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ℹ️ The Chinese and English alongside are this site's own translation, made directly from the original text on this page (not the CUV or the WEB, which follow the Masoretic Text and a different textual tradition).
But you, who contend to be the champions and propagators of their immortality — have you passed over any single one of these unwounded by your curses? Or is there any kind of reproach, damnable in common estimation, which you have feared to fasten upon them, held back even by the mere authority of their name? Who declared that the gods loved perishable and mortal bodies? — Was it not you? Who declared that they perpetrated those sweetest thefts in the marriage-beds of others? — Was it not you? Who declared that children mingled ill-omened couplings with their mothers, and fathers again with their own maidens? — Was it not you? Who declared that pretty boys and youths were incestuously desired for their most charming figures? — Was it not you?
Who declared them castrated, who debauched, who shape-shifters, who thieves, who held in bonds, who in chains, who at last assailed by thunderbolts, who wounded, who to have met their final days, and even to have merited earthly burials? — Was it not you? Since, therefore, so many and such great charges have been forged by you to the outrage of the gods, do you dare to object that the minds of the deities are offended on account of our name — when it might long since prove you to be the defendants guilty of such great wraths and the authors of divine indignation? 'But you err,' he says, 'and slip, and you show yourself to be quite unskilled, unlearned, and rustic by this very reviling of the matter.'
'For all those tales, which seem base to you and to pertain to divine disgrace, contain holy mysteries within themselves, meanings wondrous and deep, and such as no one could easily grasp by liveliness of wit. For it is not that which is written and set at the very forefront of the words that is signified and said, but all those things are understood by allegorical and substituted secret meanings. Thus he who says that Jupiter lay with his own mother does not signify the incestuous or shameful embraces of Venus, but names Jupiter for rain and Ceres for earth.'
'And again, he who relates that he practiced wantonness with his daughter says nothing of foul pleasures, but sets Jupiter in place of the name of rain-shower, and in the signification of the daughter, the sowing. So too he who says that Proserpina was carried off by Father Dis does not say, as you suppose, that the maiden was seized into most base appetites, but, because we hide the seeds in the clods, means that the goddess went beneath the earth and, with Orcus, establishes the covenants of generative offspring. By a like reasoning, in the other tales too one thing indeed is said, but another understood, and beneath the common plainness of the speech there lies a secret meaning and the enfolded depth of a mystery.'
These are all, as is plain, mere subtleties and clever devices, with which it is customary to prop up bad causes in the courts — nay rather, to speak more truly, the specious colorings of sophistical disputations, by which not truth, but ever an image and semblance of truth, and a shadow, is sought. For since it is shameful, unbecoming, and unseemly to accept the plain readings, recourse has been had to these expedients, so that one thing might be substituted for another and an interpretation of baseness be forced into a semblance of decency. But what is it to us, whether other senses and other meanings underlie those empty writings?
For it is enough for us, who maintain that the gods are wickedly and impiously handled by you, to accept what is written, what is heard, and not to care what lies in the hidden depth — since the insult to the deities is held not in the obscure mind of the meanings but in the signification of the prominent words. And yet, lest we seem unwilling to examine what sort of thing this is that is alleged, we first inquire this of you — if only you are willing to lend your patience: that these things were written in an allegorical manner, or ought to be understood in that same manner — whence has it become known to you, or whence intimated? Are you wont to summon the writers into your counsel? Were you lurking in their breasts, when, having seized the truth, they substituted one thing for another?
Next, if they, from fear of some reasoning and of religion, wished to wrap up those mysteries in shadowy obscurity, how great is your boldness, that what they were unwilling should be known, you wish to understand — you, to know it and lay it open to the knowledge of all, what they in vain concealed with words signifying less than the truth? But granting that in all these fables hinds are said in place of Iphigenias, whence yet is it clear to you, when you wish either to explain or to unfold those allegories, that you interpret the same things and mean the same things which were meant under the silent thoughts by the very authors — and set forth not by proper words, but by other significations?
You say that the union of Jupiter and Ceres was meant to signify the rain-shower fallen into the lap of the earth: another can invent something else, and more cleverly, and conjecture it with a likeness of truth; a third can invent something else, a fourth something else; and as the qualities of the conjecturing wits carry them, so each single thing can be explained by infinite interpretations. For since all this that is called allegory is drawn from hidden matters, and has no fixed limit in which the meaning of the thing spoken is fixed and unmoved, each man is free to drag the reading in whatever direction he wishes, and to affirm that to be intended toward which his own suspicion and plausible conjecture has led him.
