairs through the hurling of the thunderbolt can be averted. For this is to say: By that kind of rite you will placate my wraths, and if ever through lightning-flashes I shall have signified that something is impending, do this and that, <so that> what I have decided should be done may become vain and empty, and the >force> of the sacred rites may vanish.

3.1. Sed concedamus, ut dicitur, ipsum adversum se Iovem remedia scisse atque artes quibus iri obviam suis significationibus conveniret: etiamne credemus deum numinis tanti tractum esse ad terras et in verrucula collis unius cum homunculo stantem altercabilem conseruisse sermonem? 2. Et quaenam illa, quaeso, divina res fuit quae ab impetu rerum tanto Iovem compulit avocari et mortalium sese denuntiationibus sistere? Mola salsa, tus, sanguis, verbenarum suffitio et nominum terribilium fremores?

3.1. But let us concede, as it is said, that Jupiter himself knew the remedies against himself and the arts by which it would be fitting to go to meet his own significations: shall we even believe that a god of so great a numen was drawn down to the earth and, standing with a little man on the little wart of a single hill, engaged in an altercatory conversation? 2. And what, pray, was that divine thing which compelled Jupiter to be called away from so great a press of affairs and to stand at the denunciations of mortals? Salted meal, incense, blood, the fumigation of vervains, and the rumblings of terrible names?

Et potentiora quam Iuppiter fuerunt haec omnia, ut eum compellerent invitum parere praeceptis aut voluntarium sese circumventionibus tradere? 3. Quid? quod sequitur fidem sumet, [aut] tam improvidum fuisse Saturnium, ut aut ea proponeret quorum ambagibus ipse caperetur aut nesciret futurum, | f. 99b | quibus lusura se modis astutia esset calliditasque mortalis?

And were all these things more potent than Jupiter, so that they compelled him, unwilling, to obey the precepts, or to hand himself over, willing, to circumventions? 3. What? will what follows gain credence, [aut] that the Saturnian was so improvident as either to propose those things by whose windings he himself would be ensnared, or not to know beforehand | f. 99b | by what methods mortal astuteness and cunning would be going to make sport (of him)?

4. "Expiabis, inquit, capite fulgurita". - Inperfecta adhuc vox est neque plena proloquii circumscriptaque sententia. Scire enim necessario convenit, utrumne capite vervicino an suillo an bubulo, an quolibet alio expeiationem istam sciscat Diespiter perpetrari: quod cum nondum specialiter statuisset, essetque adhuc pendens et nondum sententia terminata, qui potuit Numa scire hominis Iovem dicturum caput, >ut> anteverteret, anteiret et in caput caepicii ambiguitatis illius incerta traduceret?

4. "You will expiate, he says, the thing struck by lightning with a head." - The utterance is as yet imperfect, neither full nor a circumscribed sentence of prolocution. For it is necessary to know whether Diespiter bids that expiation to be effected with a sheep’s head or a swine’s or an ox’s, or with any other; and since he had not yet determined this specifically, and the sentence was still pending and not yet terminated, how could Numa know that Jupiter would say a man’s head, >so that> he might anticipate, go before, and transfer the uncertainties of that ambiguity onto the head of an onion?

4.1. "Nisi forte dicetis regem fuisse divinum": - numquid ipso poterat esse Iove divinior? 2. [Nisi] homo praesumens quid dicturus esset Iuppiter, circumscripsit >deum:> deus scire non poterat quibus modis psraret circumscribere se homo? 3. Ita non in promptu est et apparet puerilium esse ingeniola fictionum, quibus cum adquiritur cordis Numae vivacitas, inprudentia maxima inportatur Iovi?

4.1. "Unless perhaps you will say the king was divine": - could he in any way be more divine than Jove himself? 2. [Unless] a man, presuming what Jupiter was going to say, circumscribed >the god:> could the god not know by what methods the man was preparing to circumscribe him? 3. Thus is it not evident and does it not appear that the little wits of fictions are childish, whereby, while the liveliness of Numa’s heart is acquired, the greatest imprudence is imported to Jupiter?

4. Quid enim tam inprudens, quam confiteri te captum argutia cordis humani, et cum deceptum te doleas, in victoris concedere voluntatem et medicinam quam obtuleras ponere? 5. Nam si fuit ratio et quaedam convenientia naturalis cur humano capite procuratio debuerit suscipi fulguriti, non video cur ab rege relatio sit facta caepicii: sin autem poterat et caepicio transigi, libidinose hominis inhiatum est cruori. Atque ita in contrarium pars utraque traducitur, ut nec Numa monstretur voluisse scire quod voluit et crudelis Iuppiter | f. 100 | fuisse doceatur, qui quod maena potuit et caepicio suscipi voluisse dixerit humanis capitibus expiari.

4. For what is so imprudent as to confess yourself captured by the subtlety of a human heart, and, while you lament that you have been deceived, to yield to the victor’s will and to set aside the remedy which you had offered? 5. For if there was a rationale and a certain natural congruity why the expiation of a lightning‑struck thing ought to have been undertaken with a human head, I do not see why by the king the reference was made to an onion; but if, however, it could also be transacted with an onion, the man’s lustful gape was for blood. And so in the contrary direction each part is carried over, such that neither is Numa shown to have wished to know what he wished, and cruel Jupiter | f. 100 | is shown to have been, who is said to have wished that what could have been undertaken with a maena-fish and with an onion be expiated by human heads.

5.1. Apud Timotheum, non ignobilem theologorum virum, nec non apud alios aeque doctos super Magna deorum Matre superque sacris eius origo haec sita est, ex reconditis antiquitatum libris et ex intimis eruta, quemadmodum ipse scribit insinuatque, mysteriis. 2. "In Phrygiae finibus inauditae per omnia vastitatis petra, inquit, est quaedam, cui nomen est Agdus, regionis eius ab indigenis sic vocata. Ex ea lapides sumptos, sicut Themis mandaverat praecinens, in orbem mortalibus vacuum Deucalion iactavit et Pyrra, ex quibus cum ceteris et haec Magna quae dicitur informata est Mater atque animata divinitus.

5.1. With Timotheus, a not-ignoble man among the theologians, and likewise with others equally learned, concerning the Great Mother of the gods and concerning her sacred rites, this origin is set down, drawn from the recondite books of antiquities and, as he himself writes and intimates, dug out from the inmost mysteries. 2. "Within the borders of Phrygia there is, he says, a certain rock of unheard-of vastness in every respect, whose name is Agdus, so called by the natives of that region. From it stones taken, as Themis had commanded while prophesying beforehand, Deucalion and Pyrrha cast into the world emptied of mortals; and from these, along with the others, this Great Mother so-called was fashioned and divinely animated."

3. Hanc in vertice ipso petrae datam quieti et somno quam incestis Iuppiter cupiditatibus adpetivit, sed cum obluctatus diu id quod sibi promiserat optinere nequisset, voluptatem in lapidem fudit victus. ninc petra concepit, et mugitibus editis multis prius mense nascitur decimo materno ab nomine cognominatus Agdestis. 4. Huic robur invictum et ferocitas animi fuerat intractabilis, insana et furialis libido et ex utroque sexu; vi rapta divastare, disperdere, immanitas quo animi duxerat; non deos curare, non homines, nec praeter se quicquam potentius credere terras caelum et sidera continere".

3. This one, placed for rest and sleep on the very summit of the rock, Jupiter assailed with unchaste cupidities; but when, after struggling long, he could not obtain what he had promised himself, defeated, he poured his pleasure into the stone. Thence the rock conceived, and, many bellowings having been emitted beforehand, in the tenth month there is born Agdestis, surnamed from his mother’s name. 4. To him there was invincible strength and an intractable ferocity of spirit, a mad and furial libido, and of both sexes; to devastate by force what was seized, to destroy—his monstrosity wherever the impulse of his mind had led; to care neither for gods nor for men, nor to believe that anything more potent than himself holds together the lands, the sky, and the stars".

6.1. "Cuius cum audacia quibusnam modis posset vel debilitari vel conprimi saepenumero esset deorum in deliberatione quaesitum, haesitantibus | f. 100b | ceteris huius muneris curam Liber in se suscipit. 2. Familiarem illi fontem, quo ardorem fuerat suetus et sitiendi lenire flagrantiam ludo et venationibus excitatam, validissima succendit vi meri. 3. Necessitatis in tempore haustum accurrit Agdestis, immoderatius potionem hiantibus venis rapit: fit ut insolita re victus soporem in altissimum deprimatur.

6.1. "Since in the deliberation of the gods it had been sought time and again by what methods his audacity could be either debilitated or repressed, with the others hesitating | f. 100b | Liber takes upon himself the care of this office. 2. He kindles the spring familiar to him—by which he had been accustomed to soothe the ardor of thirst, the blaze stirred by play and huntings—with the most potent force of unmixed wine. 3. At a time of necessity for a draught Agdestis runs up, he snatches the potion immoderately with gaping veins: it comes about that, overcome by the unusual thing, he is pressed down into the deepest sleep.

4. Adest ad insidias Liber, ex setis scientissime conplicatis imum plantae inicit laqueum, parte altera proles cum ipsis genitalibus occupat. 5. Exhalata ille vi meri corripit se impetu et adducente nexus planta suis ipse se viribus eo qua >vir> fuerat privat sexu. 6. Cum discidio partium sanguis fluit inmensus, rapiuntur et combibuntur haec terra, malum repente cum pomis ex his punicum nascitur.

4. Liber is present for the ambush: from bristles most skillfully entwined he casts a snare upon the bottom of the sole, with the other part he secures the procreative part together with the genitals themselves. 5. When the force of the unmixed wine has been breathed out, he seizes himself up with a rush, and as the binding on his sole tightens, by his own strength he himself is deprived of the sex wherein he had been a >man>. 6. With the sundering of the parts an immense blood flows; these are seized and drunk up by the earth, and suddenly from these there is born a Punic apple (pomegranate) with its fruits.

Cuius Nana speciem contemplata regis Sangari vel fluminis filia carpit mirans atque in sinu reponit: fit ex eo praegnas.7. Tamquam vitiatam claudit pater et curat ut inedia moriatur: pomis atque aliis pabulis deum sustentatur a matre. Enititur parvulum. Sed exponi Sangarius praecipit: repertum nescio quis sumit [formas], lacte alit hirquino et quoniam Lydia scitulos sic vocat, vel quia hirquos Phryges suis attagos elocutionibus nuncupant, inde Attis nomen ut sortiretur effluxit.

Nana, having contemplated the appearance of this, the daughter of King Sangar or of the river, plucks it in wonder and places it in her bosom: from this she becomes pregnant.7. As though defiled, her father shuts her up and sees to it that she die by starvation: the god is sustained by his mother with apples and other pabulums. She brings forth a little child. But Sangarius orders him to be exposed: found, someone I-know-not takes him [forms], nourishes him with hircine milk; and since the Lydian idiom thus calls little pails “scituli,” or because the Phrygians in their own elocutions name goats “attagos,” from there it flowed that he should obtain the name Attis.

8. Hunc unice mater deum, ore fuerat quod excellentissimo, diligebat. et Agdestis, blandus adulto comes et qua solum poterat minus rectis adsentationibus vinctum saltuosa ducens | f. 101 | per nemora et ferarum multis muneribus donans, quae puer Attis primo sui esse dicebat laboris atque operis glorians: per vinum deinde confitetur et ab Agdesti se diligi et ab eo donis silvestribus honorari; unde vino, quod silentium prodidit, in eius nefas est sanctum sese inferre pollutis".

8. Him the mother of the gods uniquely loved, because of that most excellent visage. him too did Agdestis, a coaxing companion to the grown youth, and, in the only way he could, with not-very-straight adulations, leading him, bound, through the leaping places | f. 101 | through the groves, and bestowing many gifts of wild beasts—gifts which the boy Attis at first said were of his own labor and work, exulting; then, under wine, he confesses both that he is loved by Agdestis and that he is honored by him with woodland gifts; whence, because wine betrayed the silence, it is nefas to bring oneself into his sacred place with defilements".

7.1. "Tunc Pessinuntius rex Midas alienare cupiens tam infami puerum coniunctione matrimonio eius suam filiam destinat, ac ne scaevus aliquis nuptialia interrumperet gaudia, fecit oppidum claudi. Verum deum mater adulescentuli fatum sciens interque homines illum tamdiu futurum salvum quamdiu esset solutus a matrimonii foedere, ne quid accideret maesti, civitatem ingreditur clausam muris eius capite sublevatis, quod esse turritum ratione ab hac coepit. 2. Agdestis scatens ira convulsi a se pueri et uxoris ad studium derivati convivantibus cunctis furorem et insaniam suggerit: conclamant exterriti ë adora, adora ', Phryges, mammas sibi demetit + Galli filia paelicis, rapit Attis fistulam, quam instigator ipse gestitabat insaniae, furiarum et ipse iam plenus, perbacchatus iactatus proicit se tandem et sub pini arbore genitalia sibi desecat dicens: "Tibi Agdesti haec habe, propter quae motus tantos furialium discriminum concitasti". 3. Evolat cum profluvio sanguinis vita, sed abscisa quae fuerant Magna legit et Mater deum, inicit his terram veste prius tecta atque involuta defuncti.

7.1. "Then Midas, the Pessinuntian king, wishing to alienate the boy by so infamous a conjunction, assigns his own daughter to his marriage; and lest some ill-omened person interrupt the nuptial joys, he had the town shut. But the Mother of the gods, knowing the fate of the adolescent and that he would be safe among men only so long as he was loosed from the bond of matrimony, lest anything of sorrow should befall, enters the city closed by walls, its walls lifted upon her head—whence from this rationale she began to be tower-crowned. 2. Agdestis, gushing with wrath at the boy torn away from him and diverted to the pursuit of a wife, while all were feasting, suggests frenzy and madness: the terrified Phrygians cry out, 'adore, adore', the daughter of the Gallus’s paramour cuts off her own breasts, he snatches Attis’s pipe, which the instigator himself was brandishing of madness, and he himself now full of furies, after bacchic raging and being tossed about, at last throws himself down and beneath a pine tree cuts off his own genitals, saying: 'Have these, Agdestis, on account of which you have stirred up such motions of furial perils.' 3. Life flies out with a torrent of blood, but the Great Mother of the gods gathers and washes what had been cut off, and she casts earth upon them as they were, first covered and wrapped with the garment of the deceased.

| f. 101b | Fluore de sanguinis viola flos nascitur et redimitur ex hac arbos: inde natum et ortum est nunc etiam sacras velarier et coronarier pinos. Virgo sponsa quae fuerat, quam Valerius pontifex Iam nomine fuisse conscribit, exanimati pectus lanis mollioribus velat, dat lacrimas cum Agdesti interficitque se ipsam: purpurantes in violas cruor vertitur interemptae. 4. Mater suffodit etiam deum, unde amegdalus nascitur amaritudinem significans funeris.

| f. 101b | From the flow of blood a violet flower is born, and from this the tree is wreathed: thence it has been born and arisen that even now sacred pines are veiled and crowned. The maiden bride who had been, whom the pontiff Valerius records to have been by the name Iam, veils the breast of the lifeless one with softer wools, gives tears together with Agdestis and kills herself: the gore of the slain woman is turned into purpling violets. 4. The Mother also inters the god, whence the almond tree is born, signifying the bitterness of the funeral.

Tunc arborem pinum, sub qua Attis nomine spoliaverat se viri, in antrum suum defert et sociatis planctibus cum Agdesti tundit et sauciat pectus pausatae circum arboris robur. Iuppiter rogatus ab Agdesti ut Attis revivesceret nonsinit; quod tamen fieri per fatum posset, sine ulla difficultate condonat, ne corpus eius putrescat, crescant ut comae semper, digitorum ut minimissimus vivat et perpetuo solus agitetur e motu. Quibus contentum beneficiis Agdestim consecrasse corpus in Pessinunte, caerimoniis annuis et sacerdotum antistitibus honorasse".

