§4#1Quid nunc, si est Romanitas omni salus, nec honestis tamen admodum Graeci estis? Aut, ni ita est, unde gentium in provinciis melius exercitis, quas natura agro potius eluctando commodavit, studia palaestrae, male senescentia et cassum laborantia, et lutea unctio et pulverea volutatio et arida saginatio? unde apud aliquos Numidas etiam equis caesariatos iuxta cutem tonsor et cultri vertex solus immunis? unde apud hirtos et hirsutos tam rapax ab ala resina, tam furax a mento volsella? Prodigium est haec sine pallio fieri.
What now, if Roman-ness is salvation for all, and yet you are not even quite honorable as Greeks? Or, if it is not so, where on earth, in the more cultivated provinces which nature provided rather for wresting from the soil, do the pursuits of the palaestra come from—aging badly and laboring in vain—and the muddy anointing, the dusty wallowing, and the dry stuffing? Where, among certain Numidians who even had hair like horses' manes, does the barber close to the skin come from, with the crown of the head alone immune to the knife? Where, among the shaggy and hirsute, comes so grasping a resin from the armpit, so thievish tweezers from the chin? It is a wonder that these things are done without the pallium.
Illius est haec tota res Asiae.
This whole business belongs to that pallium, or to Asia.
Quid tibi, Libya et Europa, cum xysticis munditiis, quas vestire non nosti? Revera enim quale est Graecatim depilari magis quam amiciri? Habitum transferre ita demum culpae prope est, si non consuetudo, sed natura mutetur.
What have you to do, Libya and Europe, with those athletic refinements, which you do not know how to clothe? For indeed, what kind of thing is it to be depilated in the Greek fashion rather than to be clad in the Greek fashion? To transfer attire is only so far near to fault, if not custom, but nature is changed.
Sat refert inter honorem temporis et religionem.
There is a sufficient difference between the honor of the time and religion.
Det consuetudo fidem tempori, natura deo.
Let custom keep faith with the time, nature with God.
Naturam itaque concussit Larissaeus heros in virginem mutando, ille ferarum medullis educatus (unde et nominis concilium, quandoquidem labiis vacuerat ab uberum gustu), ille apud rupicem et silvicolam et monstrum eruditorem scrupea schola eruditus.
Larissaeus heros, therefore, shook nature by changing into a virgin—he who was brought up on the marrow of wild beasts (whence also came the conjunction of his name, since his lips had been empty of the taste of breasts), he who was educated in a stony school under a rugged, forest-dwelling, and monstrous teacher.
Feras si in puero matris sollicitudinem patiens, certe iam histriculus, certe iam virum alicui clanculo functus adhuc sustinet stolam fundere, comam struere, cutem fingere, speculum consulere, collum demulcere, aurem quoque feratu effeminatus; quod illi apud Sigeum strongyla servat.
Even if you tolerate in a boy his suffering of his mother's anxiety, yet—surely already shaggy-haired, surely already having secretly played the man for someone—he still tolerates spreading the stola, arranging his hair, adorning his skin, consulting the mirror, smoothing his neck, and having his ear also pierced, effeminated; which the round monument at Sigeum preserves for him.
Plane postea miles est; necessitas enim reddidit sexum.
Clearly afterwards he is a soldier; for necessity restored his sex.
De praelio sonuerat, nec arma longe.
There had sounded of battle, and arms were not far off.
Ipsum, inquit, ferrum virum attrahit. Ceterum si post incentivum quoque puellam perseverasset, potuit et nubere.
'The iron itself,' he says, 'attracts the man.' Otherwise, if after the trumpet-call also he had persisted as a girl, he could even have married.
Ecce itaque mutatio.
Behold, therefore, the change.
Monstrum equidem geminum, de viro femina, mox de femina vir, quando neque veritas negari debusset neque fallacia confiteri.
A double monster indeed: from man to woman, then from woman to man, since neither the truth ought to have been denied nor the deceit confessed.
Uterque habitus mutandi malus, alter adversus naturam, alter contra salutem.
Both ways of changing dress are bad: the one against nature, the other against safety.
