43. But what the meaning of
this is, is already clear to all. For because you are ashamed of
such writers and histories, and do not see that these things can be got
rid of which have once been committed to writing in filthy language,
you strive to make base things honourable, and by every kind of
subtlety you pervert and corrupt the real senses4543
of words for the sake of spurious
interpretations;
4544
and, as oft
times happens to the
sick, whose senses and understanding have been put
to flight by the distempered force of
disease, you toss about confused
and uncertain
conjectures, and rave in empty
fictions.
Let it be granted that the irrigation of
the earth was meant by the union of Jupiter and Ceres, the burying of
the seed4545
| 4545 So
most edd., reading occultatiofor the ms. occupatio. |
by the
ravishing
of Proserpine by father Dis, wines scattered over the
earth by the limbs of Liber torn asunder
by the Titans, that the
restraining
4546
| 4546 So
all edd., reading com-, except Hild. and Oehler, who
retain the ms. reading,
im-pressio—“the assault of,” i.e.,
“on.” |
of lust and
rashness has been spoken of as the binding of the adulterous Venus and
Mars.
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