Then the pine tree, beneath which Attis by name had stripped himself of manhood, she carries into her cavern, and with joined lamentations together with Agdestis she beats and wounds her breast around the trunk of the tree laid to rest. Jupiter, asked by Agdestis that Attis might revive, does not allow it; yet what could be done by fate he grants without any difficulty: that his body not putrefy, that his hair grow always, that the very smallest of his fingers live, and that he be perpetually agitated by a solitary motion. With these benefactions being enough, Agdestis is said to have consecrated the body in Pessinus, and to have honored it with annual ceremonies and with the presidents of the priests".

8.1. Si contemptor aliquis numinum et sacrilegi pectoris immanitate furiosus intendisset animum maledicere diis vestris, auderet in eos quicquam gravius dicere quam ista prodit historia, quam velut quiddam mirabile commentarii contulistis in formulam ac, ne illam vis temporis et vetustatis obsolefaceret longitudo, perpetuitatis | f. 102 | honore mactatis? 2. Quid est enim de diis in ea positum quidve conscriptum, quod non, si in hominem dixeris pudibundis moribus et disciplinis horridioribus educatum, et contumeliae reus sis et iniuriis et offensionibus odium simultatibus subeas inexpiabilibus comparatum? 3. "Ex lapidibus, inquitis, quos Deucalion iactavit et Pyrra, deum procreata est mater". - Quid o theologi dicitis, quid supernarum antistites potestatum?

8.1. If some contemner of the numina and, frenzied by the savagery of a sacrilegious heart, had set his mind to malign your gods, would he dare to say anything more grievous against them than this history betrays, which you have carried into a formula as though some marvelous thing of a commentary, and, lest the force of time and the length of age should make it obsolete, you have invested it with the honor of perpetuity | f. 102 |? 2. For what is there set down about the gods in it, or written, which, if you were to say it of a man brought up with modest morals and more austere disciplines, you would not both be guilty of contumely and of injuries, and for the offenses undergo hatred prepared with inexpiable feuds? 3. “From the stones,” you say, “which Deucalion and Pyrra hurled, the mother of the god was procreated.” — What say you, O theologians, what, pontiffs of the supernal powers?

Ergone deum mater >ante> diluvii casum nulla fuit in parte naturae, et nisi omne mortalium genus interemisset vis imbrium, procreationis illius causa atque origo cessaret? 4. Humanum est ergo munus quod esse se sentit et beneficiis debet Pyrrae quod haerere se conspicit in alicuius substantiae qualitate: quod quidem si verum est, et illud erit necessario non falsum, hominem illam fuisse, non divam. 5. Nam si certum est homines ex illo lapidum iactu nativitatis suae originem ducere, et hanc necesse est credi unam fuisse de nobis, consimilium causarum rationibus procreatam.

Therefore was the Mother of the gods >before> the fall of the deluge nowhere in any part of nature, and, unless the force of the rains had destroyed the whole race of mortals, would the cause and origin of that procreation have ceased? 4. Therefore it is a human endowment, this thing which perceives that it exists, and it owes to the benefactions of Pyrrha that it sees itself clinging in the quality of some substance: which indeed, if it is true, that other will also necessarily be not false—that she was a human, not a goddess. 5. For if it is certain that human beings derive the origin of their birth from that casting of stones, it must also be believed that this one was one of us, procreated by the principles of similar causes.

6. Neque enim fieri rerum per repugnantiam quivit, ut ex uno lapidum genere et ex eadem ratione iaciendi immortalium quidam sortis, condicionis alii substituerentur humanae. 7. Varro ille Romanus multiformibus eminens disciplinis et in vetustatis indagatione rimator in librorum quattuor primo quos de gente conscriptos Romani populi dereliquit curiosis computationibus edocet, ab diluvii | f. 102 b | tempore, cuius supra fecimus mentionem, ad usque Hirti consulatum et Pansae annorum esse milia nondum duo: cum quo si stat fides, Mater quoque dicenda est Magna intra huius numeri fines aevitatem suam habere conclusam, atque ita perducitur res eo, ut quae omnium numinum genetrix esse narratur non sit mater sed filia, quinimmo infans et parvula, siquidem deos concedimus neque initia neque fines saeculorum perpetua in continuatione sortitos.

6. For it could not, by a repugnancy of things, come to pass that from one kind of stones and from the same rationale of throwing, some should be assigned to the lot of the immortals and others to the human condition. 7. That Roman Varro, eminent in multiform disciplines and a rummager in the investigation of antiquity, in the first of the four books which, written on the race of the Roman people, he left behind, teaches by curious computations that from the time of the deluge, of which we made mention above, down to the consulship of Hirtius and Pansa, there are not yet two thousand years: with which, if trust stands, the Great Mother also must be said to have her age enclosed within the bounds of this number, and thus the matter is brought to this point, that she who is narrated to be the genetrix of all divinities is not a mother but a daughter—nay rather, an infant and a little child—since we concede that the gods have had neither beginnings nor ends of ages in perpetual continuation. | f. 102 b |

9.1. Sed quid terrenis obvolvisse vos sordibus deum loquimur matrem, cum ab Iovis ipsius maledictis nullam pausam facere vel exigui temporis intercapedine quiveritis? 2. "Cum in summo Agdi vertice deum dormiret tum genetrix, obrepere conquiescentis pudori filius, inquitis, insidiator enisus est". 3. - Post innumeras virgines et spoliatas castitate matronas etiamne in matrem cupiditatis infandae spem Iuppiter cepit, nec ab illius adpetitionis ardore horror eum quivit avertere, quem non hominibus solis sed animalibus quoque nonnullis natura ipsa subiecit, et ingeneratus ille communiter sensus? 4. An respectus pietatis et honesti Capitoliorum defuit praesidi, nec quid sceleris cuperet conturbatis per insaniam mentibus aut retractare poterat aut pervidere?

9.1. But why do we say that you have wrapped the mother of the god in earthly filths, when you have not been able to make any pause, not even by an interval of slight time, from the maledictions against Jupiter himself? 2. "When on the highest summit of Agde the mother of the gods was sleeping, then, you say, the son strove, as an insidiator, to creep upon the modesty of the one at rest." 3. - After innumerable virgins and matrons despoiled of chastity, did Jupiter even conceive hope of an unspeakable lust toward his mother, nor could horror turn him away from the blaze of that desire—a horror with which nature itself has endowed not only human beings but even certain animals, that inborn feeling common to all? 4. Or did regard for piety and for the honestum fail the protector of the Capitols, and, his minds disturbed through madness, could he neither reconsider nor clearly perceive what crime he was desiring?

5. Sed ut res est, ponderis et maiestatis oblitus ad furta illa flagitiosa correpens ibat, pavens ac trepidus, anhelitu oris presso, suspensis per formidinem gressibus et inter media constitutus sol| f. 103 |licitudinis speique confinia palpabat res intimas, altitudinem dormientis et matris patientiam temptans. 6. O rerum imaginatio indecora! o habitus foedus Iovis ad obsceni certaminis expeditionem parati!

5. But as the matter is, forgetful of weight and majesty he went creeping to those scandalous thefts, quaking and tremulous, with the breath of his mouth pressed, with steps suspended in fear, and set in the very midst at the borders of sol| f. 103 |icitude and hope he was groping at the inmost things, testing the depth of the sleeper’s slumber and the mother’s patience. 6. O unseemly imagination of things! o foul array of Jove, prepared for the expedition of an obscene contest!

Ergone ille rex mundi, cum incautus et properus obreptionis esset reiectus a furto, in inpetum se vertit et quoniam rapere voluptatem insidiosa fraude non quivit, vi matrem adgressus est et apertissime coepit venerabilem subruere castitatem? Conluctatus ergo diutissime cum invita est, victus, fractus superatus que defecit, et quem pietas diiugare ab infando matris non valuit adpetitu, effusa libido diiunxit?

Therefore did that king of the world, when incautious and hasty in his creeping approach he had been thrown back from the theft, turn to an onrush, and since he could not seize the pleasure by insidious fraud, attack his mother by force and most openly begin to undermine her venerable chastity? Having wrestled then for a very long time with the unwilling one, beaten, broken, overcome, he failed; and him whom pietas could not disjoin from the unspeakable appetite for his mother, did effused lust disjoin?

10.1. Nisi forte dicetis: "Conventionis huiusmodi coetum genus vitat atque execratur humanum, apud deos incesta sunt nulla". 2. - Et cur mater acerrime pugnabat inferenti vim filio? Cur ab illius amplexibus tamquam inlicitos vitans refugiebat adtactus? 3. Nam si nihil esset in re mali, tam gerere illa morem sine ulla retractione debuerat quam volebat hic cupide adpetitionis suae inritamenta complere.

10.1. Unless perhaps you will say: "A congress of a convention of this sort the human race shuns and execrates; among the gods there are no incestuous acts." 2. And why was the mother fighting most bitterly against the son inflicting force? Why was she fleeing from his embraces, shunning the touches as illicit? 3. For if there were nothing of evil in the matter, she ought just as much to defer without any retraction as he eagerly wished to complete the incitements of his appetition.

4. Et sane hoc loco frugalitatis magnae viri et circa res etiam flagitiosi operis parciores, ne sancta illa semina frustra videantur effusa, "silex, inquit, ebibit Iovialis incontinentiae foeditatem". 5. - Quid deinde, quaeso, consecutum est? Dicite. "In sinu medio lapidis atque in illa cotis duritie informatus atque animatus est infans, Iovis magni futura progenies". 6. - Non est facile contradicere tam | f. 103b | prodigiosis conceptionibus tamque miris.

4. And indeed at this point, of a man of great frugality and, even in matters of a flagitious deed, more sparing—lest those sacred seeds seem to have been poured out in vain—"a flint," he says, "will drink up the foulness of Jovial incontinence." 5. - What then, I ask, was achieved? Say. "In the very bosom of the stone and in that hardness of the whetstone, the infant was formed and animated, the future progeny of great Jove." 6. - It is not easy to contradict such | f. 103b | prodigious and so wondrous conceptions.

Cum enim genus humanum ex lapidibus apud vos ortum procreatumque dicatur, necesse est credere et receptacula lapides habuisse genitalia et iaculatam conbibisse sementem et completis temporibus sustulisse alvos graves et ad postremum peperisse feminei moris difficultate conixos. 7. Illud nostram subigit curiositatem requirere: "Cum post decem menses redditum esse dicatis partum, illo tempore quo in utero lapidis fuit clausus quibus alimoniis inrigatus est, quibus sucis, vel ex rigore quae saxeo nutricia potuit ducere, ut est fetibus sollemne de matribus?". 8. "Nondum, inquit, contigerat lucem et tonitrus patrios iam mugiens imitatusque referebat: et postquam illi datum est caelum diemque conspicere, obvia quaeque vastabat incursans atque ipsos sibi spondebat deos caeli posse ab regione detrudere". 9. - O cauta et provida deum mater, quae ne nati invidiam tam insolentis subiret aut mugiens fetus somnis suis officeret aut interpellaret quietem, subtraxit se ipsam et seminis illud nocentissimum virus transmisit ab se longe et saxorum asperitatibus propinavit.

Since among you the human race is said to have arisen and been procreated from stones, it is necessary to believe that the stones too had genital receptacles, and that they drank in the hurled seed, and, the times completed, carried heavy wombs, and at last gave birth, having strained with the difficulty of the feminine manner. 7. That urges our curiosity to inquire: "Since you say the birth was delivered after ten months, at that time when he was enclosed in the womb of the stone, by what aliments was he irrigated, by what juices, or from the stony rigor what nurture was he able to draw, as is customary for fetuses from mothers?" 8. "Not yet," he says, "had he reached the light, and already, bellowing, he was imitating and reproducing the paternal thunders: and after it was granted to him to behold the sky and the day, he would ravage whatever met him, charging about, and he promised to himself that he could thrust even the gods of heaven from their region." 9. - O cautious and provident mother of the gods, who, lest she should incur the ill will for so insolent a son, or the bellowing fetus should obstruct her sleeps or interrupt her rest, withdrew herself and sent far away from herself that most noxious virus of seed and brought it near to the asperities of rocks.

11.1. "Aestuatum est in conciliis deorum quibusnam modis esset intractabilis illa feritas edominari, et cum via nulla superesset, ad opem concursum est unicam, ut mero madidaretur multo et virilibus spoliaretur abscisis". 2. - Quasi vero adfecti corporalibus his damnis fiant languidioris audaciae, et non cotidie videamus eos | f. 104 | qui sibi demessuerint has partes maioris petulantiae fieri atque omnibus postpositis pudoris et verecundiae frenis in obscenam prorumperevilitatem flagitiorum confessione vulgata. 3. Vellem tamen videre, si esset mihi his nasci temporibus datum, patrem illum Liberum debellatorem ferocitatis Agdestiae, post deorum augustissimas curias caeli ab culminibus lapsum, peniculamenta decurtantem cantheriorum, innectentem laqueos mobiles, aquarum innoxias puritates multa sauciantem vi meri, et postquam ebrietas potuemersit, inseruisse caute manus, contrectavisse virilia dormientis, atque ut omnia cingerent circumpositi laqueorum morsus, artificii curas i<ta> tum rebus adhibuisse perituris.

11.1. "There was seething deliberation in the councils of the gods by what methods that unmanageable ferocity might be subjugated, and when no way remained, they rushed to the single aid, that he be drenched with much unmixed wine and be despoiled of his virilia, cut off." 2. - As though indeed, when affected by these bodily losses, they become of feebler boldness, and do we not see every day those | f. 104 | who have reaped off these parts for themselves become of greater petulance and, with all the reins of shame and modesty set aside, burst forth into obscene baseness, the confession of their disgraces made public. 3. Nevertheless I should have liked to see—if it had been given me to be born in these times—that Liber Pater, the war-queller of the ferocity of Agdestis, after the most august curiae of the gods, slipped down from the summits of heaven, trimming the tail-tufts of pack-horses, fastening shifting nooses, wounding the innocuous purities of waters with much force of wine, and, after drunkenness from drink hademerged, that he cautiously inserted his hands, handled the virilia of the sleeper, and, in order that the encircling bites of the nooses placed around might gird everything, that he then applied the attentions of craft to things destined to perish.

12.1. Hocine de diis quisquam vel exigua dixerit eorum opinione pollutus? Aut si talibus occupati sunt negotiis cogitationibus curis, quisquam eos sapiens aut deos esse crediderit aut mortalium saltem in numero conputaverit? 2. Agdestis iste, oro, cuius obscenitas amputata securitatem fuerat inlatura caelestibus, ex terrenis animantibus unus fuit an deorum aliquis et inmortalitatis praeditus honore?

12.1. Would anyone say this about the gods—even in the slightest—without being polluted by their opinion? Or if they are occupied with such businesses, cogitations, cares, would any wise person have believed them to be gods, or at least have computed them in the number of mortals? 2. This Agdestis, I pray, whose obscenity, once amputated, was going to bring security to the celestials—was he one of the earthly living beings, or one of the gods and endowed with the honor of immortality?

3. Si enim nostrae sortis et condicionis habebatur humanae, cur terrorem tantum numinibus inferebat? 4. Deus autem si fuerat, qui potuit decipi aut de divino aliquid ex corpore desecari? 5. Sed quaestionem movemus parte in hac nullam; fuerit licet de divino genere vel ex nobis aliquis, si hoc rectius existimabitis dici: etiamne fluore | f. 104b | de sanguinis et ex genitalibus amputatis arbor mali enata est punici, tantumque quod vis illa telluris cooperta est gremio solum radice complexa est, in stipitis exiluit robur, oneratos fudit balaustiis ramos et in puncti spatio poma extulit mitia, perfectionis propriae maturitate completa?

