Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book V/Chapter IX

by Arnobius

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 common^[1] feeling? Was he then regardless of piety^[2] 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.^[3] 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;^[4] 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?

Footnotes

1. Lit., “the feeling commonly implanted.”
2. Lit., “was regard of piety wanting”—defuit, an emendation of Salmasius (according to Orelli) for the ms. depuit.
3. Lit., “the depth and patience of his sleeping mother.”
4. 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.”