Part 28 (1/2)

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Why, sir, if it were a question whether the Romans had any such deity, I would unhesitatingly maintain the _negatur_. Where do you find her?

_Mr. Gryll._ In the first place, I find her in several dictionaries.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ A dictionary is nothing without an authority.

You have no authority but that of one or two very late writers, and two or three old grammarians, who had found the word and guessed at its meaning. You do not find her in any genuine cla.s.sic. A bald Venus! It is as manifest a contradiction in terms as hot ice, or black snow.

_Lord Curryfin._ Yet I have certainly read, though I cannot at this moment say where, that there was in Rome a temple to _Venus Calva_, and that it was so dedicated in consequence of one of two circ.u.mstances: the first being that through some divine anger the hair of the Roman women fell off, and that Ancus Martius set up a bald statue of his wife, which served as an expiation, for all the women recovered their hair, and the wors.h.i.+p of the Bald Venus was inst.i.tuted; the other being, that when Rome was taken by the Gauls, and when they had occupied the city, and were besieging the Capitol, the besieged having no materials to make bowstrings, the women cut off their hair for the purpose, and after the war a statue of the Bald Venus was raised in honour of the women.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ I have seen the last story transferred to the time of the younger Maximin.{1} But when two or three explanations, of which only one can possibly be true, are given of any real or supposed fact, we may safely conclude that all are false. These are ridiculous myths, founded on the misunderstanding of an obsolete word. Some hold that _Calva_, as applied to Venus, signifies pure; but I hold with others that it signifies alluring, with a sense of deceit. You will find the cognate verbs, calvo and calvor, active,{2}

1 Julius Capitolinus: Max. Jun. c. 7.

2 Est et Venus Calva ob hanc causam, quod c.u.m Galli Capitolium obsiderent, et deessent funes Romanis ad tormenta facienda, prima. Domitia crinem suum, post caeterae matron, imitatae earn, exsecuerun^, unde facta tormenta; et post bellum statua Veneri hoc nomine collocata est: licet alii Calvam Venerem quasi puram tradant: alii Calvam, quod corda calviat, id est, fallat atque eludat. Quidam dic.u.n.t, porrigine olim capillos cecidisse fominis, et Anc.u.m regem suae uxori statuam Calvam posuisse, quod const.i.tit piaculo; nam mox omnibus fominis capilli renati sunt: unde inst.i.tutum ut Calva Venus coleretur.

--Servius ad Aen. i.

pa.s.sive,{1} and deponent,{2} in Servius, Plautus, and Sall.u.s.t n.o.body pretends that the Greeks had a bald Venus. The _Venus Calva_ of the Romans was the _Aphrodite Dolie_ of the Greeks.{3} Beauty cannot co-exist with baldness; but it may and does co-exist with deceit.

Homer makes deceitful allurement an essential element in the girdle of Venus.{4} Sappho addresses her as craft-weaving Venus.{5} Why should I multiply examples, when poetry so abounds with complaints of deceitful love that I will be bound every one of this company could, without a moment's hesitation, find a quotation in point?--Miss Gryll, to begin with.

1 Contra ille _calvi_ ratus.--Sall.u.s.t: Hist. iii.

Thinking himself to be deceitfully allured.

2 Nam ubi domi sola sum, sopor ma.n.u.s calvitur.

--Plautus in Casina.

For when I am at home alone, sleep alluringly deceives my hands.

3 (Greek pa.s.sage)

4 (Greek pa.s.sage)

5 (Greek pa.s.sage)

_Miss Gryll._ Oh, doctor, with every one who has a memory for poetry, it must be _l'embarras de richesses_. We could occupy the time till midnight in going round and round on the subject. We should soon come to an end with instances of truth and constancy.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Not so soon, perhaps. If we were to go on acc.u.mulating examples, I think I could find you a Penelope for a Helen, a Fiordiligi for an Angelica, an Imogene for a Calista, a Sacripant for a Rinaldo, a Romeo for an Angelo, to nearly the end of the chapter.

I will not say quite, for I am afraid at the end of the catalogue the numbers of the unfaithful would predominate.

_Miss Ilex._ Do you think, doctor, you would find many examples of love that is one, and once for all; love never transferred from its first object to a second?

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Plato holds that such is the essence of love, and poetry and romance present it in many instances.

_Miss Ilex._ And the contrary in many more.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ If we look, indeed, into the realities of life, as they offer themselves to us in our own experience, in history, in biography, we shall find few instances of constancy to first love; but it would be possible to compile a volume of ill.u.s.trious examples of love which, though it may have previously ranged, is at last fixed in single, unchanging constancy. Even Inez de Castro was only the second love of Don Pedro of Portugal; yet what an instance is there of love enduring in the innermost heart, as if it had been engraved on marble.

_Miss Gryll._ What is that story, doctor? I know it but imperfectly.