[4172] So all the edd., though Orelli approves of fictione (edd. -em), which is, he says, the ms. reading, "set forth with wanton fiction."
[4173] The ms. and earlier edd., with Hild. and Oehler, read ex hominum de scriptis; LB. and Orelli inserting his after de, as above.
[4174] The ms. and both Roman edd. read esse, which is clearly corrupt; for which LB. gives scripsisse (misprinted scripse), as above.
[4175] i.e., "speak of them at all."
[4176] Lit., "an idea of no writing."
[4177] Lit., "been informed by books suggesting to you," etc.
19. But perhaps these things will turn out to be false, and what you say to be true. By what proof, by what evidence, will it be shown? For since both parties are men, both those who have said the one thing and those who have said the other, and on both sides the discussion was of doubtful matters, it is arrogant to say that that is true which seems so to you, but that that which offends your feelings manifests wantonness and falsehood. By the laws of the human race, and the associations of mortality itself, when you read and hear, That god was born of this father and of that mother, do you not feel in your mind [4178] that something is said which belongs to man, and relates to the meanness of our earthly race? Or, while you think that it is so, [4179] do you conceive no anxiety lest you should in something offend the gods themselves, whoever they are, because you believe that it is owing to filthy intercourse... [4180] that they have reached the light they knew not of, thanks to lewdness? For we, lest any one should chance to think that we are ignorant of, do not know, what befits the majesty of that name, assuredly [4181] think that the gods should not know birth; or if they are born at all, we hold and esteem that the Lord and Prince of the universe, by ways which He knew Himself, sent them forth spotless, most pure, undefiled, ignorant of sexual pollution, [4182] and brought to the full perfection of their natures as soon as they were begotten?
[4178] Lit., "does it not touch the feeling of your mind."
[4179] Ursinus would supply eos--"that they are so."
[4180] Atque ex seminis, actu, or jactu, as the edd. except Hild. read it.
[4181] The ms. reads dignitati-s aut; corrected, as above, d. sane, in the first five edd., Oberthür, and Orelli. [John x. 35.]
[4182] Quæsit foeditas ista coeundi.
[4183] Lit., "as far as to themselves, their first generation being completed."
20. But you, on the contrary, forgetting how great [4184] their dignity and grandeur are, associate with them a birth, [4185] and impute to them a descent, [4186] which men of at all refined feelings regard as at once execrable and terrible. From Ops, you say, his mother, and from his father Saturn, Diespiter was born with his brothers. Do the gods, then, have wives; and, the matches having been previously planned, do they become subject to the bonds of marriage? Do they take upon themselves [4187] the engagements of the bridal couch by prescription, by the cake of spelt, and by a pretended sale? [4188] Have they their mistresses, [4189] their promised wives, their betrothed brides, on settled conditions? And what do we say about their marriages, too, when indeed you say that some celebrated their nuptials, and entertained joyous throngs, and that the goddesses sported at these; and that some threw all things into utter confusion with dissensions because they had no share in singing the Fescennine verses, and occasioned danger and destruction [4190] to the next generation of men? [4191]
[4184] Lit., "forgetting the so great majesty and sublimity."
[4185] Both plural.
[4186] Both plural.
[4187] The ms., first four edd., and Oberthür read conducunt--"unite;" for which the rest read condic-unt, as above.
[4188] i.e., usu, farre, coemptione.
[4189] The word here translated mistresses, speratas, is used of maidens loved, but not yet asked in marriage.
[4190] Lit., "dangers of destructions."
[4191] Instead of "occasioned," sevisse, which the later editions give, the ms. and first four edd. read sævisse--"that danger and destruction raged against," etc.
21. But perhaps this foul pollution may be less apparent in the rest. Did, then, the ruler of the heavens, the father of gods and men, who, by the motion of his eyebrow, and by his nod, shakes the whole heavens and makes them tremble,--did he find his origin in man and woman? And unless both sexes abandoned themselves to degrading pleasures in sensual embraces, [4192] would there be no Jupiter, greatest of all; and even to this time would the divinities have no king, and heaven stand without its lord? And why do we marvel that you say Jove sprang from a woman's womb, seeing that your authors relate that he both had a nurse, and in the next place maintained the life given to him by nourishment drawn from a foreign [4193] breast? What say you, O men? Did, then, shall I repeat, the god who makes the thunder crash, lightens and hurls the thunderbolt, and draws together terrible clouds, drink in the streams of the breast, wail as an infant, creep about, and, that he might be persuaded to cease his crying most foolishly protracted, was he made silent by the noise of rattles, [4194] and put to sleep lying in a very soft cradle, and lulled with broken words? O devout assertion of the existence of gods, pointing out and declaring the venerable majesty of their awful grandeur! Is it thus in your opinion, I ask, that the exalted powers [4195] of heaven are produced? do your gods come forth to the light by modes of birth such as these, by which asses, pigs, dogs, by which the whole of this unclean herd [4196] of earthly beasts is conceived and begotten?
[4192] Copulatis corporibus.
[4193] i.e., not his mother's, but the dug of the goat Amalthea.
[4194] Lit., "rattles heard."
[4195] Lit., "the eminence of the powers."
[4196] Lit., "inundation."