3. For if he was held to be of our lot and human condition, why did he bring such terror upon the numina? 4. But if he was a god, how could he be deceived, or could anything divine be cut off from his body? 5. But we raise no question in this part; let him have been of divine stock, or even someone from among us, if you judge this better to be said: even from a flow | f. 104b | of blood and from the genitals, once amputated, did a tree of the pomegranate arise, and to such a degree that, when the force of the earth had covered it in her bosom and it had embraced the soil with a root alone, the strength of a trunk sprang forth, it poured out branches burdened with balaustia (pomegranate blossoms), and in the space of a point it bore mellow fruits, completed by the maturity of its own perfection?

6. Et quia de rubro exorta sunt haec sanguine, idcirco illis color est purpurei luminis suffectione subluteus; addite huc etiam idcirco esse uvida, idcirco vinosa, quod ex sanguine saburrati genus ducant, et fabulam convenienter implestis. 7. O Abdera, Abdera, >dares> quantas vias mortalibus inridendi, talis si apud te esset fabula ita conflata! Dicunt eam cuncti patres et supereiliosae perlegunt civitates, et esse tu fatua et stoliditatis frigidissimae iudicaris.

6. And because these things arose from red blood, therefore their color is somewhat yellowish by the suffusion of purple light; add to this also that therefore they are moist, therefore winy, since, freighted with blood, they draw their kind; and you have duly filled out the fable. 7. O Abdera, Abdera, >dares> how many ways to mortals for mocking, if such a fable had been concocted thus among you! All the fathers tell it and supercilious cities read it through, and you are judged fatuous and of the most frigid stolidity.

13.1. "Per sinum, inquit, Nana filium concepit ex pomo". - Sequitur se ratio: ubi enim cautes et saxa pariunt dura, ibi poma necesse est suriant. 2. "Glandibus atque ficis alebat Berecyntia religatam". - Convenienter et recte: pomis enim debuerat vivere quae mater fuerat facta de pomo. 3. "Postquam fetus emissus est, longe iussus est ab Sangario proici": - quem conceptum divinitus eredidit esse iamdudum, dedignatus est subolemsui pignoris nuneupari.

13.1. "Through the bosom, he says, Nana conceived a son from an apple." - The rationale follows: for where crags and hard rocks bring forth, there it is necessary that apples spring up. 2. "With acorns and figs the Berecyntian was nourishing her, bound." - Suitably and rightly: for she who had been made a mother from a fruit ought to have lived on fruits. 3. "After the fetus was sent forth, he was ordered to be cast far away from the Sangarius": - he whom he had long since believed to have been conceived divinely, he disdained to have the offspring be styled the issue of his own pledge.

4. "Lacte infans educatus hirquino est". - O fabulam sexui inimicam semper atque infestissimam masculino, in qua [se] secus virile non solum homines ponunt, sed pecudes etiam fiunt ex maribus matres. 5. "Pulcritudine inclita et praedicabili fuit | f. 105 | insignitus decore". - Admirabilis res satis, quod non illum fetor vitabilem reddidit fugiendumque caprinus. 6. "Mater eum dilexit Magna". - Si nepotem ut avia, res simplex, sin theatra ut percrepant, infamis et flagitiosa dilectio est.

4. "The infant was reared on he-goat’s milk." - O fable inimical to sex and most hostile to the masculine, in which [themselves] not only do humans set themselves against the virile sex, but even herd-beasts become mothers from males. 5. "By renowned and proclaimable beauty he was | f. 105 | marked with comeliness." - A quite admirable thing, that the caprine stench did not render him detestable and to be fled. 6. "The Mother loved him, the Great." - If a grandmother her grandson, a simple matter; but if, as the theaters keep proclaiming, infamous and scandalous is the affection.

7. "Diligebat et Agdestis venatoriis eum muneribus locupletans". - Ab semiviro quidem nullum esse poterat periculum castitati, sed quid Midas horruerit, non est facile suspicantibusaestimare.8. "Ipsis Mater est ingressa cum moenibus". - Admirabamur quidem in hac parte vires et fortitudinem numinis, sed culpamus neglegentiam rursus, quod cum legis meminisset et fati, patefecerit hostibus minus provida civitatem. 9. "Nuptialia celebrantibus vota furias Agdestis insaniamque subiecit". - Si Midas rex offenderat, qui uxore adulescentulum vinciebat, quid admiserat Gallus, quid pelicis filia, ut ille se viro, haec mammarum honestate privaret? 10. "Tibi habe haec, inquit, propter quae res tantas animorum subversionibus concitasti". - Nesciremus adhuc omnes quid in adulti corpore furor desiderasset Agdestius, nisi puer abscisa satietatis obiecisset offensi.

7. "He also loved him, Agdestis enriching him with venatorial gifts." - From a half‑man indeed there could be no danger to chastity, but what Midas shuddered at is not easy for surmisers toestimate.8. "The Mother herself entered within the walls." - We did admire in this part the powers and fortitude of the numen, but we blame negligence in turn, because, though she remembered the law and fate, she, less provident, laid the city open to enemies. 9. "While they were celebrating nuptial vows, Agdestis imposed Furies and madness." - If King Midas had offended, who was binding the youth with a wife, what had the Gallus committed, what the daughter of the concubine, that he should deprive himself of manhood, and she of the honor of her breasts? 10. "'Have these for yourself,' he said, 'on account of which you have stirred up such great affairs with upturnings of souls'." - We all should still not know what Agdestis’s frenzy had desired in the body of the grown youth, had not the boy, with the cut‑off things, proffered satiety to the offended one.

14.1. Quid dicitis o gentes? quid huiusmodi deditae opinionibus nationes? nonne cum ista promuntur, arripit vos pudor et tantarum verecundia foeditatum?

14.1. What do you say, O peoples? what do nations devoted to opinions of this sort say? Does not shame seize you when these things are brought forward, and shamefacedness at such great foulnesses?

2. Nos avemus a vobis quid de diis dignum vel audire vel discere, at vero vos nobis mammarum expromitis | f. 105b | exsectiones, amputationes virilium veretrorum, iras sanguinem furias, interitus virginum voluntarios et ex sanguìne mortuorum flores atque arbores procreatas. 3. Dicite o iterum, ergone deum mater genitalia illa desecta cum fluoribus ipsa per se maerens officiosa sedulitate collegit, ipsa sanctis manibus, ipsa divinis contrectavit ac sustulit flagitiosi operis instrumenta foedique, abscondenda etiam mandavit terrae, ac ne nuda in gremio diffluerent sic soli, priusquam veste velaret ac tegeret, lavit utique, balsamis atque unxit? 4. Unde enim violae nasci potuissent odorae, nisi putorem membri unguentorum illa suffectio temperaret?

2. We long from you to hear or to learn something worthy about the gods; but in truth you serve up to us excisions of breasts, | f. 105b | amputations of male virile members, wraths, blood, furies, voluntary deaths of virgins, and flowers and trees procreated from the blood of the dead. 3. Say, O, again: therefore did the mother of the god, those genitals cut off, with the effusions, she herself, mourning in herself, with officious sedulity gather them up—she with holy hands, she with divine hands—handle and lift the instruments of a flagitious and foul deed, and even commit them to the earth to be hidden; and, lest, naked, they should thus, to the sun, melt away in her lap, before she might veil and cover them with a garment, did she indeed wash and anoint them with balms? 4. For whence could fragrant violets have been able to be born, unless that suffusion of unguents tempered the stench of the member?

5. Cum historias, quaeso, perlegitis tales, nonne vobis videmini aut textriculas puellas audire taediosi operis circumscribentes moras aut infantibus credulis avocamenta quaeritantes anus longaevas et varias fictiones sub imagine veritatis expromere? 6. "Cum Iove locutus est Agdestis, ut amato restitueret vitam; adnuere Iuppiter recusavit, quia fatis potentioribus prohibebatur: ac ne esset omnino durissimus, unam largitus est gratiam, ne putore corpus dissolveretur ullo, succrescerent comae semper, minimissimus digitorum solus ut in corpore viveret, solus motus perpetuos exhiberet". 7. - Hocine quisquam admiserit aut credulitatis adsensione firmarit, pilum in mortuo | f. 106 | crescere, partem >non> interisse et seiunctum ab lege putredinis mortale corpus adhuc usque durare?

5. When you read through such histories, I ask, do you not seem to yourselves either to be listening to little weaver-girls spinning out the delays of a tedious task, or to long-lived old women seeking amusements for credulous infants, and bringing forth various fictions under the image of truth? 6. "Agdestis spoke with Jove, that he should restore life to her beloved; Jupiter refused to assent, because he was forbidden by more powerful fates: and lest he be altogether most hard, he bestowed a single grace—that the body should not be dissolved by any stench, that the hair should ever grow again, that the very smallest of the fingers alone should live in the body, alone should exhibit perpetual motions." 7. —Would anyone admit this, or make it firm by an assent of credulity—that a hair should grow on a dead man | f. 106 |, a part >non> to have perished, and a mortal body, severed from the law of putrefaction, should still endure even now?

15.1. Urgere vos iamdudum ad istius rei conprobationem possemus, nisi stultitiae paris esset et talia dicere et huiusmodi rerum indicia postulare. 2. "Sed historia haec falsa est neque ullam continet veritatis in se partem". - Nostra quidem nihil interest, quorum causa contenditis exterminatos esse ab terris deos, utrumne sit constans et fidei firmitate conixa an contra mendaciter et falsitatis alicuius fictione composita. 3. Nobis enim satis est, quibus hodie manifestare propositum est numina ista quae promitis, si sunt uspiam gentium atque irarum fervoribus incalescunt, non magis a nobis quam a vobis accipere offensionum furialium causas, et esse illam in rebus et a vobis in commentarios relatam et a volentibus eotidie perlegi et futuri temporis pro instructione per ordinem succedentium tradi.

15.1. We could have long since pressed you to the corroboration of that matter, did it not be of equal foolishness both to say such things and to demand evidences of things of this sort. 2. "But this history is false and contains in itself no part of truth." - To us indeed it makes no difference, for whose sake you contend that the gods have been exterminated from the lands, whether it be consistent and resting on the firmness of faith, or on the contrary mendacious and composed by some fiction of falsity. 3. For it is enough for us, to whom today it has been proposed to make manifest those numina which you put forward—if they are anywhere among the nations and grow hot with the fervors of wraths—that they take the causes of furial offenses no more from us than from you; and that that [history] is among real events, and has been by you entered into commentaries, and is every day read through by the willing, and is handed down for the instruction of future time to those succeeding in order.

4. - Quae si utique vera est, nullam videmus subesse rationem cur nobis irasci perhibeantur dii caelites, cum turpitudines illorum tantas neque nos prodiderimus neque in litteras contulerimus ullas neque in publicam testificationem sacrorum celebritatibus miserimus. Sin autem, ut remini, falsa est et mendaciis interpolata fallaeibus, ambigere hominum nullus potest, quin causa vos sitis offensae, qui vel talia quosdam conscribere siveritis aut conscripta durare saeculorum o in memoria sitis passi.

4. - Which, if indeed it is true, we see no reason underlying why the celestial gods are said to be angry with us, since such great turpitudes of theirs neither have we betrayed, nor have we consigned into any letters, nor have we sent into public attestation by the celebrations of sacred rites. But if, as you remember, it is false and interpolated with fallacious lies, no one among men can doubt that you are the cause of the offense, you who have either allowed certain persons to write such things, or, once written, have allowed them to endure in the memory of the ages.

16.1. Et tamen qui potestis | f. 106b | falsitatis arguere conscriptionem istam, cum ipsa sacra sint testimonio, quae per cursus annuos factitatis, et eredi a vobis esse veram et exploratae fidei iudicari? 2. Quid enim sibi vult illa pinus, quam semper statutis diebus in deum matris intromittitis sanctuario? Nonne illius similitudo est arboris, sub qua sibi furens manus et infelix adulescentulus intulit et genetrix divum in solatium sui vulneris consecravit?

16.1. And yet how can you be able to arraign that conscription of falsity, when the sacred rites themselves are a testimony, which through the yearly courses you perform, and are by you believed to be true and judged of explored (tried) faith? 2. For what does that pine mean, which you always on appointed days bring into the sanctuary of the Mother of the gods? Is it not the similitude of that tree, under which, raging, the ill-fated adolescent laid hands upon himself, and the genetrix of the gods consecrated it as a solace for her wound?

3. Quid lanarum vellera, quibus arboris conligatis et circumvolvitis stipitem? nonne illarum repetitio lanarum est, quibus Ia deficientem contexit et teporis aliquid rata est se posse membris conciliare frigentibus? 4. Quid compti violaceis coronis et redimiti arboris ramuli?

3. What of the fleeces of wool, with which you bind together and wrap around the tree’s trunk? Is it not a repetition of those wools, with which Ida covered the failing one and supposed she could reconcile some warmth to the freezing limbs? 4. What of the little branches of the tree adorned with violet-colored crowns and wreathed?

nonne illud indicant, uti mater primigeniis floribus adornaverit pinum, miserabilis indicem testimoniumque fortunae? 5. Quid pectoribus adplodentes palmas passis cum crinibus Galli? nonne illos referunt in memoriam luctus, quibus mater turrita cum Agdesti lacrimabili puerum prosecuta est heiulatu?

do they not indicate this, that the mother adorned the pine with primigenial flowers, a pitiable index and testimony of fortune? 5. What of the Galli, striking their palms upon their breasts, with hair let loose? do they not call back into memory the mourning with which the turreted mother, together with Agdestis, escorted the boy with tearful keening?

6. Quid temperatus ab alimonio panis, cui rei dedistis nomen castus? nonne illius temporis imitatio est quo se numen ab Cereris fruge violentia maeroris abstinuit?

6. What of the bread tempered from aliment, to which thing you have given the name “chaste”? Is it not an imitation of that time when the divinity, by the violence of mourning, abstained from the fruit of Ceres?

17.1. Aut si ea quae dicimus non sunt ita, vos edissertate, vos dicite: evirati isti mollesque, quos interesse vobiscum in istius numinis videmus sacris, quidnam istic habeant negotii sollicitudinis curae, et cur more lugentium caedant cum pectoribus lacertos | f. 107 | et fortunam imitentur in lamentabili constitutorum sorte? 2. Quid coronae, quid violae, quid volucra mollium velamenta lanarum? Cur ad ultimum pinus ipsa, paulo ante in dumis inertissimum nutans lignum, mox ut aliquod praesens atque augustissimum numen deum matris constituatur in sedibus?

17.1. Or if the things which we say are not so, you expound, you say: those emasculated and effeminate fellows, whom we see take part with you in the sacra of that numen, what business of solicitude and care have they there, and why, in the manner of mourners, do they beat their upper arms along with their chests | f. 107 | and imitate Fortune in the lamentable lot of those who have been set? 2. What of the garlands, what of the violets, what of the light veils of soft wools? Why, at the last, is the pine itself, a little before nodding as a most inert piece of wood in the thickets, soon constituted as some present and most august numen of the Mother of the gods in her seats?

3. Aut enim haec causa est, quam in vestris scriptis et commentariis invenimus, et manifestum vos est non divinas conficere caerimonias sed imaginem tristium redintegrare gestorum; aut si alia ratio est, quam mysterii nobis abnegavit obscuritas, et ipsa quoque necesse est turpitudinis alicuius participetur infamia. Quis est enim qui credat, honestatis aliquid in ea re esse quam initiant viles Galli, effeminati conficiant exoleti?

3. Either indeed this is the cause, which we have found in your writings and commentaries, and it is manifest that you do not perform divine ceremonies but reintegrate the image of sorrowful deeds; or, if there is another rationale, which the obscurity of the mystery has denied to us, it too must of necessity partake in the infamy of some turpitude. For who is there who would believe that there is anything of honor in that matter which base Galli initiate, which effeminate catamites accomplish?

