Apuleius, The Defense

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Apuleius, The Defense

as Catullus says, after the filthy fashion in vogue among the Iberians.

What is there so lascivious in all my verses compared with that one line? I will say nothing of the writings of Diogenes the Cynic, of Zeno the founde

Now let me read you the others also which they read last as being the most intemperate in expression.

There is another poem by Plato dealing conjointly with the boys Alexis and Phaedrus:

Without citing any further examples I will conclude by quoting a line addressed by Plato to Dion of Syracuse:

The divine Hadrian, when he honoured the tomb of his friend the poet Voconius with an inscription in verse from his own pen, wrote thus:

words which he would never have written had he regarded verse of somewhat too lively a wit as proving their author to be a man of immoral life. I reme

The lines which follow are so wonderful, that had you read them you would envy me my wallet even more than you envy me my marriage with Pudentilla.

But you who take such exception to fish attribute far different instruments to magicians, charms not to be torn from new-born foreheads, but to be cut

Similarly in another passage he says:

But never in the works of Homer did Proteus anoint his face nor Ulysses his magic trench, nor Aeolus his windbags, nor Helen her mixing bowl, nor Circ

He glorified many fish in other verses, stating where each was to be found and whether they were best fried or stewed, and yet he is not blamed for it

These words, which I have quoted in Greek, have been selected by Rufinus and separated from their context. He has taken them round as a confession on

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Which of us is most to blame? I who am fool enough to speak seriously of such things in a lawcourt? Or you who are slanderous enough to include such charges in your indictment? For sportive effusions in verse are valueless as evidence of a poet's morals. Have you not read Catullus, who replies thus to those who wish him ill:

A virtuous poet must be chaste. Agreed.

But for his verses there is no such need.