22. And, not content to have ascribed these carnal unions to the venerable Saturn, [4197] you affirm that the king of the world himself begot children even more shamefully than he was himself born and begotten. Of Hyperiona, [4198] as his mother, you say, and Jupiter, who wields the thunderbolt, was born the golden and blazing Sun; of Latona and the same, the Delian archer, and Diana, [4199] who rouses the woods; of Leda and the same, [4200] those named in Greek Dioscori; of Alcmena and the same, the Theban Hercules, whom his club and hide defended; of him and Semele, Liber, who is named Bromius, and was born a second time from his father's thigh; of him, again, and Maia, Mercury, eloquent in speech, and bearer of the harmless snakes. Can any greater insult be put upon your Jupiter, or is there anything else which will destroy and ruin the reputation of the chief of the gods, further than that you believe him to have been at times overcome by vicious pleasures, and to have glowed with the passion of a heart roused to lust after women? And what had the Saturnian king to do with strange nuptials? Did Juno not suffice him; and could he not stay the force of his desires on the queen of the deities, although so great excellence graced her, such beauty, majesty of countenance, and snowy and marble whiteness of arms? Or did he, not content with one wife, taking pleasure in concubines, mistresses, and courtezans, a lustful god, show [4201] his incontinence in all directions, as is the custom with dissolute [4202] youths; and in old age, after intercourse with numberless persons, did he renew his eagerness for pleasures now losing their zest? What say you, profane ones; or what vile thoughts do you fashion about your Jove? Do you not, then, observe, do you not see with what disgrace you brand him? of what wrong-doing you make him the author? or what stains of vice, how great infamy you heap upon him?
[4197] Lit., "Saturnian gravity."
[4198] Cf. ch. 14, note 8, supra.
[4199] It is worth while to compare this passage with ch. 16. Here Arnobius makes Latona the mother of Apollo and Diana in accordance with the common legend; but there he represents the first Minerva as claiming them as her children.
[4200] In the ms. there is here an evident blunder on the part of the copyist, who has inserted the preceding line ("the archer Apollo, and of the woods") after "the same." Omitting these words, the ms. reading is literally, "the name in Greek is to the Dioscori." Before "the name" some word is pretty generally supposed to have been lost, some conjecturing "to whom;" others (among them Orelli, following Salmasius) "Castores." But it is evidently not really necessary to supplement the text.
[4201] Lit., "scatter."
[4202] Orelli reads with the ms., LB., and Hild., babecali, which he interprets belli, i.e., "handsome."
23. Men, though prone to lust, and inclined, through weakness of character, to yield to the allurements of sensual pleasures, still punish adultery by the laws, and visit with the penalty of death those whom they find to have possessed themselves of others rights by forcing the marriage-bed. The greatest of kings, however, you tell us, did not know how vile, how infamous the person of the seducer and adulterer was; and he who, as is said, examines our merits and demerits, did not, owing to the reasonings of his abandoned heart, see what was the fitting course for him to resolve on. But this misconduct might perhaps be endured, if you were to conjoin him with persons at least his equals, and if he were made by you the paramour of the immortal goddesses. But what beauty, what grace was there, I ask you, in human bodies, which could move, which could turn to it [4203] the eyes of Jupiter? Skin, entrails, phlegm, and all that filthy mass placed under the coverings of the intestines, which not Lynceus only with his searching gaze can shudder at, but any other also can be made to turn from even by merely thinking. O wonderful reward of guilt, O fitting and precious joy, for which Jupiter, the greatest, should become a swan, and a bull, and beget white eggs!
[4203] ms. and first five edd. read inde--"thence;" the others in se, as above. [Elucidation III.]
24. If you will open your minds' eyes, and see the real [4204] truth without gratifying any private end, you will find that the causes of all the miseries by which, as you say, the human race has long been afflicted, flow from such beliefs which you held in former times about your gods; and which you have refused to amend, although the truth was placed before your eyes. For what about them, pray, have we indeed ever either imagined which was unbecoming, or put forth in shameful writings that the troubles which assail men and the loss of the blessings of life [4205] should be used to excite a prejudice against us? Do we say that certain gods were produced from eggs, [4206] like storks and pigeons? Do we say that the radiant Cytherean Venus grew up, having taken form from the sea's foam and the severed genitals of Coelus? that Saturn was thrown into chains for parricide, and relieved from their weight only on his own days? [4207] that Jupiter was saved from death [4208] by the services of the Curetes? that he drove his father from the seat of power, and by force and fraud possessed a sovereignty not his own? Do we say that his aged sire, when driven out, concealed himself in the territories of the Itali, and gave his name as a gift to Latium, [4209] because he had been there protected from his son? Do we say that Jupiter himself incestuously married his sister? or, instead of pork, breakfasted in ignorance upon the son of Lycaon, when invited to his table? that Vulcan, limping on one foot, wrought as a smith in the island of Lemnos? that Æsculapius was transfixed by a thunderbolt because of his greed and avarice, as the Boeotian Pindar [4210] sings? that Apollo, having become rich, by his ambiguous responses, deceived the very kings by whose treasures and gifts he had been enriched? Did we declare that Mercury was a thief? that Laverna is so also, and along with him presides over secret frauds? Is the writer Myrtilus one of us, who declares that the Muses were the handmaids of Megalcon, [4211] daughter of Macarus? [4212]
[4204] Orelli, without receiving into the text, approves of the reading of Stewechius, promptam, "evident," for the ms. propriam.
[4205] Lit., "the benefits diminished by which it is lived."
[4206] The ms. reads ex Jovis; the first five edd. Jove--"from Jove," which is altogether out of place; the others, as above, ex ovis. Cf. i. 36.
[4207] The ms. reads et ablui diebus tantis...elevari; LB., Hild. and Oehler, statis or statutis...et levari--"and was loosed and released on fixed days;" Elm., Oberthür, and Orelli receive the conjecture of Ursinus, et suis diebus tantum...rel., as above.