18.1. Postulat quidem magnitudo materiae atque ipsius defensionis officium, ut similiter ceteras turpitudinum species persequamur, vel quas produnt antiquitatis historiae vel mysteria illa continent sancta quibus initiis nomen est et quae non omnibus vulgo sed paucorum taciturnitatibus traditis. 2. Sed sacrorum innumeri ritus atque adfixa deformitas singulis corporaliter prohibet universa nos exsequi: quinimmo, ut verius experimamus, a quibus nos ipsi consilio et ratione deflectimus, ne dum expelicare contendimus cuncta, expositionis ipsius contaminationibus polluamur. 3. Fentam igitur Fatuam, Bona quae dicitur Dea, transeamus, quam murteis caesam virgis, quod marito | f. 107b | nesciente seriam meri ebiberit plenam, Sextus Clodius indicat sexto de diis graeco, signumque monstrari quod, cum ei divinam rem mulieres faciunt,vini amphora constituatur obtecta nec myrteas fas sit inferre verbenas, sicut suis scribit in causalibus Butas.

18.1. The magnitude of the matter and the very office of the defense indeed demands that in like manner we pursue the other species of turpitudes, whether those which the histories of antiquity betray or those sacred mysteries which bear the name of initiations and are delivered not to all in common, but to the silences of a few. 2. But the innumerable rites of the sacra and the deformity affixed to each severally corporeally forbid us to carry out the whole: nay rather, that we may more truly ascertain, from certain ones a quibus we ourselves, by counsel and reason, turn aside, lest, while we strive to unfold all things, we be polluted by the contaminations of the exposition itself. 3. Let us therefore pass over Fenta Fatua, who is called the Bona Dea, whom, Sextus Clodius indicates in the sixth of the Greek On the Gods, was beaten with myrtle rods because, her husband | f. 107b | not knowing, she drank down a jar full of unmixed wine; and that a sign is shown that, when women perform a divine rite for her, a wine amphora is set up covered, nor is it right to bring in myrtle twigs, as Butas writes in his own Causales.

4. Sed et deos Conserentis pari more ac dissimulatione taceamus, quos cum ceteris scribit Flaccus in humani penis similitudinem versos obruisse >se> cineri, qui sub ollula fuerat factus extorum: quem cum Tanaquil dimoveret Etruriae disciplinarum perita, subrexisse se deos et nervis obduruisse divinis. 5. Corniculanae inde imperavisse captivae, ut intellegeret et agnosceret quid sibi res vellet; Ocrisiam prudentissimam feminam divos inseruisse genitali, explicuisse motus certos: tunc sancta ecferventia numina vim vomuisse Lucilii ac regem Servium natum esse Romanum.

4. But let us also keep silence about the gods of the Conserentes in like manner and with dissimulation, whom, along with the others, Flaccus writes to have been turned into the similitude of a human penis and to have buried >themselves> in ash, which had been made under a little pot for entrails: when Tanaquil, skilled in the disciplines of Etruria, moved it aside, the gods rose up themselves and hardened with divine nerves. 5. Then they ordered the Corniculan captive, that she should understand and recognize what the matter would have; that Ocrisia, a most prudent woman, had inserted the gods into her genital, and had performed certain set motions: then the sacred, effervescing divinities spewed forth their force, as Lucilius says, and the Roman king Servius was born.

19.1. Bacchanalia etiam praetermittemus inmania quibus nomen Omophagiis graecum est, in quibus furore mentito et sequestrata pectoris sanitate circumplicatis vos anguibus, atque ut vos plenos dei numine ac maiestate doceatis, caprorum reclamantium viscera cruentatis oribus dissipatis. 2. Nec non et Cypriae Veneris abstrusa illa initia praeterimus, quorum conditor indicatur Cinyras rex fuisse, in quibus sumentes ea certas stipes inferunt ut meretrici et referunt phallos propitii numinis signa donatos. 3. Oblivioni etiam Corybantia sacra donentur, in quibus sanctum illud mysterium traditur: | f. 108 | frater trucidatus ab fratribus, interempti ex sanguine apium natum, prohibitum mensis holus illud adponi, ne a Manibus mortui inexpeiabilis contraheretur offensio.

19.1. We will also omit the Bacchanalia, immense things to which the Greek name is Omophagies, in which, with feigned frenzy and the sanity of the breast sequestered, with snakes coiled around yourselves, and in order to show yourselves full of the god’s numen and majesty, you scatter with bloodied mouths the entrails of bleating goats. 2. Nor do we fail likewise to pass over those hidden initiations of Cyprian Venus, whose founder is indicated to have been King Cinyras, in which those taking them bring certain fees as to a meretrix, and carry back phalli, gifts given as tokens of a propitious numen. 3. Let the Corybantic rites also be consigned to oblivion, in which that sacred mysterium is handed down: | f. 108 | a brother slaughtered by brothers; from the blood of the slain, apium born; that vegetable forbidden to be set upon tables, lest an offense not to be expiated be contracted from the Manes of the dead.

4. Sed et illa desistimus Bacchanalia altera praedicare, in quibus arcana el tacenda res proditur insinuaturque sacratis, ut occupatus puerilibus ludicris distractus ab Titanis Libersit, ut ab isdem membratim sectus atque in ollulas coniectus ut coqueretur, quemadmodum Iuppiter suavitate odoris inlectus, invocatus advolarit ad prandium conpertaque re gravi grassatores obruerit ful mine atque in imas Tartari praecipitaverit sedes. 5. Cuius rei testimonium argumentumque fortunae suis prodidit in carminibusThracius talos speculum turbines, volubiles rotulas et teretis pilas et virginibus aurea sumpta ab Hesperidibus mala.

4. But we also desist from proclaiming those other Bacchanalia, in which a secret and a thing to be kept silent is betrayed and insinuated to the consecrated: that, occupied with childish playthings, Liber was distracted by the Titans, so that by these same he was cut up limb by limb and thrown into little pots to be cooked, how Jupiter, enticed by the sweetness of the odor, having been invoked, flew to the luncheon, and, the matter discovered, with a heavy thunder bolt overwhelmed the assailants and hurled them headlong into the lowest seats of Tartarus. 5. As testimony of this matter, and as an argument for his own fortune, theThracian has handed down in his songs knucklebones, a mirror, whirling-tops, rolling little wheels and smooth balls, and golden apples taken by the maidens from the Hesperides.

20.1. Erat nobis consilium praeterire, praetervehi illa etiam mysteria, quibus Phrygia initiatur atque omnisgens illa, nisi nomen interpositum his Iovis prohiberet nos strictim iniurias eius ignominiasque transire, non quo nobis dulce sit tam foedis inequitare mysteriis, sed ut ipsis vobis promptum etiam atque etiam fiat, quid in eos congeratis iniuriae quorum profitemini vos esse eustodes vindices veneratores. 2. "Quondam Diespiter, inquiunt, cum in Cererem suam matrem libidinibus improbis atque inconcessis cupiditatibus aestuaret - nam genetrix haec Iovis regionis eius ab accolis traditur - neque tamen auderet id quod procaci adpetitione | f. 108b | conceperat apertissima vi petere, ingeniosas comminiscitur captiones quibus nihil tale metuentem castitate imminueret genetricem: fit ex deo taurus et sub pecoris specie subsessoris animum atque audaciam celans in securam et nesciam repentina immittitur vi furens, agit incestius res suas et prodita per libidinem fraude intellectus et cognitus evolat. 3. Ardescit furiis atque indignationibus mater, spumat anhelat exaestuat nec fremitum continere tempestatemque irarum valens ex continua passione Brimo deìnceps ut appelletur adsumpsit, neque alia cordi est res ei quin audaciam filii poenis quibus potis est persequatur".

20.1. We had the plan to pass by, to sail past even those mysteries by which Phrygia is initiated and the wholepeople in that kind, unless the name of Jupiter inserted among these should forbid us to pass briefly over his injuries and ignominies—not because it is sweet for us to ride upon such foul mysteries, but so that it may become ever more evident to you yourselves what injuries you heap upon those whom you profess yourselves to be guardians, avengers, and venerators. 2. "Once, they say, Diespiter, when he burned toward Ceres, his own mother, with improper lusts and unconceded cupidities— for this woman is reported by the inhabitants of that region to be the mother of Jupiter— yet did not dare to seek by most open force that which he had conceived in shameless craving, he devises ingenious snares by which he might diminish the chastity of his mother, who feared nothing of the sort: from a god he becomes a bull, and under the appearance of cattle, hiding the spirit and audacity of an ambusher, he is sent in upon the secure and unsuspecting woman with sudden fury; he conducts his business most incestuously, and when the deceit is laid bare by his lust, understood and recognized, he flies away. | f. 108b | 3. The mother blazes with furies and indignations, she foams, pants, boils over, and, not able to restrain her roar and the storm of angers, from continual passion she took on thereafter to be called Brimo, nor is anything else dear to her heart except to pursue the audacity of her son with punishments as far as she is able".

21.1. "Iuppiter satagit fractus metu nec quibus remediis leniat violatae animos reperit. Fundit preces et subplicat: obstruetae sunt dolentis aures. 2. Adlegatur deorum universus ordo: nullius auctoritas tanta est ut audiatur.

21.1. "Jupiter is busy, broken by fear, nor does he discover by what remedies he might soothe the feelings of the violated one. He pours out prayers and supplicates: the ears of the grieving one are stopped up. 2. The whole order of the gods is adduced: no one’s authority is so great that she be listened to.

Ad postremum filius vias satisfactionis inquirens comminiscitur remedium tale: arietem nobilem bene grandibus cum testiculis deligit, exsecat hos ipse et lanato exuit ex folliculi tegmine. 3. Accedens maerens et summissus ad matrem et tamquam ipse sententia condemnavisset se sua, in gremium proicit et iacit hos eius. Virilitate pignoris visa sumit animum mitiorem et concepti fetus revocatur ad curam: parit mensem post decimum luculenti filiam corporis, quam aetas mortalium consequens modo Liberam modo | f. 109 | Proserpinam nuncupavit.

At last the son, seeking ways of satisfaction, devises such a remedy: he selects a noble ram with well-large testicles, he himself excises these and, woolly, strips them out from the covering of the scrotal follicle. 3. Approaching his mother, grieving and submissive, and as though by a sentence he had condemned his own manhood, he flings and casts these into her lap. The pledge of virility having been seen, she takes a milder spirit, and care for the conceived fetus is recalled: after the tenth month she bears a splendid daughter in body, whom the succeeding age of mortals has named now Libera, now | f. 109 | Proserpina.

4. Quam cum verveceus Iuppiter bene validam, floridam et suci esse conspiceret plenioris, oblitus paulo ante quid malorum et sceleris esset adgressus et temeritatis quantum, redit ad prioris actus, et quia nefarium videbatur satis patrem cum filia comminus uxoria coniugatione misceri, in draconis terribilem formam migrat, ingentibus spiris pavefactam colligat virginem et sub obtentu fero mollissimis ludit atque adulatur amplexibus. 5. Fit ut et ipsa de semine fortissimi compleatur Iovis, sed non eadem condicione qua mater: nam illa filiam reddidit liniamentis descriptam suis, at ex partu virginis tauri specie fusa Iovialis monumenta pellaciae". 6. - Auctorem aliquis desiderabit rei: tum illum citabimus Tarentinum notumque senarium, quem antiquitas canit dicens: "Taurus draconem genuit et taurum draco". Ipsa novissime sacra et ritus initiationis ipsius, quibus Sebadiis nomen est, testimonio esse poterunt veritati: in quibus aureus coluber in sinum demittitur consecratis et eximitur rursus ab inferioribus partibus atque imis.

4. When ram-like Jupiter saw that she was quite sturdy, blooming and of a fuller sap, forgetting what evils and crime he had but a little before undertaken and how great a rashness, he returns to his prior deeds; and because it seemed sufficiently nefarious for a father with his daughter to be mingled at close quarters in uxorial conjugation, he migrates into the terrible form of a dragon, with huge coils he gathers the terrified virgin, and under a fierce covering he plays and cajoles with the softest embraces. 5. It comes about that she too is filled from the seed of most mighty Jove, but not under the same condition as her mother: for that one returned a daughter delineated by her own lineaments, but from the virgin’s delivery there issued, in the appearance of a bull, the Jovian monuments of beguilement. 6. — Someone will desire an author for the matter: then we will cite that well-known Tarentine senarius, which antiquity sings, saying: “The bull begot the dragon, and the dragon the bull.” Lastly, the sacra themselves and the rites of the initiation itself, to which the name is the Sebadia, will be able to be testimony for the truth: in these a golden serpent is let down into the bosom of the consecrated, and is drawn out again from the lower parts and the very lowest.

22.1. Non esse arbitror necessarium sermone quoque hic multo membra ire per singula quantaeque insint in partibus pravis turpitudinum scatebrae flagitiorumque monstrare. 2. Quis est enim mortalium vel exiguae humanitatis sensum ferens qui non ipse pervideat, qualia sint haec omnia, | f. 109b | quam scelerata, quam foeda quantasque ignominias differant ex ipsis mysteriorum sacris et ex sacrorum originibus indecoris? 3. "Iuppiter, inquit, exarsit in Cererem". - Quid tantum, quaeso, de vobis Iuppiter iste quicumque est meruit, quod genus est nullum probri, infame, adulterium nullum, quod in eius non caput velut in aliquam congeratis vilem luteam que personam?

22.1. I do not think it necessary, also here, with much discourse, to go through the limbs one by one and to show how great in the depraved parts are the spurtings of turpitudes and of disgraces. 2. For who among mortals, bearing even the sense of the slightest humanity, does not himself clearly see of what sort all these things are, | f. 109b | how criminal, how foul, and what ignominies they carry from the very sacred rites of the mysteries and from the unseemly origins of the sacred things? 3. "Jupiter," he says, "blazed with passion for Ceres." — What so great, I ask, has this Jupiter, whoever he is, deserved from you, that there is no kind of disgrace, no infamy, no adultery, which you do not heap upon his head, as upon some cheap and clayey mask, a persona?

4. "Matrimonii prodidit ius Leda": - Iuppiter esse dicitur auctor culpae. "Virginitatem Danae custodire nequivit": - furtum esse narratur Iovis. 5. "Ad mulieris nomen properavit Europa": - expugnator pudicitiae idem esse iactatur.

4. "Leda betrayed the right of matrimony": - Jupiter is said to be the author of the fault. "He could not guard the virginity of Danae": - the theft of Jove is narrated. 5. "Europa hastened to the name of woman": - the same is boasted to be a conqueror of pudicity.

"Alcumena Electra Latona Laodamia, mille aliae virgines ac mille matres cumque illis Catamitus puer pudoris spoliatus est honestate": - eadem ubique est Iuppiter fabula, neque ullum turpitudinis genus est, in quo eius non nomen consociatis libidinibus conseratis, ut videatur miserabilis prorsus nullam non esse causam ob aliam natus, nisi ut esset criminum sedes, maledictorum materia, locus quidam expositus, in quem spurcitiae se omnes sentinarum conluvionibus derivarent. 6. Quem tamen si diceretis cum extraneis habuisse commercium feminis, impia res quidem, sed tolerabilis esset maledictionis iniuria. Etiamne in matrem, etiamne in filiam efferati pectoris appetitionibus adhinnivit, neque illum sanctitas aut reverentia genetricis, horror etiam pignoris ex se sati ab imagine potuit | f. 110 | tam foedae cogitationis abducere?

"Alcumena Electra Latona Laodamia, a thousand other virgins and a thousand mothers, and along with them Catamitus, a boy, was despoiled of the honor of modesty": - the Jupiter tale is the same everywhere, and there is no genus of turpitude in which you do not stitch together his name with consociated lusts, so that he appears, pitiable indeed, to have been born for absolutely no other cause except to be the seat of crimes, the material of maledictions, a certain exposed place into which all filths would drain with the bilge-mixtures of sink-pits. 6. Yet if you were to say that he had commerce with women who were outsiders, the thing would indeed be impious, but the injury of the malediction would be tolerable. Did he even whinny after his mother, even after his daughter, with the appetitions of a savage breast, nor could the sanctity or reverence of his begetter, nor even the horror at the pledge begotten from himself by its likeness, avail to draw him away from so foul a thought | f. 110 | ?

