“Yes; but the first is Vulcan. Was the meaning not intended to be ‛Despite all thy beauty, thy disdainful air, thou shalt have a blacksmith, an ugly lameter for lover?’ A profound moral, sir, for coquettes!”
I could not keep from smiling, the interpretation seemed so far-fetched.
“It’s a terrible language, Latin, with its conciseness,” I remarked, to avoid contradicting my antiquary explicitly, and I fell back a few paces in order to view the statue better.
“One moment, colleague!” said M. de Peyrehorade, taking me by the arm, “you haven’t seen all. There’s still another inscription. Get up on the base and look at the right arm.” So speaking, he helped me to get up.
I clung on without much ceremony by the neck of the Venus with whom I was beginning to be quite at home. I even looked at her for a moment “under the nose,” and found her more wicked and more beautiful than ever at close quarters. Then I saw that there were engraved on the arm some characters in ancient cursive character, as it seemed to me. With the help of spectacles I spelled out what follows, and meanwhile M. de Peyrehorade repeated each word as I pronounced it, signifying his approval by voice and gesture. Accordingly I read:
VENERI TVRBVL ...
EVTYCHES MYRO
IMPERIO FECIT
After the word TVRBVL in the first line it seemed to me that there were several letters effaced; but TVRBVL was perfectly legible.
“Which means?” my host asked me, beaming and smiling mischievously, for he was pretty sure that I would not get easily over that TVRBVL.
“There is one word which I can’t explain yet,” I told him, “but all the rest is easy: Eutyches Myron made this offering to Venus at her command.”
“Just so! But TVRBVL, what do you make of that? What is TVRBVL?”