PROSE V.

Jam ex hoc mea doctrine artificio.

Now the theory of the art of love has appeared clearly to thee from my skillful presentation, and through the book of experience thou wilt be able to acquire for thyself its practice. And it is not strange if in this portrayal of Cupid I intersperse slight signs of blame, although he is allied to me by the connection of own blood-relationship. Disparaging malice, 'with its deep rust, did not drive me to these upbraiding and reproving censures, nor the intensity of burning hate breaking forth from within, nor the tyrant of jealousy raging furiously without, but the fear lest I should seem to strangle, clear and eloquent truth by silence. I do not deny honorableness to the essential nature of love if it is checked by the bridle of moderation if it is restrained by the reins of sobriety, if it does not transgress the determined boundaries of the dual activity, or its heat boil to too great a degree. But if its spark shoots into a flame, or its little spring rises to a torrent, the rankness of the growth demands the pruning-knife, and the swelling and excess requires an assuaging medicine; for all excess disturbs the progress of well-regulated temperance, and the pride of unhealthy extravagance fattens, so to speak, into imposthumes of vices'

The former poetical discourse, then, which strayed into playful jest, is set before thee as a treat for thy childishness. Now let the style, which had slightly wandered toward the boyish and light verses of thv youth, return to the ordered theme of the narration previously planned. As I showed in touching on the

subject before, I appointed Venus to build up a progeny from the living creatures of earth, that in her work of producing things she might shape in the rough various materials, and lay them before me. But I, in the manifold formation of their natures, was to add the execution of the final and polishing hand. And in order that faithful tools might exclude the confusion of poor work, I have assigned to her two lawful hammers, by which she may bring the stratagems of the Fates to naught, and present to view the multiform subjects of existence. Also I appointed for her work anvils, noble instruments, with a command that she should apply these same hammers to them, and faithfully give herself up to the forming of things, not permitting the hammers to leave their proper work, and become strangers to the anvils.f For the office of writing I provided her [1] with an especially potent reed-pen, in order that, on suitable leaves desiring the writing of this pen (in the benefit of my gift of which leaves she had been made a sharer), she might, according to the rule of my orthography, trace the natures of things, and might not suffer the pen to stray in the least measure possible from the path of proper description into the by-track of false writing. But since for the production of progeny the rule of marital coition, with its lawful embraces was to connect things unlike in their opposition of sexes, I, to the end that in her connections she should observe the orthodox constructions of grammatical art, and that the nobility of her work should not mar its glory by ignorance of any branch of knowledge, taught her, as a pupil worthy to be 6s taught, by friendly precepts under my guiding discipline, what rules of the grammatical art she should

1. Reading eidem, with Migne.

admit in her skilful connections and constructions, and what she should exclude as irregular and not redeemed b any justifying figure. For although natural reason recognizes, as grammar corroborates, two genders specially, namely masculine and feminine-albeit some men, deprived of the sign of sex, can be thought of in my opinion by the designation of neuter-yet I enjoined Cypris, with the most friendly admonitions, and under the most powerful thunder of threats, to solemnize in her connections as reason demands, only the natural union of the masculine with the feminine gender. For, since according to the demand of nuptial custom the masculine gender takes to itself its feminine gender, if the joining of these genders should be celebrated irregularly, so that members of the same sex should be connected with each other, that construction would not earn pardon from me, either by the help of evocation or by the aid of conception. For if the masculine gender by some violent and reasonless reasoning should demand a like gender, the relation of that connection could not justify its vice by any beauty of figure, but would be disgraced as an inexcusable and monstrous solecism.

Furthermore, my command enjoined Cypris that, in her constructions, she have regard to the ordinary rules for nouns and adjectives, and that she appoint that organ which is especially marked with the peculiarity of the feminine sex to the office of noun, and that she should put that organ characterized y the signs of the masculine sex in the seat of the adjective. Thus should it be that neither the adjective should be able to fall into the place of the noun, nor should the noun remove into the region of the adjective. And since each is influenced by the other,

by the laws of necessity the adjective is attracted according to its modifying quality, and the noun as is proper in a thing retentive of substantive nature. Besides this, I added that the Dionean conjugation should not admit into its uniform use of transitive construction either a defective use, or the circuity of reflexiveness, or the excess of double conjugation-it being rather contented with the direct course of single conjugation-nor should suffer by the irruption of any wandering influence to such degree that the active voice should become able by a usurping assumption to cross over into the passive, or the latter by an abandonment of its peculiar nature to turn into the active, or, retaining under the letters of the passive the nature of the active, to assume the law of the deponent. Nor is it strange if many conjugations, characterized by the mark of fullest grammatical strength, suffer repulse from the dwelling of the art of Venus; for though she admits into the bosom of her friendship those which follow her rules and direction, yet those which in the boasting of a most eloquent contradiction [1] try to overthrow her laws, she suspends in the exclusion of an eternal anathema.