23.1. Vellem itaque videre patrem illum deorum Iovem, aeternam rerum atque hominum potestatem, bubulis esse cohonestatum cornibus, hirsutas agitantem aures, contractis in ungulas gressibus rumigantem pallentis herbas et ex parte postica caudam suffragines talos molli fimo perlitum atque intestina proluvie delibutum. 2. Vellem, inquam, videre - dicendum est enim saepius - torquentem illum sidera et qui pallidas nationes fragore perterret et prosternit consectantem vervecum greges, inspicientem testiculos arietinos, arripientem hos manu censoria illa atque divina qua vibrare coruscos ignes et saevire fulminibus suetus est, tum deinde secreta rimantem ferventi null summotisque arbitris circumiectas prolibus diripientem membranulas ferventique adhuc matri velut quasdam infulas eliciendae miserationis offerentem: deductum pallidum saucium, simulantem doloris cruces et ad fidem facto faciendam arietino sanguine coinquinatum et >in> mendacia vulneris laneis fasceis linteolisque contectum. 3. Hocine audiri et perlegi sub mundi hoc axe?

23.1. I should like, then, to see that father of the gods, Jove, the eternal potency of things and of men, adorned with bovine horns, shaking shaggy ears, with his steps contracted into hooves, ruminating pale grasses, and on the hinder part his tail, shanks, and ankles smeared with soft dung and his intestines besmeared with outflow. 2. I should like, I say, to see— for it must be said more often— that one who twists the constellations and who by his crash terrifies and prostrates pallid nations, chasing flocks of wethers, inspecting rams’ testicles, seizing these with that censorial and divine hand with which he is accustomed to brandish coruscant fires and to rage with thunderbolts, then next prying into secrets with a burning null, and the onlookers removed, tearing the little membranes cast around the offspring, and to the mother still hot offering, as it were, certain fillets to elicit compassion: led down, pale, wounded, simulating the torments of pain, and, to make faith in the deed, defiled with rams’ blood, and >in> the lies of the wound wrapped in woolen bandages and little linens. 3. Is this, under this axis of the world, to be heard and read?

Et eos qui haec tractant existimari se velle pios, sanctos religionumque custodes? Estne aliquod sacrilegium hoc maius, aut ulla mens inveniri tam inreligiosis potest opinionibus praedita quam quae talia credit aut accipit aut sacrorum intimis in mysteriis | f. 110b | prodit? 4. Iuppiter ille quicumque est, si sentiret se esse aut si ullo sensu adficeretur iniuriae, nonne digna res esset, propter quam iratus et percitus terram nostris subduceret gressibus, solis lumina extingueret atque lunae, quin immo res omnes in antiquae speciem confunderet unitatis?

And do those who handle these things wish to be thought pious, holy, and custodians of religions? Is there any sacrilege greater than this, or can any mind be found endowed with such irreligious opinions as to believe such things or accept them or, in the innermost mysteries of sacred rites, | f. 110b | to disclose them? 4. That Jupiter, whoever he is, if he perceived himself to exist, or if by any sense he were affected by the injury, would it not be a matter worthy on account of which, angered and roused, he would withdraw the earth from beneath our steps, extinguish the lights of the sun and of the moon, nay rather would confound all things into the appearance of ancient unity?

24.1. "Sed non sunt, inquit, rei publicae nostrae haec sacra". - Quisnam istud dicit aut quis reponit? Romanus Gallus Hispanus Afer Germanus aut Siculus? Et quid adiuvat causam, si vestra haec non sunt, cum qui ea conficiunt sint vebtrarum partium?

24.1. "But these sacra," he says, "are not of our republic." - Who, pray, says that, or who retorts it? A Roman, a Gaul, a Spaniard, an African, a German or a Sicilian? And how does it aid the cause, if these are not yours, since those who carry them out are of your party?

aut quid refert, utrumne ea probetis necne, cum quae vestra sunt propria aut in simili foeditate aut turpitudinis genere repperiantur esse maiore? 2. Vultis enim consideremus mysteria et illa divina, quae Thesmophoria nominantur a Graecis, quibus gente ab Attica sancta illa pervigili? consecrata sunt et pannychismi graves?

or what does it matter, whether you approve these things or not, since those things which are yours, proper to you, are found either in similar foulness or in a genus of turpitude that is greater? 2. For do you wish that we consider the mysteries and those divine things which are named Thesmophoria by the Greeks, to which, by the Attic people, that sacred all-night vigil has been consecrated? and the grave pannychisms?

3. Vultis, inquam, videamus quas origines habeant quasve causas, ut Athenas etiam probemus ipsas humanitatis artibus studiisque pollentes tam in deos dicere con tumeliosa quam dictitent alii, nec minora ab his probra quam ceteris obiciantur a vobis religionis sub specie publicari? 4. "Quodam, inquiunt, tempore cum in Siciliae pratulis purpureos legeret nondum mulier flores et adhuc virago Proserpina cumque illam per floream messem huc atque illuc passim lectionis cupiditas avocaret, per profundae altitudinis speluncam | f. 111 | rex prosiliens Manium raptam virginem secum vehit et terrarum absconditur successibus rursus. 5. Quod cum factum nesciret aeres nec filia esset ubinam gentium suspicaretur, intendit animum perditam toto orbe conquirere: sumit faces geminas flammis onere pressas Aetnaeis, quibus sibi praelucens pergit ire quaesitum terrarum in regionibus cunctis".

3. Do you wish, I say, let us see what origins they have and what causes, so that we may even prove that Athens herself, abounding in the arts and studies of humanity, both says things contumelious against the gods just as others are wont to say, and that from these no smaller reproaches than against the rest are by you made public under the guise of religion to be alleged? 4. “At a certain time,” they say, “when in the little meadows of Sicily the not‑yet‑woman and still a virago Proserpina was gathering purple flowers, and as the desire of picking, through the flowery harvest, was drawing her off here and there everywhere, through a cave of profound depth | f. 111 | the king of the Manes, leaping forth, carries off the seized maiden with him and is hidden again in the recesses of the earth. 5. And when Ceres did not know what had been done, nor could she guess in what part of the world her daughter was, she sets her mind to seek the lost girl through the whole world: she takes twin torches, weighed down with Aetnaean flames, and, by their light for herself, proceeds to go seeking through all the regions of the lands.”

.25.1. "In istius conquisitionis errore Eleusinios etiam pervehitur fines. Pagi istud est nomen regione in Attica constituti. 2. Qui<nque> illud temporis has partes incolebant terrigenae, quibus nomina haec fuerant: Baubo Triptolemus Eumolpus Eubuleus Dysaules: boum iugator Triptolemus, capellarum Dysaules custos, Eubuleus porcorum, gregis lanitii Eumolpus, a quo gens ecfluit Eumolpidarum et ducitur clarum illud apud Cecropios nomen et qui postea floruerunt caduceatores, hierophantae atque praecones.

.25.1. "In the wandering of that inquest she is conveyed even to the Eleusinian borders. Pagus is the name of that place, situated in the region of Attica. 2. Qui<nque> at that time the earth-born inhabited those parts, whose names were these: Baubo, Triptolemus, Eumolpus, Eubuleus, Dysaules: Triptolemus, yoker of oxen; Dysaules, keeper of she-goats; Eubuleus, of pigs; Eumolpus, of the wool-bearing flock, from whom the clan of the Eumolpidae flows forth and that famous name among the Cecropians is derived, and those who afterwards flourished as caduceators, hierophants, and criers.

3. Igitur Baubo illa, quam incolam diximus Eleusinii fuisse pagi, malis multiformibus fatigatam accipit hospitio Cererem, adulatur obsequiis mitibus, reficiendi corporis rogat curam ut habeat, sitientis ardori oggerit potionem cinni, cyceonem quam nuncupat Graecia: aversatur et respuit humanitatis officia maerens dea nec eam fortuna perpetitur valetudinis meminisse communis. 4. Rogat illa atque hortatur contra, sicut mos est in huiusmodi casibus, ne fastidium suae humanitatis | f. 111b | adsumat: obstinatissime durat Ceres et rigoris indomiti pertinaciam retinet. 5. Quod cum saepius fieret neque ullis quiret obsequiis ineluctabile propositum fatigari, vertit Baubo artes et quam serio non quibat allicere ludibriorum statuit exhilarare miraculis: partem illam corporis, per quam secus femineum et subolem prodere et nomen solet adquirere genetricum, longiore ab incuria liberat, facit sumere habitum puriorem et in speciem levigari nondum duri atque histriculi pusionis.

3. Therefore that Baubo, whom we said was an inhabitant of the Eleusinian pagus, receives Ceres, wearied by multiform evils, with hospitality; she wheedles her with gentle services, asks that she take care for the refreshing of her body, and to the thirsting ardor proffers a potion of cini, the cyceon which Greece names: the grieving goddess shuns and spits out the offices of humanity, nor does fortune suffer her to remember the common condition of health. 4. She asks and urges on the contrary, as is the custom in cases of this sort, that she not assume a distaste for her own humanity | f. 111b |: Ceres endures most obstinately and keeps the pertinacity of untamed rigor. 5. Since this happened rather often and her ineluctable purpose could not be wearied by any services, Baubo changes her arts, and her whom she could not entice by seriousness she resolves to cheer by marvels of jests: that part of the body, through which the female sex is wont both to bring forth offspring and to acquire the name of mothers, she frees from a longer neglect; she makes it take on a purer habit and to be smoothed into the appearance of a little boy, not yet hard and bristly.

6. Redit ad deam tristem et inter illa communia quibus moris est frangere ac temperare máerorss retegit se ipsam atque omnia illa pudoris loca revelatis monstrat inguinibus. Atque pubi adfigit oculos diva et inauditi specie solaminis pascitur: tum diffusior facta per risum aspernatam sumitatque ebibit potionem, et quod diu nequivit verecundia Baubonis exprimere propudiosi facinoris extorsit obscenitas".

6. She returns to the sad goddess, and, amid those commonplaces by which it is the custom to break and to temper grief, she uncovers herself and, with her groins laid bare, displays all those places of modesty. And the goddess fixes her eyes upon the pubes and is nourished by the appearance of an unheard-of solace: then, made more diffuse through laughter, she takes up and drinks down the potion which she had spurned; and what Baubo’s modesty had long been unable to elicit, the obscenity of the shameful deed extorted."

26.1. Calumniari nos improbe si quis forte hominum suspicatur, libros sumat Threicii vatis, quos antiquitatis memoratis esse divinae, et inveniet nos nihil neque callide fingere neque quo sint risui deum quaerere atque efficere sanctitates. 2. Ipsos namque in medio ponemus versus, quos Calliopae filius ore edidit Graeco et cantando per saecula iuri publicavit humano: V 3. sic effata simul vestem contraxit ab imo obiecitque oculis formatas inguinibus res: quas cava succutiens | f. 112 | Baubo manu - nam puerilis ollis vultus erat - plaudit, contrectat amice. 4. Tum dea defigens augusti luminis orbes tristitias animi paulum mollita reponit: inde manu poclum sumit risuque sequenti perducit totum cyceonis laeta liquorem.

26.1. If by chance anyone among men suspects us to be wickedly calumniating, let him take up the books of the Thracian vates, which the memories of antiquity attest to be divine, and he will find that we neither cleverly feign anything nor seek and bring it about that sanctities be for the laughter of god. 2. For we will set in the midst the very verses, which the son of Calliope uttered with a Greek mouth and by singing through the ages made a matter of public right for humankind: 5 3. thus having spoken, at once she drew her garment up from below and cast before the eyes the things shaped at her groins: which Baubo, shaking with hollow hand | f. 112 | —for there was a boyish face on the little pot—claps, and fondly handles. 4. Then the goddess, fixing the orbs of her august light, somewhat softened in the sadness of her mind, lays it aside: then with her hand she takes the cup, and with following laughter, joyful, she drains the whole liquor of the cyceon.

5. - Quid Erecthidae o cati, quid cives Minervii dicitis? havet animus scire quibus sitis eloquiis tam periculosa negotia defensuri, vel artibus habeatis quibus tam confossis salutem dare personisvulneribus atque causis. 6. Non est ista falsa suscriptio nec delatione adpetimini calumniosa.

5. - What say you, O shrewd Erechthidae, what say you, citizens of Minerva? my mind is eager to know by what eloquence you are going to defend such perilous affairs, or what arts you have by which to give safety to persons so pierced, withwounds and to their causes. 6. This is not a false superscription, nor are you assailed by a calumnious delation.

Eleusiniorum vestrorum notas et origines producunt turpes et antiquarum elogia litterarum, ipsa denique symbola quae rogati sacrorum in acceptionibus respondetis: "Ieiunavi atque ebibi cyceonem"; "Ex cista sumpsi et in calathum misi"; "Accepi rursus, in cistulam transtuli".

The disgraceful testimonies of ancient letters bring forth the marks and origins of your Eleusinians, and finally the very symbols which, when asked in the receptions of the sacred rites, you answer: "I fasted and I drank down the cyceon"; "From the cista I took and into the calathus I put"; "I received again, I transferred into the cistula".

27.1. Ergone, ut promunt sancta illa atque arcana mysteria, rapiuntur et rapiunt dii vestri, matrimonia copulant fraudibus adpetita furtivis, ab repugnantibus et invitis decus virginitatis eripitur, imminentes nesciuntur iniuriae, quidnam raptis acciderit ignoratur, amissa quaerunt ut homines et sub sole clarissimo cum lucernis et facibus orbis peragrant vastitatem? 2. Adficiuntur, aegrescunt, lugentium sumunt sordes et miseriarum insignia, atque ut animum commodare alimoniis possint victuique sumendo, non ratio, non tempus, non sermo aliquis adhibetur gravis aut adfabilitas seria, sed propudiosa corporum monstratur | f. 112b | obscenitas obiectantur que partes illae quas pudor communis abscondere, quas naturalis verecundiae lex iubet, quas inter aures castas sine venia nefas est ac sine honoribus appellare praefatis. 3. Quidnam quaeso spectaculi, quid in pudendis fuit rei verendis que Baubonis, quod feminei sexus deam et consimili formatam membro in admirationem converteret atque risum, quod obiectum lumini conspectuique divino et oblivionem miseriarum daret et habitum >in> laetiorem repentina hilaritate traduceret?

27.1. Therefore, as those holy and arcane mysteries bring forth, your gods are seized and seize, they couple marriages sought by furtive frauds, from the resisting and unwilling the honor of virginity is snatched, impending injuries are not known, what has happened to the abducted is unknown, they seek lost things like human beings and, under the brightest sun, with lanterns and torches traverse the desolation of the world? 2. They are afflicted, they fall sick, they take on the filth of mourners and the insignia of miseries, and so that they may be able to accommodate their mind to nourishments and to taking sustenance, neither reason, nor season, nor any grave discourse or serious affability is employed, but the disgraceful obscenity of bodies is displayed | f. 112b | and those parts are thrust forward which common modesty hides, which the law of natural shame bids [to hide], which it is a sin to name among chaste ears without leave and without the aforesaid honors. 3. What, I ask, of spectacle, what was there in the shameful and so‑called “reverend” parts of Baubo, that would turn to admiration and laughter a goddess of the female sex and formed with a similar member, such that, when exposed to the light and to the divine gaze, it would give oblivion of miseries and translate the visage >in>to a happier one by sudden hilarity?

O qualia, o quanta inridentes potuimus cavillantesque depromere, si non religio nos gentis et litterata prohiberet auctoritas.

