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 circumstances: 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 worship of the Bald Venus was instituted; 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 cum Galli
Capitolium obsiderent, et deessent funes Romanis ad tormenta
facienda, prima. Domitia crinem suum, post caeterae matron,
imitatae earn, exsecuerune, 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 éludât. Quidam dicunt,
porrigine olim capillos cecidisse fominis, et Ancum regem
suae uxori statuam Calvam posuisse, quod constitit piaculo;
nam mox omnibus fominis capilli renati sunt: unde institutum
ut Calva Venus coleretur.
—Servius ad Aen. i.
passive,{1} and deponent,{2} in Servius, Plautus, and Sallust. Nobody 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.—Sallust: Hist. iii.
Thinking himself to be deceitfully allured.
2 Nam ubi domi sola sum, sopor manus calvitur.
—Plautus in Casina.
For when I am at home alone, sleep alluringly deceives my hands.
3 (Greek passage)
4 (Greek passage)
5 (Greek passage)
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 accumulating 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.