The voice of controversial logic, moreover, will acknowledge that very many powerful connections draw upon divers stores of strength-though there are some which have no freedom to go beyond their own stations and restraints. And since I knew that Venus was entering into conflict and sharp argument against the active opposition of the Fates, I gave [2] her, according to the maxims of controversial learning, and to the end that she should not fall into the closing trap Of a conclusion at the hands of Atropos through any

1. Reading contradictionis, with B.

2 Emending to docebam.

deceiving trick, [1] instruction that she transcend the formal limits of her own arguments, and that she find the lurking-place of false deceit in those of her opponents. So might she the more safely carry on the contest and dispute against the wiles of the adversary, and by her earnestness refute the false arguments [2] of her opponents. Moreover, I added that a syllogistic conclusion in the due order of three propositions should be arranged, but that it should be content with an abridgment to two terms, following none of the Aristotelian figures; being of such sort that in every proposition the major extreme should perform the office of the predicate, and the minor should be the subject, and be bound by its laws. In the first proposition the predicate should cling to the subject, not in the manner of true inherence, but simply by the way of external connection, as with a term predicated from a term. In the minor proposition the major term should be joined to the minor more closely by the reciprocal pressure of the kisses of relation. But in the conclusion there should be celebrated, in the truer bond of closest inherence, the fleshly connection of subject [3] and predicate. It was also part of my plan that the terms in the conclusion of love should not, by any pernicious and retrograding conversion, following the laws of predication by analogy, change their places and stations. And to the end that no false consequent, born from terms like and equal, should be able to hinder the work of Venus, I distinguished the terms with special marks, that she might plainly recognize with familiar insight and easy perception what term, from the law of their

1. Reading fallaciae,, with Migne.

2 Reading argumenta, with B. and Migne.

3 Reading subjecti, with B. and Migne.

nature, the more humble step of the subject demands, and what the loftier summit of the predicate ; for so, if a conclusion should inconsequently have its terms ont of right relation, there should not still arise complete deformity and continual folly.

Furthermore, just as it has been my purpose to attack with bitter hostility [1] certain practices of grammar and logic, and exclude them from the schools of Venus, so 'I have forbidden to the arts of Cypris those metonymic uses of rhetoricians which Mother Rhetoric embraces in her wide bosom, and inspires as her speech with many graces; for I feared lest if, in the pursuit of too strained a metaphor, she should change the predicate from its protesting subject into something wholly foreign, cleverness would be too far [2] converted into a blemish, refinement into grossness, fancy into a fault, ornament into a gaudy show.

With these distinctive marks of splendor and nobility, the earthly presence of Venus came into thy native sphere. Most energetically she labored with the aid of her instruments in weaving the series of human birth, mending with a slender needle those parts that had been sundered by the hands of the Fates, and more subtly still joining these one to another. And thus did she once, with the most obedient care, perform to me the dues of her tributary administration. But [3] since the soul, when glutted from its birth with a satiety of the same thing [4] comes to loathe it, and its desire to accomplish is extinguished by attack on the daily labor, the uniform character of the work so many times repeated tired [5] and disgusted Cytherea, [6] and the effect of continued labor

