26. But what shall I say of the
desires with which it is written in your books, and contained in your
writers, that the holy immortals lusted after women? For is it by
us that the king of the sea
is asserted in the heat of maddened passion to have robbed of their
virgin purity Amphitrite,4221
| 4221
These names are all in the plural in the original. |
Hippothoe, Amymone, Menalippe,
Alope?
4222
| 4222 So
LB. and Orelli, reading Alopas, from Clem. Alex., for the
ms. Alcyonas. |
that the
spotless Apollo, Latona’s son, most
chaste and pure, with the
passions of a
breast not governed by reason, desired Arsinoe,
Æthusa, Hypsipyle, Marpessa, Zeuxippe, and Prothoe, Daphne, and
Sterope?
4223
| 4223
These names are all in the plural in the original. |
Is it
shown in our poems that the aged Saturn, already long covered with grey
hair, and now cooled by weight of years, being taken by his
wife in
adultery, put on the form of one of the lower
animals, and neighing
loudly,
escaped in the shape of a
beast? Do you not
accuse
Jupiter himself of having assumed countless forms, and concealed by
mean deceptions the ardour of his
wanton lust? Have we ever
written that he obtained his desires by
deceit, at one time changing
into
gold, at another into a sportive satyr; into a
serpent, a
bird, a
bull; and, to pass beyond all limits of disgrace, into a little ant,
that he might, forsooth, make Clitor’s
daughter the mother of
Myrmidon, in Thessaly? Who represented him as having watched over
Alcmena for nine nights without ceasing? was it not you?—that he
indolently abandoned himself to his
lusts,
forsaking his post in
heaven? was it not you? And, indeed, you ascribe
4224
to him
no mean favours; since, in your opinion, the
god Hercules was
born to
exceed and
surpass in such matters his
father’s powers. He
in nine nights begot
4225
| 4225 In
the original, somewhat at large—unam potuit prolem extundere,
concinnare, compingere. |
with difficulty one son; but Hercules,
a holy
god, in one
night taught the fifty
daughters of Thestius at once
to lay aside their virginal title, and to bear a mother’s
burden. Moreover, not content to have ascribed to the gods
love
of
women, do you also say that they
lusted after men? Some one
loves Hylas; another is engaged with Hyacinthus; that one burns with
desire for Pelops; this one sighs more ardently for Chrysippus;
Catamitus is carried off to be a favourite and cup-bearer; and Fabius,
that he may be called Jove’s darling, is branded on the soft
parts, and marked in the hinder.
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