The Complaint of Nature

In lacrimas rtsus, in luctus gaudia verto.

I change laughter to tears, joy to sorrow, applause to lament, mirth to grief, when I behold the decrees of Nature in abeyance; when society is ruined and destroyed by the monster of sensual love; when Venus, fighting against Venus, makes men women; when with her magic art she unmans men. It is not pretense that travails with sorrow, O adulterer! nor the tears of pretence, nor dissimulation; rather is it grief, and birth itself is given to sorrow.) The Muse requests, this very grief commands. Nature implores that, as I weep, I give them a mournful song. Alas! whither has the loveliness of Nature, the beauty of character, the standard of chastity, the love of virtue departed? Nature weeps, character passes away, chastity is wholly banished from its former high station, and become an orphan. The sex of active nature trembles shamefully at the way in which it declines into passive nature. Man is made woman, he blackens the honor of his sex, the craft of magic Venus makes him of double gender. He is both predicate and subject, he becomes likewise of two declensions, he pushes the laws of grammar too far. He, though made by Nature’s skill, barbarously denies that he is a man. Art does not please him, but rather artifice; even that artificiality cannot be called metaphor; rather it sinks into viciousness. fie is too fond of lo^c with whom a simple conversion causes the rights of Nature to perish. He strikes on an anvil which emits no sparks. The very hammer deforms its own anvil. The spirit of the womb imprints no seal on matter, but rather the plowshare, plows along ^. a sterile beach. Thus the iambic measure goes badly with the dactylic foot of earthly love, in which always the long syllable does not permit a short. Though all the beauty of man humbles itself before the fairness of woman, being always inferior to her glory; though the face of the daughter of Tyndaris is brought into being, and the comeliness of Adonis and Narcissus, conquered, adores her; for all this she is scorned, although she speaks as beauty itself, though her godlike grace affirms her to be a goddess, though for her the thunderbolt would fail in the hand of Jove, and every sinew of Apollo would pause and Ue inactive, though for her the freeman would become a slave, and Hippolytus, to enjoy her love, would sell his very chastity. Why do so many kisses lie untouched on maiden lips, and no one wish to gain a profit from them? These once pressed on me would sweeten my lips with flavor, and, honeyed, would offer a honeycomb to the mouth; the spirit would go out in kisses, all given over to the mouth, and play on lips with itself. So that until I should in this way die, my course finished, I, as another self, would in these kisses enjoy a happy life to the utmost. Not only does the adulterous Phrygian pursue the daughter of Tyndaris, but Paris with Paris devises unspeakable and monstrous acts. Not only does Pyramus seek the kisses of Thisbe through the chink, but no small opening of Venus pleases him. Not only does the son of Peleus counterfeit the bearing of a maiden, that so to maidens he may prove himself dear, but he wickedly gives away the gift of Nature for a gift, in selling for the love of money his sex. Such deserve anathema in the temple of Genius, for they deny the tithes of Genius and their own duties.