22. I do not think it necessary
here also with many words to go through each part, and show how many
base and unseemly things there are in each particular. For what mortal
is there, with but little sense even of what becomes a man, who does
not himself see clearly the character of all these things, how wicked
they are, how vile, and what disgrace is brought upon the gods
by the very ceremonies of their mysteries, and by the unseemly origin
of their rites? Jupiter, it is said, lusted after Ceres.
Why, I ask, has Jupiter deserved so ill of you, that there is no kind
of disgrace, no infamous adultery, which you do not heap upon his head,
as if on some vile and worthless person? Leda was unfaithful to
her nuptial vow; Jupiter is said to be the cause of the fault.
Danae could not keep her virginity; the theft is said to have
been Jupiter’s. Europa hastened to the name of woman;
he is again declared to have been the assailant of her
chastity. Alcmena, Electra, Latona, Laodamia, a thousand other
virgins, and a thousand matrons, and with them the boy Catamitus, were
robbed of their honour and4408
chastity. It is the same
story
everywhere—
Jupiter. Nor is there any
kind of baseness in
which you do not join and associate his name with passionate
lusts; so
that the
wretched being seems to have been
born for no other reason at
all except that he might be a
field fertile in
4409
| 4409
Lit., “that he might be a crop
of”—seges, a correction in the margin of
Ursinus for the ms.
sedes—“a seat.” |
crimes, an occasion of
evil-speaking, a
kind of open place into which should
gather all
filthiness from the
impurities of the stage.
4410
| 4410 So
all edd., reading scenarum (ms. scr-, but r marked as spurious),
except LB, followed by Orelli, who gives
sentinarum—“of the dregs.” Oehler
supplies e, which the sense seems to require. [Note
our author’s persistent scorn of Jove Opt.
Max.] |
And yet if you were to say that he
had intercourse with
strange women, it would indeed be impious, but the
wrong done in slandering him might be bearable. Did he
lust4411
| 4411
Lit., “neigh with appetites of an enraged beast.” |
after his
mother also, after his
daughter too, with furious desires; and could no
sacredness in his parent, no reverence for her,
no shrinking
even from the child which had sprung from himself, withhold him from
conceiving so detestable a plan?
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