O what things, O how many we could have drawn forth, mocking and cavilling, if the religion of our people and lettered authority did not forbid us.

28.1. Iam dudum me fateor haesitare circumspicere tergiversari, tricas quemadmodum dicitur conduplicare Tellenas, dum pudor me habet Alimuntia illa proferre mysteria, quibus in Liberi honore patris phallos subrigit Graecia et simulacris virilium fascinorum territoria cuncta florescunt. 2. Quid sit istud, obscurum est forsitan, et qua fiat ratione disquiritur. - Quisquis istud ignorat, disce atque admiratus res tantas puris semper in sensibus meticulosa observatione custodi.

28.1. For a long time now I confess I have been hesitating, looking around, prevaricating, doubling the Tellenan tricks, while modesty holds me back from bringing out those Alimuntian mysteries, by which, in honor of Liber the father, Greece raises phalli, and by images of virile fascina all territories flourish. 2. What this is, perhaps is obscure, and by what rationale it is done is inquired. - Whoever is ignorant of this, learn, and, having admired such great matters, guard them with ever pure senses by meticulous observance.

3. "Cum inter homines, inquiunt, esset adhuc Nysius et Semeleius Liber, nosse inferos expetivit et sub Tartari sedibus quidnam rerum ageretur inquirere: et cupiditas haec eius nonnullis difficultatibus inpediebatur, quod qua iret ac pergeret inscitia itineris nesciebat. 4. Prosumnus | f. 113 | quidam exoritur ignominiosus amator dei atque in nefarias libidines satis pronus, qui se ianuam Ditis atque Acherusios aditus pollicetur indicaturum, si sibi gereret [et] morem deus atque uxorias voluptates pateretur ex se carpi. 5. Deus facilis iurat potestatis futurum ac voluntatis se eius, sed cum primum ab inferis conpos s.u.i voti atque expeditionis redisset.

3. "When, they say, Liber, Nysian and Semelean, was still among men, he desired to know the infernal regions and to inquire what sort of things were being transacted beneath the seats of Tartarus; and this eagerness of his was hindered by several difficulties, because, as to where he should go and proceed, he did not know through ignorance of the route. 4. A certain Prosumnus | f. 113 | arises, an ignominious lover of the god and quite prone to nefarious lusts, who promises that he will point out the door of Dis and the Acherusian approaches, if the god would comply with him [and] allow uxorial pleasures to be plucked from himself. 5. The accommodating god swears that he will be at his power and will, but only when, as soon as he had returned from the underworld, his vow and his expedition had been accomplished.

6. Viam comiter Prosumnus edisserit atque in limine ipso prostituit inferorum. lnterea dum Liber stygem Cerberum Furias atque alias res omnis curiosa inquigitione conlustrat, ex viventium numero index viae decidit atque ex more sepelitur humano. 7. Emergit ab inferis Euius et recognoscit extinctum ducem: qui ut fidem compleret pacti et iurandi solveret religione se iuris, locum pergit ad funeris et ficorum ex arbore ramum validissimum praesecans dolat runcinat levigat et humani speciem fabricatur in penis, figit super aggerem tumuli et postica ex parte nudatus accedit subdit insidit.

6. Prosumnus courteously explains the way and even lays it out on the very threshold of the underworld. Meanwhile, while Liber with curious inquiry surveys the Styx, Cerberus, the Furies, and all the other things, the guide of the way falls from the number of the living and, according to human custom, is buried. 7. Euius emerges from the underworld and recognizes that his guide is dead: and, in order to make good the good faith of the pact and to discharge by religious obligation his oath, he goes to the place of the funeral, and, cutting off from a fig-tree a very sturdy branch, he hews, planes, smooths it, and fashions the likeness of a human penis; he fixes it upon the mound of the tomb, and, naked from the rear, he approaches, slips under it, and sits astride.

8. Lascivia deinde surientis adsumpta huc atque illuc clunes torquet et meditatur ab ligno pati quod iam dudum in veritate promiserat".

8. Then, lasciviousness of the raging one assumed, he twists his buttocks here and there, and meditates to suffer from the wood what he had long since promised in truth."

29.1. Ac ne quis forte a nobis tam impias arbitretur confictas res esse, Heraclito ut testi non postulamus ut credat nec mysteriis volumus quid super talibus senserit ex ipsius accipiat lectione: totam interroget Graeciam, quid sibi velint hi phalli, quos per rura, per oppida mos subrigit et veneratur antiquus, inveniet causas | f. 113b | eas esse quas dicimus: aut si fuerit puditum veritatem simpliciter explicare, quid obscurare, quid tegere causam ritus atque originem proderit, >cum> criminatio ipsa religionis in re sit? 2. Quid dicitis o gentes, quid occupatae, quid deditae templorum venerationibus nationes? Ad haecine nos sacra flammis exiliis caedibus atque alio genere suppliciorum compellitis et crudelitatis metu?

29.1. And lest anyone perhaps think that such impious things have been fabricated by us, we do not demand that he believe Heraclitus as a witness, nor do we wish that he should take from a reading of the Mysteries what he thought about such matters: let him question all Greece, what these phalli mean, which an ancient custom sets erect and venerates through the countryside, through the towns; he will find the causes | f. 113b | to be those which we say: or if it has shamed one to set forth the truth simply, what will it profit to obscure, what to cover the cause of the rite and its origin, since the very accusation of the religion lies in the thing itself? 2. What do you say, O peoples, you who are preoccupied, you nations devoted to the veneration of temples? Is it for these sacred things that you drive us to flames, exiles, slaughters, and to another kind of punishments, and by the fear of cruelty?

Hoscine nobis deos inportatis insinuatis infligitis, quorum similes nec vos esse neque alium velitis quemquam sanguinis vobis gradu et iure familiaritatis adiunctum? 3. Potestisne impubibus et praetextatis vestris quas Liber induxerit pactiones suis cum amatoribus indicare? Potestis vestras nurus, quinimmo vobis matrimonio coniugatas ad verecundiam Baubonis impellere atque ad pudicas (lereris voluptates?

Are these the gods you import to us, insinuate, and inflict upon us—whose likeness neither you yourselves wish to be, nor would you wish anyone else to be who is joined to you by degree of blood and the right of kinship? 3. Can you disclose to your prepubescents and praetextati what compacts Liber has introduced with their lovers? Can you drive your daughters-in-law—or rather those joined to you in marriage—to the modesty of Baubo and to the chaste pleasures of Venus?

4. Vultis vestri iuvenes sciant audiant discant, Iuppiter ipse qualis in unam extiterit atque alteram matrem? vultis adultae virgines robustique adhuc patres, idem iste in filiam qua luserit arte, cognoscant? vultis germani iam fervidi atque ex isdem seminibus fratres eandem rursus accipiant concubitus, lectulos non esse aspernatum sororis?

4. Do you want your youths to know, to hear, to learn, in what guise Jupiter himself appeared to one mother and to another? do you want grown virgins and fathers still robust to learn by what art that same one sported with his daughter? do you want full brothers now fiery, and brothers from the same seed, to accept again the same couplings, that he did not spurn his sister’s little beds?

5. Ita ergo non protinus ab huiusmodi fugiendum diis longe ac ne inrepat in animum tam inpurae religionis obscenitas, audientia tota claudenda est? 6. Quis est enim mortalium tam pudicis moribus institutus, quem non ad huiusmodi furias deorum documenta proritent? aut quis suas comprimere | f. 114 | cupiditates a cognatis valeat reverendis que personis, cum apud superos sanctum nihil in libidinum videat confusione servatum?

5. Thus, then, should we not straightway flee far from gods of this kind, and, lest the obscenity of so impure a religion creep into the mind, must the whole hearing be shut? 6. For who among mortals has been trained in morals so modest that the documents of the gods’ furies of this sort do not spur him on? or who can repress his desires toward his kin and reverend persons, when among the gods above he sees nothing sacred preserved from the confusion of lusts? | f. 114 |

7. Ubi enim primam perfectamque naturam inter fines constiterit iustos cupidinem suam non valuisse frenare, cur non in promiscuos adpetitus effundat se homo et ingenita fragilitate praeceps datus et magisterio sanctae divinitatis adiutus?

7. For where it has been established that the prime and perfect Nature was not able to bridle its own desire within just bounds, why should man not pour himself out into promiscuous appetites, both driven headlong by inborn fragility and aided by the magistery of holy divinity?

30.1. Iam dudum me fateor reputantem mecum in animo rerum huiuscemodi monstra solitum esse mirari, audere vos dicere quemquam ex is atheum inreligiosum sacrilegum qui deos esse omnino aut negent aut dubitent aut qui eos homines fuisse contendant et potestatis alicuius et meriti causa deorum in numerum relatos: cum si verum fiat atque habeatur examen, nullos quam vos magis huiusmodi par sit appellationibus nuncupari, qui sub specie cultionis plus in eos ingeratis maledictionum et criminum quam si aperte hoc facere confessis maledictionibus coinbibissetis. 2. Deos esse qui dubitat aut esse omnino qui negat, quamvis sequi sententias inmanes opinionum videatur audacia, sine ullius tamen insectatione personae fidem rebus non adcommodat involutis: et qui generis adseverat eos fuisse terreni, quamvis eos privet sublimitate caelitum, subsicivis tamen adcumulat laudibus, siquidem illos divinitatis ad meritum beneficiis autumat et virtutum admirationibus sublevatos.

30.1. For a long time now I confess that, considering with myself in mind the monsters of matters of this sort, I have been wont to marvel that you dare to call anyone from among them an atheist, irreligious, sacrilegious—those who either altogether deny that there are gods or doubt it, or who contend that they were men and, for the sake of some power and merit, were enrolled into the number of the gods: since, if a true examination be made and held, there are none who more than you ought to be styled by such appellations, you who, under the guise of cult, heap upon them more maledictions and charges than if you had openly done this and had drenched it with avowed maledictions. 2. He who doubts that the gods exist or who altogether denies that they exist—although to follow such monstrous opinions seems an audacity—yet, without any persecution of a person, does not lend faith to things not laid open; and he who asserts that they were of earthly stock, although he deprives them of the loftiness of the celestials, nevertheless heaps up subsidiary praises, since he supposes that they were raised to the merit of divinity by beneficences and the admirations of virtues.

31.1. Vos vero, qui vindices et eorum contenditis immortalitatis esse propagatores, unum ex his | f. 114b | quempiam praeteristis, transistis vestris maledictionibus invulneratum? 2. Aut genus ullum est probri tam communi exstimatione damnabile quod in eos conferre metueritis vel nominis saltem auctoritate tardati? 3. Quis caduca et mortalia corpora deos edidit amasse?

31.1. But you, who claim to be vindicators and propagators of their immortality, have you passed over even one of these, | f. 114b | have you let anyone go by unscathed by your maledictions? 2. Or is there any kind of reproach so condemned by common estimation that you have feared to confer it upon them, or have at least been restrained by the authority of the name? 3. Who has put forth that the gods have loved perishable and mortal bodies?

- non vos? 4. quis illa furta dulcissima in alienis genialibus perpetrasse? - non vos?

- not you? 4. who has perpetrated those sweetest thefts in others’ nuptial couches? - not you?

5. quis cum matribus liberos, quis cum suis virginibus rursus patres infaustos miscuisse concubitus? - non vos? 6. quis scitulos pusiones atque adultos venustissimis lineis adpetitos esse inceste?

5. who has mingled couplings of children with their mothers, who again has mingled ill‑fated fathers with their own virgins? - not you? 6. who has indecently coveted dainty little lads and even adults, with the most charming linens?

- non vos? 7. quis abscisos, quis exoletos, quis versipelles, quis fures, quis in vinculis habitos, quis in catenis, quis denique fulminibus adpetitos, quis vulneratos, quis obisse supremos dies, sepulturas etiam meruisse terrenas? - non vos?

- not you? 7. who the castrated, who the catamites, who the shape-shifters, who the thieves, who those kept in bonds, who in chains, who, finally, those assailed by lightning, who the wounded, who have met their last days, to have even merited earthly sepultures? - not you?

8. Cum igitur a vobis tot et tanta conflata sint deorum in contumelias crimina, audetis obicere nostri nominis causa numinum esse offensas mentes, cum iamdudum vos

8. Since therefore by you so many and so great crimes have been conflated to the contumelies of the gods, do you dare to object that, on account of our name, the minds of the numina are offended, when long since you

32.1. "Sed erras, inquit, et laberis satisque te esse imperitum, indoctum ac rusticum ipsa rerum insectatione demonstras. 2. Nam istae omnes historiae, quae tibi turpes videntur atque ad labem pertinere divinam, mysteria in se continent sancta, rationes miras atque altas nec quas facile quivis possit ingenii vivacitate pernoscere. 3. Neque enim quod scriptum est atque in prima est | f. 115 | positum verborum fronte, id significatur et dicitur, sed allegoricis sensibus et subditivis intelleguntur omnia illa secretis.

32.1. "But you err, he says, and you slip, and by your very inveighing against the matters you show that you are quite unskilled, unlearned, and rustic. 2. For all those histories, which seem to you shameful and to pertain to a defilement of the divine, contain within themselves holy mysteries, marvelous and deep reasons, nor such as just anyone can easily thoroughly discern by vivacity of genius. 3. For not that which is written and placed on the front of the words | f. 115 | is what is signified and said, but by allegorical senses and underlying secrets all those things are understood.

4. Itaque qui dicit cum sua concubuit Iuppiter matre non incestas significat aut propudiosas Veneris conplexiones, sed Iovem pro pluvia, pro tellure Cererem nominat. 5. Et qui rursus perhibet lascivias eum exercuisse cum filia, nihil de foedis voluptatibus loquitur, sed pro imbris nomine ponit Iovem, in filiae significatione sementem. 6. Sic et ille qui raptam Dite a patre Proserpinam dicit, non ut reris in turpissimos adpetitusviraginem dicit raptam, sed quia glebis occulimus semina, isse sub terras deam et cum Orco significat foedera genitalis conciliare feturae.

4. Therefore he who says that Jupiter lay with his own mother does not signify incestuous or disgraceful embraces of Venus, but names Jupiter for rain, and Ceres for the soil. 5. And he who in turn reports that he exercised lasciviousness with his daughter says nothing about foul pleasures, but sets Jupiter for the name of the shower, and under the signification of “daughter,” the sowing. 6. So too he who says that Proserpina was snatched by her father Dis does not, as you suppose, say that avirago was seized for most shameful appetites, but, because we hide seeds with clods, he signifies that the goddess went beneath the earth and that with Orcus she arranges the covenants of generative offspring.

7. Consimili ratione et in historiis ceteris aliud quidem dicitur, sed intellegitur aliud, et sub vulgari simplicitate sermonis latet ratio secreta et altitudo involuta mysterii".

7. By a similar reasoning also in the other histories one thing indeed is said, but another is understood, and beneath the vulgar simplicity of speech there lies hidden a secret reason and the involved depth of the mystery".

33.1. Argutiae sunt ut apparet atque acumina haec omnia, quibus fulcire sollemne est malas in iudiciis causas, quinimmo, ut verius dicam, sophisticarum disputationum colores, non quibus [non] verum sed imago et species veri semper atque umbra conquiritur. 2. Nam quoniam rectas accipere lectiones pudet dedecet indecorum est, >decursum est> in has partes, ut alia subiceretur res alii et in speciem decoris turpitudinis interpretatio cogeretur. 3. Sed quid ad nos istud, an alii sensus aliaeque sententiae conscriptionibus vanis subsint?