Since this is so, how can you take certain things from doubtful ones and attach one single signification to a saying which you see drawn out through countless modes by the variety of expositions? Finally, if you deem it fitting, we also inquire this of you by a repeated question: do you judge all these fables — that is, each one entire — to be written in ambiguous, double-tongued, and shifting modes? Or do some of their parts say nothing ambiguous, while others are many-cleft and veiled by the overlaying of an allegorical covering?
For if from head to end the whole text and sequence of the account is shut up with allegorical veils, then expound, show, what we ought to substitute for each single thing that each fable utters, and bring it forth, and to what other things and meanings we should summon each. For just as you would have Jupiter heard for rain, Ceres, say, for earth, and for Libera and Father Dis the submersion and casting of seed, so it befits you to say what we ought to take for the bull...
...what we ought to understand, what for the indignation and wrath of Ceres, what the word 'Brimo' means, what the supplication of the anxious Jupiter, what the heaven-dwellers sent as envoys and not heard, what the castrated ram, what the offspring of the castrated ram, what the satisfaction made to these, what those things which were again done with more obscene lust upon the daughter.
Likewise, in the other fable, what the grove of Henna and its flowers are, what the fire taken from Etna and the torches kindled by it, what the traversing of the world with these, what the Attic region, what the Eleusinian village, what Baubo's hut and rustic hospitality, what the drink of the cyceon signifies, what the spurning of the drink, what the refashioning and revelation of the shameful parts, what the disgraceful sweetness of the spectacle, and the forgetfulness of bereavement procured by such remedies. But if for all these things you show what ought to be substituted by a changing of the meanings, then it shall be that we grant you assent regarding such an assertion:
but if you can neither set out each thing for each, nor summon the one into the context of the other things, why do you dignify with allegorical obscurities that which is written plainly and published for common understanding? 'Unless perhaps you will say that these allegories are not throughout the whole body of the narrative, but that some parts are written commonly, others however are veiled in a double and ambiguous covering.' — That is an urbane subtlety, and plain to any dullard. For because it is most impracticable for you to transpose, invert, and derive everything that is written, you pick out certain things suited to your wish...
...and from these you contend to establish that spurious and adulterate readings are superimposed upon an inner truth. Yet, granting that this is as you say it is, how do you know, or whence do you learn, which part of the narrative is written with simple meanings and which is covered with discordant and alien significations? For it can happen that what you deem to be thus is otherwise, and that what you believe to be otherwise was brought forth with other and contrary conceptions.
For where it is said that within the body of a single subject one part is written allegorically, and the other in unquestionable and straightforward speech, and there is no mark in the matter by which the difference between the ambiguous and the plainly-stated can be shown, then that which is plain can as readily be thought to have been said in a two-formed way, as that which is written ambiguously can be believed to have hidden veils. And indeed in what fashion this either comes about, or can be believed capable of coming about, we confess we are utterly unable to understand. For let us examine what is said, in this manner. 'In the grove of Henna,' he says, 'once the maiden Proserpina used to gather flowers.' — This so far is intact and set forth with straightforward utterance;
for both what the grove and the flowers are, what Proserpina, what the maiden, is unquestionably known to all. 'Summanus flashed forth from the earth, borne in a four-horse chariot.' — This too is equally plain; for the four-horse team, the chariot, and Summanus require no interpretation. 'Unforeseen, he seized Proserpina and carried her off with him beneath the earth.' 'The hiding of the seed,' he says, 'is denoted in the ravishing of Proserpina.' — What has happened, I ask, that the narrative was suddenly turned into something else, that Proserpina should be called seed — so that she who a moment ago was reckoned a maiden in the gathering of flowers, after she was taken up and carried off, began to bear the signification of the sowing?
'Jupiter,' he says, 'turned into a bull, sought the embrace of his mother Ceres: as was explained above, by these names the earth and the falling rain are denoted.' — I see the allegorical law expounded with shadowy ambiguities. 'Ceres was angered and blazed up, and took the offspring of the ram as penalty and vengeance.' — This again I see set forth in common statements; for both the anger and the satisfaction rendered by the testicles are stated according to their own characters and conditions. What, then, has happened here, that from Jupiter, who is rain, and from Ceres, who was called earth, the matter passed over to the true Jupiter and to the most plain statement of things?
