20. It was our purpose to
leave unnoticed those mysteries also into which Phrygia is initiated,
and all that43924392 race, were
it not that the name of Jupiter, which has been introduced by
them, would not suffer us to pass cursorily by the wrongs and insults
offered to him; not that we feel any pleasure in discussing43934393 mysteries
so filthy, but that it may be made clear to you again and again what
wrong you heap upon those whose guardians, champions, worshippers, you
profess to be. Once upon a time, they say, Diespiter, burning
after his mother Ceres with evil passions and forbidden desires, for
she is said by the natives of that district to be
Jupiter’s mother, and yet not daring to seek by open43944394 force that
for which he had conceived a shameless longing, hits upon a clever
trick by which to rob of her chastity his mother, who feared nothing of
the sort. Instead of a god, he becomes a bull; and concealing his
purpose and daring under the appearance of a beast lying in
wait,43954395 he rushes
madly with sudden violence upon her, thoughtless and unwitting, obtains
his incestuous desires; and the fraud being disclosed by his lust,
flies off known and discovered. His mother burns, foams, gasps,
boils with fury and indignation; and being unable to repress the
storm43964396 and tempest
of her wrath, received the name Brimo43974397 thereafter from her ever-raging
passion: nor has she any other wish than to punish as she may her
son’s audacity.