33.1. These are, as it appears, subtleties and acumen, all those devices with which it is customary to prop up bad cases in trials; nay rather, to speak more truly, the colors of sophistic disputations, not by which [not] the truth, but the image and species of the true—and ever its shadow—is sought. 2. For since to accept straight readings is a shame, unfitting, an indecorum, >decursum est> into these courses, so that one thing might be put under another, and the interpretation of turpitude be forced into the semblance of decorum. 3. But what is that to us, whether other senses and other judgments lie beneath their vain compositions?

| f. 115b | Nobis enim satis est, qui deos a vobis scelerate contendimus impieque tractari, quod scriptum est, quod auditur accipere nec curare in abdito quid sit, cum contumelia numinum non in obscura sensuum mente sed in verborum eminentium significatione teneatur. 4. Ac ne tamen videamur inspicere quale sit istud quod dicitur nolle, primum illud a vobis, si modo commodare patientiam vultis, exquirimus primum: allegorico genere vel scripta haec esse vel eodem modo intellegi oportere, unde est vobis cognitum vel unde intimatum? 5. in consilium scriptores advocare vos solent? in eorum pectoribus latitabatis, cum pro aliis res alias inter veritate capta subdebant?

| f. 115b | For it is enough for us, who contend that the gods are by you criminally and impiously handled, to accept what is written and what is heard, and not to care what it is in the hidden [sense], since the contumely of the numina is held not in the obscure mind of the senses but in the signification of eminent words. 4. And yet, lest we seem unwilling to inspect what that is which is said, we first inquire this from you, if only you are willing to lend patience: that either in an allegorical kind these things were written, or that they ought to be understood in the same manner—whence has this been known to you, or whence intimated? 5. do you use to call the writers into counsel? did you lurk in their breasts, when, verity having been captured, they were substituting other things in place of others?

6. Deinde si illi rationis alicuius et religionis metu mysteria illa convolvere tenebrosa obscuritate voluerunt, quantum vobis audaciae est, ut quod illi noluerunt vos velitis intellegere, vos scire et cunctorum substernere notioni quod illi frustra verbis minus verum significantibus occulerunt?

6. Then, if they, from fear of some reason and religion, wished to wrap those mysteries in tenebrous obscurity, how much audacity have you, that you should wish to understand what they did not wish, that you should know and lay under the notice of all what they vainly concealed with words less signifying the true?

34.1. Sed ut vobis adsentiamur in fabulis his omnibus cervas pro Iphigeniis dici, undè tamen vobis liquet, cum allegorias istas vel explanare >velitis> vel pandere, eadem vos interpretari eademque sentire quae sub tacitis cogitationibus ipsis ab historicis sensa sunt nec per voces proprias, significationibus sed aliis explicata? 2. vos Iovis et Cereris coitum imbrem dicitis dictum telluris in gremium lapsum: potest alius aliud et argutius fingere et veri cum similitudine suspicari, potest aliud tertius, | f. 116 | potest aliud quartus atque ut se tulerint ingeniorum opinantium qualitates, ita singulae res possunt infinitis interpretationibus expelicari. 3. Cum enim rebus occlusis omnis ista quae dicitur allegoria sumatur nec habeat finem certum in quo rei quae dicitur sit fixa atque immota sententia, unicuique liberum est in id quo velit adtrahere lectionem et adfirmare id positum in quod eum sua suspicio et coniectura opinabilis duxerit.

34.1. But even if we assent to you that in all these fables hinds are said in place of Iphigenias, whence nevertheless is it clear to you that, when you should >wish> either to explain or to unfold these allegories, you interpret the same things and have the same sentiment as those which under their silent cogitations were sensed by the historians themselves, not by proper words, but explained by other significations? 2. you say that the coition of Jove and Ceres is called a rain fallen into the bosom of earth: another can fashion something else and more shrewdly, and suspect it with a likeness to truth; a third can something else, | f. 116 | a fourth something else; and as the qualities of opining wits have carried themselves, so single matters can be explicated by infinite interpretations. 3. For since from things shut-up every so-called allegory is taken, and it has no determinate end in which the meaning of the thing that is said is fixed and immovable, it is free to each man to draw the reading to that which he will, and to affirm that posited which his own suspicion and plausible conjecture shall have led him to.

4. Quod cum ita se habeat, qui potestis res certas rebus ab dubiis sumere atque unam adiungere significationem dicto quod per modos videatis innumeros expositionum varietate deduci?

4. Since this is so, how can you take certain things from doubtful ones and adjoin a single signification to a saying which you see to be deduced through innumerable modes by the variety of expositions?

35.1. Denique si adcommodum ducitis, etiam illud a vobis repetita interrogatione conquirimus, omnesne has fabulas existimetis id est singulas totas ambifarias ac bilingues et versipellibus esse scriptas modis an alias earum partes nihil ambiguum dicere, alias vero multifidas atque allegorici tegminis superiectione velatas? 2. Si enim ad finem a capite textus omnis expositionis et series obtentionibus allegoricis clausa sunt, edissertate, monstrate, quid pro rebus singulis, quas unaquaeque eloquitur fabula, supponere debeamus et promere quasque in res alias atque intellegentias vocare. 3. Ut enim Iovem pro pluvia, Cererem verbi causa pro terra vultis audire et pro Libera ac patre Dite submersionem seminis atque iactum, ita dicere vos convenit, quid pro tauro | f. 116b | debeamus accipere, quid pro indignatione Cereris atque ira quid sibi velit Brimo verbum, quid Iovis solliciti supplicatio, quid allegati caelites nec auditi, quid exsectus aries, quid exsecti arietis proles, quid satisfactio his facta, quid quae rursus gesta sunt libidine obsceniore cum filia.

35.1. Finally, if you deem it fitting, we also, by repeated questioning, seek this from you: do you think all these fables—that is, each one entire—are written in twofold, bilingual, and shape‑shifting modes; or do some parts of them say nothing ambiguous, while others are many‑cleft and veiled by the superimposition of an allegorical covering? 2. For if from the head to the end of the text the whole exposition and sequence are shut in by allegorical claims, expound plainly, show what we ought to substitute for the several things which each fable utters, and bring forth to what other things and intelligences we ought to refer them. 3. For just as you wish to hear Jupiter for rain, Ceres, for example, for earth, and for Libera and father Dis the submersion and casting of seed, so it is fitting for you to say what we ought to take for the bull, | f. 116b | what for the indignation and wrath of Ceres, what the word “Brimo” may signify, what the supplication of solicitous Jupiter, what the celestials invoked and not heard, what the excised ram, what the offspring of the excised ram, what the satisfaction made to these, what the things are that were again done with more obscene lust with the daughter.

4. Consimiliter et in altera fabula Hennae nemus et flores quid sint, quid sumptus ignis ex Aetna conprehensaeque isto faces, quid peragratio cum his orbis, quid Attica regio, quid Eleusinius pagus, quid Baubonis tugurium atque hospitium rusticanum, quid cyceonis significet potio, quid aspernatio potionis, quid novatio et revelatio pudendorum, quid spectaculi flagitiosa dulcedo et ex remediis talibus orbitatis oblivio comparata. 5. Quodsi pro his omnibus quod oporteat subici rerum immutatione monstratis, erit ut vobis adsensum super tali adseveratione tribuamus: sin autem singula in singulis neque potestis opponere nec alterum >in> rerum vocare contextum, quid allegoricis obscuritatibus honestatis id quod simpliciter scriptum est et communem ad intellegentiam publicatum?

4. Similarly, too, in the other fable: what is the grove of Henna and the flowers, what the taking up of fire from Aetna and the torches seized from that, what the traversal with these of the orb of the world, what the Attic region, what the Eleusinian village, what Baubo’s hut and rustic hospitality, what the cyceon’s potion signifies, what the spurning of the potion, what the novelty and the revelation of the pudenda, what the scandalous sweetness of the spectacle, and the oblivion of childlessness procured from such remedies. 5. But if for all these you show, by a transmutation of things, what ought to be substituted, it will be that we grant you assent upon such an assertion; but if, however, in the several items you can neither set each against each nor call it into another >in> context of things, why do you dignify with allegorical obscurities that which is written simply and published to common understanding?

36.1. "Nisi forte dicetis non toto in historiae corpore allegorias has esse, ceterum partes alias esse communiter scriptas, alias vero dupliciter et ambifaria obtentione velatas". 2. - Urbana est ista subtilitas, et quibuslibet brutis patens. Nam quia cuncta quae scripta sunt inexpeditissimum vobis est traducere invertere derivare, eligitis quaedam vestrae convenientia voluntati | f. 117 | et ex ipsis optinere contenditis nothas atque adulteras lectiones interiori esse superpositas veritati. 3. Quod tamen ut vobis ita sese habere quemadmodum dicitis adnuamus, qui scitis aut unde cognoscitis, utra pars sit sententiis historiae scripta simplicibus, utra vero sit dissonis atque alienis significationibus tecta?

36.1. "Unless perchance you will say that these allegories are not in the whole body of the history, but that certain parts are written commonly, while others indeed are veiled doubly and with an ambifarious obtention." 2. - That subtlety is urbane, and patent to whatever brutes. For since it is most intractable for you to translate, invert, and derive all the things that have been written, you choose certain things suiting your will | f. 117 | and from these strive to maintain that spurious and adulterous readings have been superposed upon the inner truth. 3. Yet, granting to you that the matter stands as you say, how do you know, or whence do you learn, which part is written with simple meanings of the history, and which is covered with dissonant and alien significations?

Potest enim fieri, ut quod vos existimatis sic esse aliter se habeat, ut quod aliter creditis conceptionibus aliis contrariisque prolatum sit. 4. Ubi enim dicitur in unius materiae corpore pars esse allegorice scripta, indubitabili altera sermone rectoque, nec inest in re signum quo differitas indicari ambiguorum possit simpliciterque dictorum, tam potest quod simplex est ambiformiter dictum existimari quam quod ambigue scriptum est reclusis esse obtentionibus credi. Quod quidem quo genere aut fiat aut fieri posse credatur, intellegere confitemur minime nos posse.

It can indeed come to pass that what you reckon to be thus is otherwise, and that what you believe to be otherwise has been put forth with other and contrary conceptions. 4. For when it is said that in the body of one matter a part is written allegorically, and another in an indubitable and straight discourse, and there is in the thing no sign by which the differences of what is ambiguous and of what is simply said can be indicated, just as what is simple can be thought to have been said in a two-formed way, so what is written ambiguously can be believed to have its coverings laid open. As to by what sort this either is done or is believed to be able to be done, we confess that we are by no means able to understand.

37.1. Inspiciamus enim quod dicitur hoc modo. "In nemore, inquit, Hennensi quondam flores Proserpina lectitabat >virago>". - Integrum adhuc istud est et recta pronuntiatione prolatum; nam et nemus et flores quid sint, quid Proserpina, quid virago, cunctis indubitabiliter notum est. 2. "Emicuit Summanus e terris curru quadriiugo vectitatus". - Simplex et hoc aeque est; nam quadrigae, currus atque Summanus interpretationem desiderant nullam.

37.1. Let us examine, then, what is said in this way. "In the grove, he says, of Henna once Proserpina was picking flowers >virago>". - This as yet is entire and delivered with straight pronunciation; for both what a grove is and what flowers are, what Proserpina is, what a virago, is indubitably known to all. 2. "Summanus flashed forth from the earth, borne in a four-yoked chariot." - This too is likewise simple; for quadrigae, the chariot, and Summanus require no interpretation.

"Inprovisus Proserpinam rapuit et sub terras secum avexit". "Seminis, inquit, abstrusio raptione in Proserpinae nuncupatur". 3. - Quid | f. 117b | accidit, quaeso, ut in aliud subito converteretur historia, semen Proserpina diceretur, ut quae virago iamdudum florum in lectionibus habebatur, postquam sublata et rapta est, significationem coeperit habere sementis? 4. "Iuppiter, inquit, in taurum versus concubitum matris suae Cereris appetivit: ut expositum supra est, nominibus his tellus et labens pluvia nuncupatur". - Legem allegoricam video tenebrosis ambiguitatibus explicatam. "Irata Ceres est et exarsit et arietis proles pro poena atque ultione suscepit". - Hoc iterum video communibus in proloquiis promptum; nam et ira et testes satisfactio suis in moribus et condicionibus dicta sunt. Quid ergo hic accidit, ut ab Iove, qui pluvia, et ab Cerere, quae appellata est terra, res transiret ad verum Iovem atque ad rerum simplicissimam dictionem?

"Unforeseen, he snatched Proserpina and carried her off with himself beneath the earth." "The concealment of seed, he says, is designated by the rape of Proserpina." 3. - What | f. 117b | happened, I ask, that the history should suddenly be converted into something else, that seed should be called Proserpina, so that she who a short time ago was held a virago in the gatherings of flowers, after she was taken up and snatched away, began to have the signification of sowing? 4. "Jupiter, he says, turned into a bull, sought concubitus with his mother Ceres: as was set forth above, by these names earth and the sliding rain are named." - I see the allegoric law explained with tenebrous ambiguities. "Ceres is angered and blazed up and took up the offspring of a ram for punishment and vengeance." - This again I see ready in common prolocutions; for both anger and the satisfaction of witnesses have been spoken according to their own customs and conditions. What therefore happened here, that from Jove, who is rain, and from Ceres, who is called earth, the matter should pass to the true Jove and to the most simple diction of things?

38.1. Aut igitur debent allegorico genere omnia esse scripta et posita demonstrandaque universa nobis, aut genere isto conscriptum est nihil, quoniam esse quod creditur t quasi parte ex historiae non videtur. 2. "Allegorico genere scripta sunt haec omnia". - Minime istud videtur certum. " quaeritis ratione, qua causa?". - Quia omne quod gestum est et in alicuius operis evidentia constitutum est conversionem non potest in allegoricam duci; neque enim potest infectum esse quod factum est aut rei gestae natura in alienam potest degenerare naturam.

38.1. Either, then, all things ought to be written in the allegorical genre and set down and the whole to be demonstrated to us, or nothing has been written in that genre, since that which is believed to be does not seem to be, as it were, in part from history. 2. "These things have all been written in the allegorical genre." - That seems by no means certain. " you ask by what reasoning, by what cause?" - Because everything that has been done and established in the evidence of some work cannot be led into an allegorical conversion; for neither can what has been done be undone, nor can the nature of a thing accomplished degenerate into an alien nature.

3. Numquid bellum Iliacum in Socraticam verti condemnationem potest, aut pugna illa Cannensis proscriptio fieri crudelitasque Sullana? 4. Potest quidem proscriptio, quemadmodum | f. 118 | Tullius [Sex.Rosc. 89] ludit, pugna dici appellarique Cannensis, sed quae gesta est dudum, pugna esse non potest eadem eademque proscriptio; neque enim quod gestum est potest aliud ut dixi quam id esse quod gestum est, aut in alienam migrare substantiam id quod in vi propria atque in sui generis qualitate defixum est.

3. Can the Iliac war be turned into the Socratic condemnation, or can that battle of Cannae become the proscription and the Sullan cruelty? 4. Indeed the proscription, as Tullius [Sex.Rosc. 89] jests, can be said and called the battle of Cannae | f. 118 |, but the battle which was waged long ago cannot be the same battle and the same proscription; for what has been done cannot, as I said, be anything other than what has been done, nor can that which is fixed in its own proper force and in the quality of its own kind migrate into an alien substance.

39.1. "Unde igitur probamus historias has omnes rerum esse gestarum conscriptiones?". - Ex sollemnibus scilicet sacris atque initiorum mysteriis, vel quae statis fiunt temporibus ac diebus vel quae in abdito tradunt gentes moris proprii perpetuitate servata. 2. Neque enim credendum est sine suis originibus haec esse, frustra atque inaniter fieri nec habere coniunctas primis institutionibus causas. 3. Pinus illa, sollemniter quae in Matris infertur sanctum deae, nonne illius imago est arboris, sub qua sibi Attis virum demessis genitalibus abstulit et quam memorant divam in solatium sui consecravisse maeroris?