1 Reading incursu, with B. and Migne.

2 Reading nimis, with B.

3. Reading sed, with B. and Migne.

4. Reading identitate, with Migne.

5. Reading infestavit, with Migne.

6. Reading Cytheream, with B. and Migne.

took away the wish to perform. She, then, wishing rather to be pampered in unfruitful love than to be exercised in fruitful labors, though she had been entrusted, as related, with the busy work of a festal activity, began to be young and childish over the joys of extreme idleness. Now with whom sluggish inactivity has gained a stronghold, by him all service of virtue is rejected, and the unproductiveness of sloth is wont to form its abundance of misshapen offspring; draining a flood of drink, he wantons in excessive licentiousness, and his unrestrained gormandizing of food throws back like vomit from its surfeit. Venus stung by these fatal passions, began as a concubine , defiling the chastity of her marriage-bed [1] in the polluting sin of adultery against her husband Hymen, to commit fornication with Antigamus. Enmeshed in the ruin-bringing suggestions of her adulterer, she has unreasonably changed a spontaneous work into a mechanical, a normal into an abnormal, a refined into a gross, and, corrupting my precept taught her, has denied the hammers the association of their proper anvils, and condemned them to the adulterous anvils. Moreover, the natural anvils bewail the absence of their hammers, and are seen sadly to demand them. And she who was wont to hold out the shield of defense to that sword of Atropos which severs all things, now has become bound to the latter in a mutual alliance on firm consideration, and permits the sickle of fate to run out far into the grain of the human race, and does not repair the loss [2] with renewed [3] birth from any fresh seed. But rather, destroy-

1. Reading tori castitatem pests adulterationis incestans, with Migne.

2. Placing a comma before damnum, and omitting the one after it, with Migne.

3. Reading rediviva, with B.

ing herself in grammatical constructions, and perverting herself in dialectical conversions, she changes her art by the gaudy ornaments of rhetoric into artifice, and her artifice into viciousness.

While in her wild fornication she was continuing the illicit actions of concubinage with the adulterer, she conceived offspring from him, and became the parent of a bastard for a son. Though this latter does not rejoice in any pleasure or delight, or wish to bask in any of the joys of mirth, yet she, to the end that he might be called. as by antiphrasis, Mirth, in the absence of mirth, placed the name of that disposition upon him. To Dione, then, were given two sons, divided by differences in kind unlike by law of their birth, dissimilar in the marks of their qualities, ill-agreeing in the variance of their occupation. For Hymen, who is related to me by the bond of brotherhood from the same mother, and whom a stock of excellent worth produced, begot to himself from Venus a son Cupid. But Antigamus, scurrilous and descended from a race of ignobility, by his adultery with Venus has lightly become the father of an illegitimate son, Mirth. A solemn marriage accounts for the birth of the former; a low and notorious concubinage denounces the descent of the latter. In the former [1] shines glooms his father's culture and courtesy; in the latter [2] the grossness of his father's brutality. The former dwells by gleaming springs, silvery in white splendors; the latter continually frequents places cursed with perennial barrenness. The latter pitches his tent on the desert plain; the former is pleased with the wooded valley. The latter without cease spends the night in taverns; the former continues days and nights under

1. Reading illo, with Migne.

2. Emending illo to isto.

the clear sky. The former [1] wounds those whom he pursues with golden hunting-spears; the latter [2] lances those whom he strikes with iron javelins. The former [3] intoxicates his guests with a nectar not bitter; the latter [4] ruins with the sour drink of absinthe.

Now my discourse has traced on the chart of thy mind the manner in which the ruinous evil of idleness has produced inordinate love; how the excess and deluge of drink has brought to pass love's raging lust; how, taking its rise in gluttony, the ivory-white leprosy of licentiousness has destroyed great numbers. Up to this point I have sung a sorrowful song of suffering and lament over those lying sick with the acute fever of sensual passion. Now as to the rest, whom the unhealthy rout of other vices confounds, let us tune the cithara of our complaint to the manner of elegiac song. For many, while they shun and avoid the abysmal mouths of greedy Charybdis, yet are miserably shipwrecked by unthought peril in the depths of black Scylla. And very many, while they escape the ruinous rush of the vehement flood, become stuck in the greedy slime of the sluggish fen. Others, while they avoid with care and caution the precipices of the steep mountain, dash themselves together on the level plain by their own headlong haste. Such matters, then, as I cast into thy mind, fasten there by the nail of retentive memory, and by watchfulness of soul shake off slothful sleep, so that, stirred by my maternal feelings, thou mayest sympathize and condole over the ruin of desperate men, and, armed with the shield of early admonition, meet the monstrous force of vices, and, if any herb of base seed dare to sprout in the

1. Emending iste to ille.

2. Emending ille to iste.

3. Emending iste to ille.

4. Emending ille to iste.

garden of thy mind, mayest cut it and root it out with a timely sickle.'

Then said I :

'Now long since my mind has rejoiced in the profit of thy teaching, and inclined a most willing ear to thy censures.'