Turpius adhuc libido virum cultu transfiguravit quam aliqua materna formido, tametsi adoratur a vobis qui erubescendus est, scytalosagittipelliger ille qui totam epitheti sui sortem cum muliebri cultu compensavit.
Lust transfigured a man by female attire even more basely than any maternal fear, although he who is to be blushed for is adored by you—that club-arrow-skin-bearer who compensated the whole lot of his epithet with female attire.
Tantum Lydiae clanculariae licuit, ut Hercules in Omphale, et Omphale in Hercule prostitueretur.
So much was permitted to the secret Lydian woman, that Hercules was prostituted in Omphale, and Omphale in Hercules.
Ubi Diomedes et cruenta praesepia? ubi Busiris et bustruaria altaria? ubi Geryon ter unus? Cerebris adhuc eorum clava foetere malebat, cum unguentis offenderetur.
Where is Diomedes and the bloody mangers? Where is Busiris and the altars of cattle-slaughter? Where is Geryon, three-in-one? His club preferred still to stink of their brains, when it was offended by ointments.
Vetus iam Hydrae Centaurorumque sanguis in sagittis pumice spiculi excludebatur, insultante luxuria, ut post monstra transfixa coronam forsitan suerent.
The now old blood of the Hydra and the Centaurs on the arrows was removed from the point by pumice, while luxury insulted him, so that after piercing monsters they might perhaps sew a garland.
Ne sobriae mulieris quidem aut viraginis alicuius scapulae sub exuvias bestiae tantae introire potuissent nisi diu mollitas et evigoratas et exodoratas (quod apud Omphalen balsamo aut telino spero factum; credo et iubas pectinem passas), ne cervicem enervem inureret sciria leonina.
Not even the shoulders of a sober woman or of some virago could have entered under the skin of so great a beast, unless it had been long softened, deprived of vigor, and deodorized (which I hope was done at Omphale’s with balsam or telinum; I believe also the manes suffered the comb), lest the rough lion-hide burn the weak neck.
Hiatus crinibus infarsus, genuini inter antias adumbrati, tota oris contumelia mugiret, si posset.
The gaping mouth stuffed with hair, the jaw-teeth shadowed between the forelocks, would, if it could, bellow at the whole insult to its face.
Nemaea certe, si quis loci genius, ingemebat; tunc enim se circumspexit leonem perdidisse.
Nemea certainly, if there was any genius of the place, groaned; for then she looked around and saw she had lost her lion.
Qualis ille Hercules in serico Omphales fuerit, iam Omphale in Herculis scorto designata descripsit.
What kind of Hercules he was in Omphale’s silk, Omphale, represented in Hercules' hide, has already described.
Sed et qui ante Tyrinthium accesserat, pugil Cleomachus, post Olympiae cum incredibile mutatu de masculo fluxisset, intra cutem caesus et ultra, inter Fullones iam Novianos coronandus, meritoque mimographo Lentulo in Catinensibus commemoratus, utique sicut vestigia cestuum viriis occupavit, ita et endromidis solocem aliqua multicia synthesi extrusit.
But he also who had approached before the Tirynthian, the boxer Cleomachus, after he had flowed down from masculinity by an incredible change at Olympia, cut within the skin and beyond, destined to be crowned now among the Novian Fullers, and deservedly mentioned by the mime-writer Lentulus in his 'Catinenses'—certainly, as he occupied the traces of the boxing-gloves with bracelets, so also he thrust out the coarse athletic wrap with some soft, sheer garment.
Physconem et Sardanapalum tacendum est. qui nisi insignes libidinum, alias reges nemo nosset.
We must keep silent about Physcon and Sardanapalus, whom, were it not for their notorious lusts, no one would otherwise have known as kings.
Tacendum autem, ne quid et illi de Caesaribus quibusdam vestris obmussitent pariter propudiosis, ne caninae forte constantiae mandatum sit impuriorem Physcone et molliorem Sardanapalo Caesarem designare et quidem Subneronem.
We must keep silent, however, lest they also mutter something about certain of your Caesars, equally shameful, lest by chance it be committed to Cynic constancy to designate a Caesar more impure than Physcon and softer than Sardanapalus, and indeed a Sub-Nero.