20. It was our purpose to
leave unnoticed those mysteries also into which Phrygia is initiated,
and all that4392
| 4392
So the ms. and edd., reading
gens illa, for which Memmius proposed
Ilia—“and all the Trojan race.” |
race, were
it not that the name of
Jupiter,
which has been introduced by
them, would not
suffer us to pass cursorily by the wrongs and insults
offered to him; not that we feel any
pleasure in discussing
4393
| 4393
Lit., “riding upon”—inequitare. |
mysteries
so
filthy, but that it may be made clear to you again and again what
wrong you heap upon those whose
guardians, champions, worshippers, you
profess to be. Once upon a time, they say, Diespiter, burning
after his mother Ceres with
evil passions and forbidden desires, for
she is said by the natives of that
district to be
Jupiter’s mother, and yet not
daring to
seek by open
4394
force that
for which he had conceived a shameless longing, hits upon a clever
trick by which to
rob of her chastity his mother, who
feared nothing of
the sort. Instead of a
god, he becomes a bull; and concealing his
purpose and
daring under the
appearance of a
beast lying in
wait,
4395
he
rushes
madly with sudden
violence upon her, thoughtless and unwitting, obtains
his incestuous desires; and the
fraud being disclosed by his
lust,
flies off known and
discovered. His mother
burns, foams, gasps,
boils with fury and indignation; and being unable to repress the
storm4396
| 4396
Lit., “growling”—fremitum. |
and tempest
of her wrath, received the name Brimo
4397
| 4397
The ms. reads primo,
emended as above by the brother of Canterus, followed by later edd. |
thereafter from her ever-raging
passion: nor has she any other wish than to punish as she may her
son’s audacity.
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