PROSE V.

Fam ex hoc mea doctrina 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 the essential nature of love honorableness if it is checked by the bridle of moderation, if it is restrained by the reins of so- "s briety, 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 "s 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 thy youth, return to the ordered theme of the narration previously planned. As I showed in touching on the 30

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subject before, I appointed Venus to build up a progeny from the living creatures of earth, that in 35 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 40 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 45 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. For the office of writing I provided her1 with an 50 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 55 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 60 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 65 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 by any justifying figure. For although natural reason recognizes, as grammar corroborates, 70 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 75 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 join- & ing 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, 95 and that she should put that organ characterized by 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 ad- 100 jective. And since each is influenced by the other,

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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. 205 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 110 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 115 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 120 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' try to overthrow her laws, she suspends in the exclusion of an eternal 125 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 130 and restraints. And since I knew that Venus was entering into conflict and sharp argument against the active opposition of the Fates, I gave2 her, according to the maxims of controversial learning, and to the end that she should not fall into the closing trap 135 of a conclusion at the hands of Atropos through any 1 Reading contradictionis, with B. Emending to docebam.

deceiving trick,' 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 140 earnestness refute the false arguments 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 Aris- 145 totelian 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, 150 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 155 relation. But in the conclusion there should be celebrated, in the truer bond of closest inherence, the fleshly connection of subject3 and predicate. It was also part of my plan that the terms in the conclusion of love should not, by any pernicious and retrograd- 160 ing 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, 165 that she might plainly recognize with familiar insight and easy perception what term, from the law of their

Reading fallacia, with Migne.

1 Reading argumenta, with B. and Migne. 'Reading subjecti, with B. and Migne.