39.1. "Whence, then, do we prove that all these histories are conscriptions of things done?" — From solemn sacred rites and the mysteries of initiations, either those which are performed at fixed times and days, or those which the peoples hand down in secret, the perpetuity of their own custom being preserved. 2. For we must not believe that these are without their own origins, that they are done fruitlessly and vainly, nor that they lack causes conjoined to their first institutions. 3. That pine, which is solemnly borne into the sanctuary of the Mother goddess, is it not an image of that tree under which Attis took away from himself his manhood by mowing off his genitals, and which they relate that the goddess consecrated as a solace of her own sorrow?

4. Phallorum illa fascinorumque subrectio, quos ritibus annuis adorat et concelebrat Graecia, nonne illius facinoris similitudinem refert quo se ab debito >Liber> liberavit? 5. Eleusinia illa mysteria et sacrorum reconditi ritus cuius memoriam continent? Nonne illius erroris quo in filiae conquisitione Ceres, fessa oras ut venit ad Atticas, triticeas attulit fruges, Nebridarum familiam pellicula cohonestavit hinnulae et illud spectaculum maximum Baubonis in inguinibus risit?

4. That erection of phalli and fascina, which Greece adores and concelebrates with annual rites, does it not recall the likeness of that deed by which Liber liberated himself from a debt? 5. Those Eleusinian mysteries and the hidden rites of the sacred things—whose memory do they contain? Is it not of that errancy by which, in the inquisition for her daughter, Ceres, weary when she came to the Attic shores, brought wheat-grain, ennobled the family of the Nebridae with the little pelt of a fawn, and laughed at that greatest spectacle, the display of Baubo in her groin?

6. Aut si | f. 118b | alia causa est, nihil ad nos istud, dummodo causa cuncta ista confiant. Neque enim credibile est nullis antecedentibus causis suscepta haec esse, aut insanire iudicandum est Atticos, qui sibi ritum religionis adfinxerint conflatum rationibus nullis. 7. Quod si liquet et constat, id est si rebus actis mysteriorum causae atque origines effluunt, in allegoricas species nulla possunt conversione traduci.

6. Or if | f. 118b | there is another cause, that is nothing to us, provided that a cause establishes all those things. For it is not credible that, with no antecedent causes, these things were undertaken, or else the Athenians must be judged insane, who would have feigned for themselves a rite of religion, conflated with no reasons. 7. But if this is clear and certain—that is, if from deeds done the causes and origins of the mysteries flow forth—they cannot by any conversion be translated into allegorical species.

Quod enim factum, gestum est, infectum non potest fieri rerum prohibente natura.

For what has been done, has been carried out, cannot be made un-done, the nature of things prohibiting.

40.1. Et tamen ut vobis ita se habere adsentiamur res istas, id est ut historiae aliud verbis sonent, nescio quid aliud more hariolantium dicant, ita non animadvertitis, non videtis, quanta istud dicatur [et] cum ignominia fieri contumeliaque divorum? 2. An iniuria gravior ulla potis est reperiri, quam terram et pluviam vel quodlibet aliud - nihil enim refert quae fiat interpretatione conversio - Iovis et Cereris dicere atque appellare concubitum et cum deorum criminibus labem imbris e caelo et telluris significare madorem? 3. Potest inreligiosius quippiam vel exi stimari vel credi quam semina terris mersa vel quodlibet aliud - nihil enim similiter refert - raptum Proserpinae dicere et cum nota Ditis patris rei rusticae de opere proloqui?

40.1. And yet, even if we assent to you that these matters stand thus, that is, that histories sound one thing in their words, but say I know not what other thing in the manner of soothsayers, do you not so take note, do you not see, with how great ignominy that is said and is done as a contumely of the gods? 2. Or can any graver injury be found than to say and call earth and rain, or whatever else — for it makes no difference what conversion is made by interpretation — the concubitus of Jove and Ceres, and, with the crimes of the gods, to signify the stain of the shower from heaven and the damp of the earth? 3. Can anything be judged or believed more irreligiously than to call seeds sunk in the lands, or whatever else — for similarly it makes no difference — the rape of Proserpina, and, with the brand of Dis Pater, to discourse concerning the work of rustic business?

4. Nonne milies optatius fuit elinguem fieri atque mutum, quam scaturriginem istam vocis et strepitum foedae loquacitatis amittere, | f. 119 | quam deorum nominibus res appellare turpissimas, quinimmo turpibus deorum factis negotia significare volgaria?

4. Would it not have been a thousand times more to be desired to become tongueless and mute, than to let loose that scaturient spring of voice and the racket of foul loquacity, | f. 119 | than to call the most shameful things by the names of the gods, nay rather to signify commonplace affairs by the shameful deeds of the gods?

41.1. "Antea mos fuerat in allegorica dictione honestissimis sensibus obumbrare res turpes et foeda prolatu honestorum convestirier dignitate". 2. - At vero vobis auctoribus per turpitudinem dicuntur res graves et castitate pollentia obscenis commorantur in vocibus, ut quod olim gravitas foedorum verecundia contegebat nunc viliter turpiter que dicatur dignorum elocutione mutata. 3. "Quod in adulterio dicimus Martem, inquit, et Venerem Vulcani esse circumretitos arte, cupiditatem dicimus atque iram vi pressas consilio que rationis". - Quid enim prohibebat, quid obstabat, suis unamquamque rem verbis et suis significationibus promere? 4. Immo quid urguebat, cum nescio quid indicare per commentarios et scripta voluisses, nolle illud intellegi quod indicares, sed contrarias res simul una expositione suscipere, studium docere cupientis et nolentis ostendere malignitatem?

41.1. "Formerly the custom had been, in allegorical diction, to overshadow foul matters with most honorable senses and to have things shameful to utter be clothed with the dignity of the honorable." 2. - But truly, with you as authorities, grave matters are spoken through turpitude, and things excelling in chastity linger in obscene words, so that what seriousness and modesty once covered over of foul things now is said basely and shamefully, the elocution of the worthy having been altered. 3. "What we say, he says, in the adultery—that Mars and Venus were ensnared by Vulcan’s skill—we say desire and wrath were pressed down by force and by the counsel of reason." - For what forbade, what hindered, to set forth each thing with its own words and its own significations? 4. Rather, what was urging you, when you wished to indicate I know not what through commentaries and writings, to be unwilling that what you indicated be understood, but to take up contrary things at once in a single exposition, to show the zeal of one eager to teach and to display the ill-will of one unwilling?

5. An deos adulteros dicere periculum habuit nullum, prolatio cupidinis atque irae linguam et os fuerat obsceno coinquinatura contactu? Quod si utique fieret et allegoricae caecitatis obumbratio tolleretur, et facilis ad discendum res esset et deorum dignitas conservaretur inlaesa. 6. Nunc vero cum dicitur in Martis et in Veneris vinctione vitiorum esse significata compressio, perversissimae res duae simul isdem temporibus fiunt, ut et foedorum species intellectum subiciat honestatis | f. 119b | et prius animum turpitudo quam religionis alicuius perstringat auctoritas.

5. Or had it no danger to call the gods adulterous, when the utterance of desire and wrath was going to befoul the tongue and the mouth by obscene contact? But if this were indeed done and the overshadowing of allegorical blindness were removed, both the matter would be easy for learning and the dignity of the gods would be preserved uninjured. 6. Now indeed, when it is said that in the chaining of Mars and Venus there is signified the compression of vices, two most perverse things happen at the same time, such that both the appearance of foul things imposes itself upon the understanding as honesty | f. 119b | and baseness touches the mind before the authority of any religion can graze it.

42.1. "Nisi forte dicetis - hoc enim solum restat, quod a vobis posse videatur opponi - deos sua mysteria nolle ab hominibus sciri et idcirco historias ambagibus esse allegoricis scriptas". 2. - Et unde vobis est liquidum, quod hominibus superi nolint sua mysteria publicari? Unde illa vos scitis aut cur ea dissolvere in allegoriarum explanatione curatis? 3. Ad extremum et ultimum quid sibi dii volunt, ut honesta cum nolint, turpissima de se dici atque indecora patiantur?

42.1. "Unless perhaps you will say — for this alone remains, which seems able to be opposed by you — that the gods do not wish their mysteries to be known by men, and therefore the histories have been written with allegorical circumlocutions." 2. - And whence is it clear to you that the supernal gods are unwilling that their mysteries be made public to men? Whence do you know those things, or why do you take pains to resolve them in the explanation of allegories? 3. At the end and the ultimate, what do the gods intend for themselves, that, when they are unwilling for honorable things, they should suffer the most shameful and unseemly things to be said about themselves?

4. "Attidem cum nominamus, solem, inquit, significamus et dicimus": - sed si Attis sol est, quemadmodum conmemoratis et dicitis, quis erit Attis ille, quem in Phrygia genitum vestrae produnt atque indicant litterae, quem passum esse res certas, fecisse item res certas, quem in spectaculis ludicris theatra universa noverunt, cui inter sacros cultus res videmus fieri specialiter annuas nominatimque divinas? 5. Utrumne ab sole ad hominem an ab homine ad solem vocabuli huius facta translatio est? 6. Si enim nomen istud principali erat ab origine solis, quid tandem de vobis sol aureus meruit, ut ei cum semiviro faceretis vocabulum istud >es> se commune?

4. "When we name Attis, we mean and say the sun," he says: - but if Attis is the sun, as you recount and say, who will that Attis be, whom your writings publish and indicate as born in Phrygia, whom certain facts show to have suffered, and likewise to have done certain things, whom the entire theatres have known in ludic spectacles, for whom among sacred cults we see things performed specifically annual and by name divine? 5. Whether has the translatio of this vocable been made from the sun to a man, or from a man to the sun? 6. For if that name was from the origin primarily of the sun, what, pray, has the golden sun deserved from you, that you should make for it this term >es> se common with a half-man?

7. Sin hirquinum et Phrygium est, quid Phaethontis genitor, pater huius luminis et claritatis admisit, ut absciso ab homine dignus videretur vocari et augustior fieret evirati corporis nuncupatione signatus?

7. But if it is hircine and Phrygian, what did the begetter of Phaethon, the father of this light and clarity, commit, that, abscised from a man, he should seem worthy to be called, and be made more august, marked by the nuncupation of an evirated body?

43.1. Sed quid sit istud, iam promptum est omnibus. Nam quia talium scriptorum historiarumque vos pudet nec aboleri videtis posse ea quae sunt | f. 120 | foede semel in commentarios relata, enitimini cohonestare res turpes atque omnibus argutiarum modis pro rebus subditis verborum invertitis corrumpitisque naturas atque ut olim accidere male sanis adsolet, quorum turbida vis morbi sensum atque intellegentiam depulit, confusa atque incerta iactatis et inanium per rerum figmenta bacchamini. 2. Esto: in Iovis et Cereris coitu inrigatio sit significata telluris, occultatio seminis patris in Ditis raptu, vina per terras sparsa distractis in visceribus Liberi, cupiditatis et temeritatis conpressio colligatio dicta sit adulterorum Veneris atque Martis.

43.1. But what this is, now it is plain to all. For because you are ashamed of such writings and histories, and you see that those things cannot be abolished which have once been foully consigned into the commentaries | f. 120 |, you strive to dignify shameful matters and, by all the modes of quibbling, you invert and corrupt the natures of words in place of the underlying realities; and, as is wont at times to happen to the unsound, whose troubled force of sickness has driven away sense and understanding, you toss about confused and uncertain things and rave in Bacchic fashion through the figments of empty things. 2. Granted: in the intercourse of Jove and Ceres let the irrigation of the earth be signified; in the rape by Dis, the hiding of the father’s seed; in Liber’s entrails, torn asunder, the wines scattered through the lands; let the compression and binding of desire and rashness be said in the adultery of the adulterers Venus and Mars.

44.1. Sed si fabulas has vultis more esse allegorico scriptas, quid ceteris fiet, quas non videmus posse versuras in huiusmodi cogi? Quid enim subiciemus pro illis fluctibus, quos super aggerem tumuli Semeleiae subolis urigo contorsit? 2. Et quid pro illis Ganymedibus raptis atque in libidinum magisteria substitutis?

44.1. But if you wish these fables to have been written in an allegorical manner, what will become of the others, which we do not see can be turned and compelled into this sort? 2. For what shall we put forward for those billows, which the charioteer hurled over the rampart of the mound of the Semeleian offspring? And what for those Ganymedes rapt and substituted into the magisteries of lusts?

Quid pro illa conversione formiculae, in quam Iuppiter maximus vastitatis suae liniamenta contraxit? quid pro cycnis et satyris? quid pro aureis imbribus, in quos idem se pella?

What shall we put in place for that conversion into a little ant, into which Jupiter the greatest contracted the lineaments of his vastness? What for the swans and the satyrs? What for the golden showers, into which the same one drove himself?

fraude induit perfida formarum varietatibus ludens? 3. Ac ne de Iove solo loqui videamur voluisse, in amoribus numinum reliquorum esse allegoriae quae possunt, quae in mercennariis condicionibus ac servitutibus, quae in vinculis orbitatibus planctibus, quae in cruciatibus vulneribus sepulturis? 4. In quo cum unam contrahere possetis culpam, conscriptione de superis tali addidistis, | f. 120b | ut dicitur, garogerem, cum deorum nominibus appellavistis res turpes et vocabulis rursus deos rerum coinquinavistis infamium.

did the treacherous one clothe himself in fraud, playing with varieties of forms? 3. And lest we seem to have wished to speak about Jove alone: what allegories can there be in the loves of the remaining divinities; what in mercenary conditions and servitudes; what in bonds, bereavements, plaints; what in torments, wounds, sepultures? 4. In which matter, when you could have contracted one guilt, by such a conscription concerning the supernal beings you have added, as it is said, a garogerem, since with the names of the gods you have entitled shameful things, and with the vocabularies of infamous things you have in turn befouled the gods.

5. Quod si adesse hic eos aut esse illos uspiam cognitione indubitabili >cre>deretis, in mentione illorum facienda praestringeret vos metus et tamquam vos audirent vestrasque acciperent voces ita credi oportuit et haberi in cogitatione defixum. 6. Apud enim homines officiosis religionibus deditos non ipsi dii tantum, verum etiam nomina debent esse deorum reverenda, quantumque est in ipsis qui censentur his nominibus, tantum esse par est in eorum appellationibus dignitatis.

5. But if you believed, with indubitable cognition, that they were present here or that those existed anywhere, in making mention of them fear would have overawed you, and it ought to have been believed and held fixed in thought that they, as if they heard you, received your voices. 6. For among men devoted to dutiful religious observances, not the gods themselves only, but even the names of the gods ought to be reverenced; and however much dignity there is in those who are assessed by these names, it is fitting that there be just as much dignity in their appellations.

45.1. Da veram iudicii formam, et in illa estis reprehensionis parte, quod in usu sermonis vestri Martem pro pugna appellatis, pro aquis Neptunum, Liberum patrem pro vino, Cererem pro pane, Minervam pro stamine, pro obscenis libidinibus Venerem. 2. Quae est enim ratio ut cum suis censeri appellationibus res possint, nominibus cognominentur deorum, et ea fiat numinibus contumelia quam nec homines sustinemus, si nostra quis nomina res ducat atque invertat in frivolas? "Sed oratio sordida est, verbis fuerit polluta si talibus". - Verecundia at laude condigna!

45.1. Give the true form of judgment, and you are in that part of reproof, that in the usage of your speech you call Mars for battle, Neptune for waters, Liber Father for wine, Ceres for bread, Minerva for thread, Venus for obscene lusts. 2. For what rationale is there that, when things can be reckoned by their own appellations, they are given the cognomina of the gods, and that insult is done to the numina which not even human beings endure, if someone should take our names and turn them into frivolities? "But the oration is sordid, it will have been polluted by such words." - Modesty with praise condign!

Erubescitis panem et vinum nominare et pro coitu Venerem non metuitis dicere.

You blush to name bread and wine, and you do not fear to say Venus for coitus.