25. In her wanderings on
that quest, she reaches the confines of Eleusis as well as other
countries
4431
—that is
the name of a canton in Attica. At that time these parts were
inhabited by aborigines
4432
named Baubo, Triptolemus, Eubuleus,
Eumolpus,
4433
Dysaules: Triptolemus, who yoked oxen; Dysaules, a keeper of
goats; Eubuleus, of swine; Eumolpus, of sheep,
4434
from whom also flows the race of
Eumolpidæ, and
from whom
is derived that name famous among
the Athenians,
4435
and those
who afterwards flourished as
caduceatores
,
4436
hierophants, and criers. So,
then, that Baubo who, we have said, dwelt in the canton of Eleusis,
receives hospitably Ceres, worn out with ills of many kinds, hangs
about her with pleasing attentions, beseeches her not to neglect to
refresh her body, brings to quench her thirst wine thickened with
spelt,
4437
which the
Greeks term
cyceon
. The goddess in her sorrow turns away
from the kindly offered services,
4438
and rejects
them
; nor does
her misfortune suffer her to remember what the body always
requires.
4439
Baubo,
on the other hand, begs and exhorts her—as is usual in such
calamities—not to despise her humanity; Ceres remains utterly
immoveable, and tenaciously maintains an invincible austerity.
But when this was done several times, and her fixed purpose could not
be worn out by any attentions, Baubo changes her plans, and determines
to make merry by strange jests her whom she could not win by
earnestness. That part of the body by which women both bear
children and obtain the name of mothers,
4440
this she frees from longer
neglect: she makes it assume a purer appearance, and become
smooth like a child, not yet hard and rough with hair. In this
wise she returns
4441
to the
sorrowing goddess; and while trying the common expedients by which it
is usual to break the force of grief, and moderate it, she uncovers
herself, and baring her groins, displays all the parts which decency
hides;
4442
and then the
goddess fixes her eyes upon these,
4443
and is pleased with the strange form
of consolation. Then becoming more cheerful after laughing, she
takes and drinks off the drought spurned
before
, and the
indecency of a shameless action forced that which Baubo’s modest
conduct was long unable to win.
4431
Lit., “also.”
4432
Lit., “(they were) earth-born who inhabited.”
4433
The
ms.
wants this name; but it has
evidently been omitted by accident, as it occurs in the next
line.
4434
Lit., “of woolly flock.”
4435
Cecropios et qui.
4436
i.e. staff-bearers.
4437
Cinnus
, the chief ingredients, according to Hesychius
(quoted by Oehler), being wine, honey, water, and spelt or
barley. [P. 503,
inf.
]
4438
Lit., “offices of humanity.”
4439
Lit., “common health.” Arnobius is here utterly
forgetful of Ceres’ divinity, and subjects her to the invariable
requirements of nature, from which the divine might be supposed to be
exempt.
4440
So
the conjecture of Livineius, adopted by Oehler,
gene-t-ri-cum
for the
ms.
genericum.
4441
So
Stewechius, followed by Oehler, reading
redit ita
for the
ms.
redita
; the other edd. merely
drop
a
.
4442
Omnia illa pudoris loca.
4443
Pubi.