§2.14.1Quid iuvat inmunes belli cessare puellas, §2.14.2Nec fera peltatas agmina velle sequi, §2.14.3Si sine Marte suis patiuntur vulnera telis, §2.14.4Et caecas armant in sua fata manus?
What does it profit that girls, free from war, remain idle, and do not wish to follow the fierce ranks of shield-bearing Amazons, if without battle they suffer wounds from their own weapons, and arm blind hands for their own destruction?
She who first resolved to tear out the tender fetus deserved to perish by her own warfare.
Is it forsooth so that the belly may lack the blemish of wrinkles, that the sad arena of your battle must be leveled?
§2.14.9Si mos antiquis placuisset matribus idem, §2.14.10Gens hominum vitio deperitura fuit, §2.14.11Quique iterum iaceret generis primordia nostri §2.14.12In vacuo lapides orbe, parandus erat.
If the same custom had pleased ancient mothers, the human race would have perished by its own fault, and he who would throw again the origin of our race in an empty world, stones, would have had to be provided.
Who would have shattered the power of Priam, if the goddess of the waters, Thetis, had refused to bear her proper burden?
§2.14.15Ilia si tumido geminos in ventre necasset, §2.14.16Casurus dominae conditor Urbis erat; §2.14.17Si Venus Aenean gravida temerasset in alvo, §2.14.18Caesaribus tellus orba futura fuit.
If Ilia had killed the twins in her swelling womb, the founder of the ruling City would have been about to fall; If Venus had harmed Aeneas in her pregnant womb, the earth would have been bereaved of the Caesars.
§2.14.19Tu quoque, cum posses nasci formosa, perisses, §2.14.20Temptasset, quod tu, si tua mater opus; §2.14.21Ipse ego, cum fuerim melius periturus amando, §2.14.22Vidissem nullos matre negante dies.
You too, though you were able to be born beautiful, would have perished, if your mother had attempted the same deed which you did; I myself, though I would have perished better by loving, would have seen no days, had my mother denied me.
Why do you cheat the full vine of its growing grapes, and pluck sour fruit with a cruel hand?
§2.14.25Sponte fluant matura sua — sine crescere nata; §2.14.26Est pretium parvae non leve vita morae.
Let them fall of their own accord when ripe—allow what is born to grow; life is no light reward for a small delay.
Why do you dig out your own entrails with inserted instruments, and give dreadful poisons to the unborn?
§2.14.29Colchida respersam puerorum sanguine culpant §2.14.30Aque sua caesum matre queruntur Ityn; §2.14.31Utraque saeva parens, sed tristibus utraque causis §2.14.32Iactura socii sanguinis ulta virum.
They blame the Colchian woman sprinkled with the blood of her children, and lament Itys slain by his own mother; Both were fierce parents, but each for sad reasons avenged herself on her husband by the loss of their shared blood.
Tell me, what Tereus, what Jason incites you to pierce your own bodies with an anxious hand?
Neither did tigers do this in Armenian lairs, nor did a lioness dare to destroy her own young.
§2.14.37At tenerae faciunt, sed non inpune, puellae; §2.14.38Saepe, suos utero quae necat, ipsa perit.
But tender girls do it, yet not with impunity; often she who kills her own in the womb, herself perishes.
§2.14.39Ipsa perit, ferturque rogo resoluta capillos, §2.14.40Et clamant 'merito!' qui modo cumque vident. §2.14.41Ista sed aetherias vanescant dicta per auras, §2.14.42Et sint ominibus pondera nulla meis!
She herself perishes, and is carried to the pyre with her hair undone, and whoever see her, cry out, 'Deservedly!' But let those words vanish through the ethereal breezes, and let there be no weight to my omens!