9. But why do we speak of
your having bemired the Great Mother of the gods with the filth of
earth, when you have not been able for but a little time even to keep
from speaking evil of Jupiter himself? While the mother of the
gods was then sleeping on the highest peak of Agdus, her son, you say,
tried stealthily to surprise her chastity while she slept. After
robbing of their chastity virgins and matrons without number, did
Jupiter hope to gratify his detestable passion upon his mother? and
could he not be turned from his fierce desire by the horror which
nature itself has excited not only in men, but in some other
animals also, and by common4340
| 4340
Lit., “the feeling commonly implanted.” |
feeling? Was he then regardless
of
piety4341
| 4341
Lit., “was regard of piety
wanting”—defuit, an emendation of Salmasius
(according to Orelli) for the ms.
depuit. |
and honour,
who is
chief in the
temples? and could he neither reconsider nor
perceive how
wicked was his desire, his
mind being madly
agitated? But, as it is, forgetting his
majesty and
dignity, he
crept forward to
steal those
vile pleasures, trembling and quaking with
fear, holding his
breath, walking in
terror on tiptoe, and, between
hope and
fear, touched her
secret parts, trying how soundly his mother
slept, and what she would
suffer.
4342
Oh, shameful representation!
oh, disgraceful plight of
Jupiter, prepared to attempt a
filthy
contest! Did the
ruler of the
world, then, turn to force, when,
in his heedlessness and
haste, he was prevented from stealing on by
surprise;
4343
| 4343
Lit., “from the theft of taking by
surprise”—obreptionis, for which the
ms., first four edd., Oberth., Hild., and
Oehler read object.—“of what he
proposed.” |
and when he
was unable to
snatch his
pleasure by
cunning craft, did he assail his
mother with
violence, and begin without any concealment to
destroy the
chastity which he should have revered? Then, having striven for a
very long time when she is
unwilling, did he go off conquered,
vanquished, and overcome? and did his spent lust part him whom piety
was unable to hold back from execrable lust after his
mother?
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