_He reproaches his mistress for having attempted to procure abortion._
|Of what use is it for damsels to live at ease, exempt from war, and
not with their bucklers, [439] to have any inclination to follow the
bloodstained troops; if, without warfare, they endure wounds from
weapons of their own, and arm their imprudent hands for their own
destruction? She who was the first to teach how to destroy the tender
embryo, was deserving to perish by those arms of her own. That the
stomach, forsooth, may be without the reproach of wrinkles, the sand
must [440] be lamentably strewed for this struggle of yours.
If the same custom had pleased the matrons of old, through _such_
criminality mankind would have perished; and he would be required, who
should again throw stones [441] on the empty earth, for the second time
the original of our kind. Who would have destroyed the resources
of Priam, if Thetis, the Goddess of the waves, had refused to bear
_Achilles_, her due burden? If Ilia had destroyed [442] the twins in her
swelling womb, the founder of the all-ruling City would have perished.
If Venus had laid violent hands on Æneas in her pregnant womb, the earth
would have been destitute of _its_ Cæsars. You, too, beauteous one,
might have died at the moment you might have been born, if your mother
had tried the same experiment which you have done. I, myself, though
destined as I am, to die a more pleasing death by love, should have
beheld no days, had my mother slain me.
Why do you deprive the loaded vine of its growing grapes? And why pluck
the sour apples with relentless hand? When ripe, let them fall of their
own accord; _once_ put forth, let them grow. Life is no slight reward
for a little waiting. Why pierce [443] your own entrails, by applying
instruments, and _why_ give dreadful poisons to the _yet_ unborn? People
blame the Colchian damsel, stained with the blood of her sons; and they
grieve for Itys, Slaughtered by his own mother. Each mother was cruel;
but each, for sad reasons, took vengeance on her husband, by shedding
their common blood. Tell me what Tereus, or what Jason excites you to
pierce your body with an anxious hand?
This neither the tigers do in their Armenian dens, [444] nor does the
lioness dare to destroy an offspring of her own. But, delicate females
do this, not, however, with impunity; many a time [445] does she die
herself, who kills her _offspring_ in the womb. She dies herself, and,
with her loosened hair, is borne upon the bier; and those whoever only
catch a sight of her, cry "She deserved it." [446] But let these words
vanish in the air of the heavens, and may there be no weight in _these_
presages of mine. Ye forgiving Deities, allow her this once to do wrong
with safety _to herself_; that is enough; let a second transgression
bring _its own_ punishment.