23. Men, though prone to lust, and inclined, through weakness of character, to yield to the allurements of sensual pleasures, still punish adultery by the laws, and visit with the penalty of death those whom they find to have possessed themselves of others rights by forcing the marriage-bed. The greatest of kings, however, you tell us, did not know how vile, how infamous the person of the seducer and adulterer was; and he who, as is said, examines our merits and demerits, did not, owing to the reasonings of his abandoned heart, see what was the fitting course for him to resolve on. But this misconduct might perhaps be endured, if you were to conjoin him with persons at least his equals, and if he were made by you the paramour of the immortal goddesses. But what beauty, what grace was there, I ask you, in human bodies, which could move, which could turn to it965 ms. and first five edd. read inde—“thence;” the others in se, as above. [Elucidation III.] the eyes of Jupiter? Skin, entrails, phlegm, and all that filthy mass placed under the coverings of the intestines, which not Lynceus only with his searching gaze can shudder at, but any other also can be made to turn from even by merely thinking. O wonderful reward of guilt, O fitting and precious joy, for which Jupiter, the greatest, should become a swan, and a bull, and beget white eggs!
XXIII. Ad libidinem homines proni, atque ad voluptatum blanditias naturae infirmitate proclives, adulteria tamen legibus vindicant, et capitalibus afficiunt eos poenis, quos in aliena comprehenderint 1045A foedera genialis se lectuli expugnatione jecisse. Subsessoris et adulteri persona cujus esset turpitudinis, notae cujus, regum maximus nesciebat, et speculator ille, ut fama est, bene meritorum, ac pessime, quidnam deceret se velle rationibus pectoris non perspiciebat amissis. Et tolerari forsitan male tractatio haec posset, si eum saltem personis conjungeretis comparibus, et adulter a vobis immortalium constitueretur dearum. In humanis vero corporibus quidnam, quaeso, inerat pulchritudinis, quid decoris, quod irritare, quod flectere oculos posset in se Jovis? Cutes, viscera, pituita, atque omnis illa proluvies intestinorum sub involucris constituta, quam non modo Lynceus ille penetrabili acie possit horrescere, verum etiam quivis alter sola vel cogitatione vitare. O egregia merces culpae, o digna et pretiosa dulcedo, propter 1045B quam Jupiter maximus cygnus fieret, et taurus, et candidorum procreator ovorum.