Either, therefore, all things ought to have been written and set down in the allegorical manner, and the whole demonstrated to us; or nothing has been written in that manner, since what is believed to be so does not appear to be so, as it were, in part of the narrative. 'All these things are written in the allegorical manner.' — That does not seem at all certain. 'By what reasoning, by what cause do you inquire?' — Because everything that has been done and set within the evidence of some deed cannot be led over into an allegorical conversion; for what has been done cannot be undone, nor can the nature of a deed done degenerate into an alien nature. Can the Iliadic war be turned into the condemnation of Socrates, or can that battle of Cannae become a proscription and the cruelty of Sulla?
A proscription can indeed, as Tullius (Cicero) jests, be called and named a battle of Cannae; but the one that was fought long ago cannot be the same battle and the same proscription; for what has been done cannot, as I said, be other than that which has been done, nor can that which is fixed in its own force and in the quality of its own kind migrate into an alien substance. 'Whence, then, do we prove that all these tales are records of things done?' — From the solemn rites, of course, and the mysteries of the initiations — whether those which are performed at set times and days, or those which the nations hand down in secret, preserved by the perpetuity of their own custom.
For it is not to be believed that these things exist without their own origins, that they are done vainly and to no purpose, and have no causes joined to their first institutions. That pine, which is solemnly borne into the sanctuary of the Mother goddess — is it not the image of that tree beneath which Attis took his manhood from himself by reaping off his genitals, and which they relate the goddess consecrated in solace of her grief? That erection of phalli and members, which Greece adores and celebrates together in yearly rites — does it not reproduce the likeness of that deed by which Liber freed himself from his debt? And those Eleusinian mysteries and hidden rites of the sacred things — whose memory do they contain?
Is it not the memory of that wandering by which Ceres, in the search for her daughter, when weary she came to the Attic shores, brought the wheaten fruits, honored the family of the Nebridae with the little skin of a fawn, and laughed at that greatest spectacle of Baubo's groin? Or, if there is another cause, that is nothing to us, provided all these things come about from a cause. For it is not credible that they were undertaken with no antecedent causes; otherwise the Athenians must be judged insane, who fashioned for themselves a rite of religion concocted with no reasons at all. But if this is clear and settled — that is, if the causes and origins of the mysteries flow from things done — then they cannot by any conversion be carried over into allegorical guises.
For what has been made and done cannot be made undone, since the nature of things forbids it. And yet, granting to you that these matters are as you say — that is, that the narratives sound one thing in words but say some other thing in the manner of soothsayers — do you thus not notice, do you not see, with how great disgrace and insult to the gods this is said to be done? Or can any injury more grievous be found, than to call and name earth and rain — or anything else, for it makes no difference by what interpretation the conversion is made — the union of Jupiter and Ceres, and, together with the crimes of the gods, to signify the fall of the rain-shower from heaven and the moisture of the earth?
Can anything more irreligious be either supposed or believed, than to call the seeds sunk into the earth — or anything else, for it makes no difference likewise — the rape of Proserpina, and, with the mark of shame of Father Dis, to speak of the work of husbandry? Was it not a thousand times more to be wished to become tongueless and mute, than to loose that gushing spring of voice and clamor of foul loquacity — than to call most base things by the names of the gods, nay rather to signify vulgar affairs by the base deeds of the gods? 'Formerly it had been the custom, in allegorical speech, to overshadow base things with most honorable meanings, and to clothe things foul to utter with the dignity of honorable ones.'
But indeed, on your authority, grave things are spoken through baseness, and things strong in chastity dwell within obscene words, so that what once the gravity of custom used to cover with modesty of foul things is now said cheaply and basely, the diction of worthy things being changed. 'When we say,' he says, 'that Mars and Venus were caught in adultery by the craft of Vulcan, we mean lust and anger held down by the force of counsel and reason.' — For what prevented, what stood in the way, of bringing forth each single thing in its own words and its own significations?
