‘ I silently admired her as she spoke thus. But she said, “Thou art free to learn the answers to any questions thou mayest put.” “Say, goddess,” I replied, “what is the origin of the games.” Scarce had I ended when she answered me. “The other instruments of luxury were not yet in vogue: the rich man owned either cattle or broad lands; hence came the name for rich, and hence the name for money itself. But already some amassed wealth from unlawful sources: it had become a custom to graze the public pastures, the thing was suffered long, and no penalty was exacted. Common folk had no champion to protect their share in public property; and at last it was deemed the sign of a poor spirit in a man to graze his cattle on his own land. Such licence was brought to the notice of the plebeian aediles, the Publicii; till then men’s hearts had failed them.. The case was tried before the people: the guilty were fined: the champions were praised for their public spirit. Part of the fine was given to me; and the winners of the suit instituted new games with great applause. With part of the fine they contracted for making a way up the slope, which then was a steep rock: now it is a serviceable road, and they call it the Publician road.” I had thought that the shows were annual; the goddess denied it and added to her former discourse a second speech. “We, too, are touched by honour; we delight in festivals and altars; we heavenly beings are a greedy gang. Often by sinning has a man disposed the gods against him, and a sacrificial victim has been a sop for crimes. Often have I seen Jupiter, when he was just about to launch his thunderbolts, hold his hand on the receipt of incense.
But if we are neglected, we avenge the wrong by heavy penalties, and our wrath exceeds just bounds. Remember Thestiades: he was burnt by flames afar; the reason was that no fire blazed on Phoebe’s altar. Remember Tantalides: the same goddess detained the fleet; she is a virgin, yet she twice avenged her slighted hearths. Unhappy Hippolytus, fain wouldst thou have worshipped Dione when thy scared steeds were rending thee asunder! ’Twere long to tell of cases of forgetfulness redressed by forfeitures. I myself was once neglected by the Roman senate. What was I to do? By what could I show my resentment? What punishment exact for the slight put on me? In my gloom I relinquished my office. I guarded not the countryside, and the fruitful garden was naught to me. The lilies had dropped; you might see the violets withering, and the tendrils of the crimson saffron languishing. Often Zephyr said to me,’ Spoil not thine own dowry, But my dowry was worthless in my sight. The olive - trees were in blossom; the wanton winds blighted them: the crops were in blossom; the crop was blasted by the hail: the vines were promising; the sky grew black under the south wind, and the leaves were shaken down by a sudden shower. I did not will it so, nor am I cruel in my anger; but I did not care to ward off these ills. The senate assembled and voted an annual festival to my divinity if the year should prove fruitful. I accepted the vow. The consuls” Laenas and Postumius celebrated the games which had been vowed to me.”
I was about to ask why these games are marked by greater wantonness and broader jests; but it occurred to me that the divinity is not strait-laced, and that the gifts she brings lend themselves to delights. The brows of wassailers are wreathed with stitched garlands, and the polished table is buried under a shower of roses. Maudlin the guest dances, his hair bound with linden bark, and all unwitting plies the tipsy art. Maudlin the lover sings at the hard threshold of his lady fair: soft garlands crown his perfumed locks. No serious business does he do whose brow is garlanded; no water of the running brook is quaffed by such as twine their hair with flowers: so long as thy stream, Achelous, was dashed with no juice of grapes, none cared to pluck the rose. Bacchus loves flowers; that he delights in a floral crown, you may know from Ariadne’s clustered stars. A rakish stage fits Flora well; she is not, believe me she is not, to be counted among your buskined goddesses. The reason why a crowd of drabs frequents these games is not hard to discover. She is none of your glum, none of your high-flown ones: she wishes her rites to be open to the common herd; and she warns us to use life’s flower, while it still blooms; for the thorn, she reminds us, is flouted when the roses have fallen away.
But why is it that whereas white robes are given out at the festival of Ceres, Flora is neatly clad in attire of many colours? Is it because the harvest whitens when the ears are ripe, but flowers are of every hue and every shape? She nodded assent and at the motion of her tresses the flowers dropped down, as falls the rose cast by a hand upon a table.
There yet remained the lights, the reason whereof escaped me; when the goddess thus removed my doubts: “Lights are thought to befit my days either because the fields do glow with purple flowers; or because neither flowers nor flames are of a dull colour, and the splendour of both attracts the eye; or because nocturnal licence befits my revels. The third reason comes nearest the truth.”
“There is yet a small matter about which it remains, with thy leave, to put a question.” “Thou hast my leave,” said she. “Why, instead of Libyan lionesses, are unwarlike roes and shy hares pent in thy nets?” She replied that her province was not woods, but gardens and fields, where no fierce beast may come.
Her tale was ended, and she vanished into thin air. A fragrance lingered; you could know a goddess had been there. That Naso’s lay may bloom for aye, O strew, I pray thee, goddess, thy boons upon my breast!
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