Quaestiones Romanae
Translated by Frank Cole Babbitt
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The opening
Why do they bid the bride touch fire and water?
Is it that of these two, being reckoned as elements or first principles, fire is masculine and water feminine, and fire supplies the beginnings of motion and water the function of the subsistent element or the material?
Or is it because fire purifies and water cleanses, and a married woman must remain pure and clean?
Or is it that, just as fire without moisture is unsustaining and arid, and water without heat is unproductive and inactive, so also male and female apart from each other are inert, but their union in marriage produces the perfection of their life together?
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About this edition
- The words
- Frank Cole Babbitt's English translation, copied word for word.
- Copied from
Perseus Digital Library (Tufts University); CC BY-SA 4.0 — this edition may be reused under the same share-alike terms. creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
- Left out
- The title page and opening pages before chapter 1
- Notes and pages added by translators, editors or publishers