Nay, what compelled you — when you wished to indicate some unknown thing through commentaries and writings — to be unwilling that what you indicated should be understood, but to take up contrary things at once in one and the same exposition: the zeal of one desiring to teach and the malignity of one unwilling to reveal? Was there no danger, then, in calling the gods adulterers, whereas the utterance of lust and anger would have polluted the tongue and mouth with obscene contact? But if this were done anyway, and the overshadowing of allegorical blindness were removed, both the matter would be easy to learn and the dignity of the gods would be preserved unharmed.
But now, when it is said that in the binding of Mars and Venus the restraint of vices is signified, two most perverse things occur at once at the same moment: that both the appearance of foul things suggests the notion of honesty, and baseness grips the mind before the authority of any religion does. 'Unless perhaps you will say — for this alone remains that seems able to be objected by you — that the gods do not wish their mysteries to be known by men, and that therefore the narratives were written with allegorical circumlocutions.' — And whence is it clear to you that the gods above do not wish their mysteries to be published to men? Whence do you know those things, or why do you take pains to unravel them in the explanation of allegories?
Finally and last of all, what do the gods intend by it, that, while refusing what is honourable, they should endure the most shameful and unseemly things to be said about themselves? 'When we name Attis,' he says, 'we mean and speak of the sun.' But if Attis is the sun, as you record and declare, who then will that Attis be whom your writings report and point out to have been born in Phrygia, whom they say suffered certain definite things and likewise did certain definite things, whom whole theatres have known in stage-shows, and for whom, amid sacred rites, we see ceremonies specifically annual and expressly divine performed? Was the transfer of this name made from the sun to the man, or from the man to the sun?
For if that name belonged from its very origin to the sun, what after all did the golden sun deserve from you, that you should make that name common to it and to a half-man? But if it is goatish and Phrygian, what did the father of Phaethon, the father of this light and brightness, commit, that he should be deemed worthy to be named after a mutilated man, and be made more august, marked by the appellation of an emasculated body? But what this really is, is now plain to all. For because you are ashamed of such writers and histories, and see that what exists cannot be abolished...
...once foully entered into the annals, you strive to dignify shameful things, and by every kind of subtlety you invert and corrupt the natures of words in place of the underlying facts; and, as often befalls the deranged, whose turbid force of disease has driven out sense and understanding, you fling out confused and uncertain things and rave through the fictions of empty matters. So be it: let the union of Jupiter and Ceres signify the irrigation of the earth; the hiding of the father's seed, the rape by Dis; the wines poured over the lands, the torn entrails of Liber; and let the adultery of Venus and Mars be called the checking and binding of lust and rashness.
But if you wish these fables to have been written in an allegorical manner, what will become of the rest, which we do not see can be forced into turns of this kind? For what shall we substitute for those floods which lust hurled over the mound of the tomb of Semele's offspring? And what for those Ganymedes carried off and appointed as instructors in lusts? What for that transformation into a little ant, into which Jupiter the greatest contracted the features of his vastness? What for the swans and satyrs? What for the golden showers into which the same one clothed himself by treacherous deceit, sporting with varieties of shapes?
And—lest we seem to have wished to speak of Jupiter alone—in the loves of the remaining deities, what allegories can there be? What in hireling conditions and servitudes, what in chains, bereavements, and laments, what in tortures, wounds, and burials? Wherein, though you could have incurred but a single fault, by such a record about the gods above you added, as the saying goes, insult to injury: for you called shameful things by the names of the gods, and again you defiled the gods with the names of infamous things.
But if you believed with indubitable knowledge that they were present here, or existed anywhere, fear would restrain you in making mention of them, and it would have been fitting to believe—and to hold fixed in your thought—that they heard you and received your words, as though they were listening. For among men devoted to dutiful religion, not only the gods themselves, but even the names of the gods ought to be reverenced; and as much dignity as there is in those who are reckoned by these names, so much ought there to be in their appellations.
Grant a true form of judgement, and you are on that side which is to be blamed, in that in the usage of your speech you call battle Mars, waters Neptune, wine father Liber, bread Ceres, thread Minerva, and obscene lusts Venus. For what reason is there that, when things can be designated by their own names, they should be surnamed by the names of gods, and that an insult be done to the deities which not even we men would endure, if someone should apply our names to things and pervert them into trifling ones? 'But speech is sordid, if it be polluted with such words.' O modesty worthy of praise! You blush to name bread and wine, and yet you do not fear to say Venus in place of sexual union.