Again the same lesson is taught in a law which Moses enacts, a law both excellent and profitable. It runs thus. “If a man have two wives, one loved and the other hated, and each bear a son to him, and the son of her that is hated is the first-born, it shall be that on the day on which he allots his goods to his sons he shall not be able to give the right of the first-born to the son of her whom he loves, and set aside the first-born, the son of her whom he hates, but he shall acknowledge the first-born, the son of her whom he hates, to give him a double portion of all that he has gotten; for he is the beginning of his children, and to him belong the rights of the first-born” (Deut. 21:15–17). Mark well then, my soul, and understand who is she that is hated, and who is her son, and thou wilt straightway perceive that to this last alone and to none other belong the honours of the elder. For each of us is mated with two wives, who hate and loathe each other, and they fill the house of the soul with their jealous contentions. And one of these we love, because we find her winning and gentle, and we think her our nearest and dearest. Her name is pleasure. The other we hate; we think her rough, ungentle, crabbed and our bitter enemy. Her name is virtue. So Pleasure comes languishing in the guise of a harlot or courtesan. Her gait has the looseness which her extravagant wantonness and luxury has bred; the lascivious roll of her eyes is a bait to entice the souls of the young; her look speaks of boldness and shamelessness; her neck is held high; she assumes a stature which Nature has not given her; she grins and giggles; her hair is dressed in curious and elaborate plaits; under her eyes are pencil lines; her eyebrows are smothered in paint; she revels perpetually in the warmth of the bath; her flush is artificial; her costly raiment is broidered lavishly with flowers; bracelets and necklaces and every other feminine ornament wrought of gold and jewels hang round her; her breath is laden with fragrant scents; a strumpet of the streets, she takes the market-place for her home; devoid of true beauty, she pursues the false. In her train come a sample of her closest friends, villainy, recklessness, faithlessness, flattery, imposture, deceit, falsehood, perjury, impiety, injustice, profligacy; and taking her stand in their midst, like the leader of a chorus, she speaks thus to the Mind. “See here,” she says, “I have coffers containing all human blessings—such as belong to the gods are in heaven—and outside these coffers you will find no good thing. These I will open, if you will dwell with me, and give you unceasing and unstinted use and enjoyment of all that is therein. But first I wish to recount to you the multitude of joys within my store, so that if you assent it may be with willingness and gladness, and if you turn from them it will not be through ignorance that you refuse. With me you will find freedom from the sense of restraint, from the fear of punishment, from the stress of business, from the discipline of labour; you will find colours all and sundry, sweet modulations of melodious sounds, costly kinds of food and drink, abundant varieties of delicious perfumes, amours without ceasing, frolics unregulated, chamberings unrestricted, language unrepressed, deeds uncensored, life without care, sleep soft and sweet, satiety ever unfilled. If then you are willing to pass your time with me, I will be your cateress and give you from them all what accords with your wishes. I will join you in considering what food and drink would charm your palate, what sight would please your eyes, what sound your ears, what perfume your nostrils. And of all that you desire nothing shall fail, for you shall find fresh sweets ever springing up to replace and more than replace those which are consumed. For in the treasure-houses I have spoken of are evergreen plants, which bloom and bear fruit in constant succession, so that the fullness of the fresh fruit, each in their season, ever pursues and overtakes those that have already ripened. These plants never once have known the ravages of civil or foreign war, but from the day that earth took them to her bosom, she cherishes them like a kindly nurse. She makes their roots dive deep and fast below like foundations, she extends the growth above the ground till it soars to heaven. She brings forth branches, which imitate and answer to the hands and feet of living creatures. She causes leaves to bloom like hair, at once to shelter and adorn, and then at the last she gives the fruit, the crowning purpose of the whole process.” When the other heard this, standing as she was, hidden from sight, yet within earshot, she feared lest the Mind should unawares be made captive and enslaved, and carried away by this wealth of gifts and promises. She feared too lest he should yield to the spell of that countenance so well and cunningly dressed to deceive, for by her talismans and witchcrafts the sorceress was pricking him, and working in him the itch of desire. So suddenly coming forward she appeared with all the marks of a free-born citizen, a firm tread, a serene countenance, her person and her modesty alike without false colouring, her moral nature free from guile, her conduct from stain, her will from craft, her speech from falsehood, reflecting faithfully the honesty of her thoughts. Her carriage was unaffected, her movements quiet, her clothing plain, her adornment that of good sense and virtue, which is more precious than gold. And in her company came piety, holiness, truth, justice, religion, fidelity to oaths and bonds, righteousness, equity, fellow-feeling, self-control, temperance, orderliness, continence, meekness, frugality, contentment, modesty, a quiet temper, courage, nobility of spirit, good judgement, foresight, good sense, attentiveness, desire for amendment, cheerfulness, kindness, gentleness, mildness, humanity, high-mindedness, blessedness, goodness. The daylight will fail me while I recount the names of the specific virtues. Ranged on each side with her in their midst they formed her body-guard. She assuming her wonted mien thus began. “I see yonder Pleasure, that lewd dealer in magic and inventor of fables, tricked out as for the stage, importunately seeking parley with you, and as it is my nature to hate evil, I feared lest being off your guard you should be deceived and consent to the worst of ills as though they were the highest good. Therefore, that you may not through sheer ignorance put from you aught that is to your advantage and purchase for yourself unwelcome misfortune, I judged it well to proclaim to you, before it was too late, the full truth of all that attaches to this woman. Know then that the finery with which she is bedizened is all borrowed. For of such things as make for true beauty she brings nothing—nothing that comes from herself and is indeed her own. But she has habited herself with a false and spurious comeliness, which is mere nets and snares to take you as her prey, and these, if you are wise, you will see in time and thus make her hunting of none effect. The sight of her is sweetness to your eyes, her voice like music ringing in your ears, but to the soul, the most precious of possessions, her nature is to work mischief through these and all other avenues. Of what she has to give, she set before you in full such things as were bound to be pleasant hearing, but the innumerable others which do not make for ease and comfort, in malice prepense she hid from you, expecting that none would accept them lightly. But these too I will strip bare and set before you, and will not follow Pleasure’s way, to lay before you only what in me is attractive, and slur over and conceal what involves discomfort. Rather all such things as of themselves offer joy and delight I will pass in silence, for I know that they will speak for themselves in the language of facts, but all that spells pain and hardship I will set out in plain terms, without figure of speech, and show them openly, so that the nature of each may be clearly visible, even to those who see but dimly. For what of mine seems most to partake of ill shall be found by those who make trial thereof to be more beautiful and precious than the greatest goods which Pleasure has to give. But before I begin to speak of me and mine, I will bring to your mind as much as I can of what she left unsaid. For she told you of her treasured stores, of colours, sounds, scents, flavours, and all varieties, of the faculties born of touch and all forms of sense, and she heightened this sweetness with the seductiveness of her discourse. But there are other things which are part and parcel of her, the maladies and plagues which you must needs experience if you choose her gifts, and these she did not tell you, that carried off your feet by windy thoughts of some gain or other you might be caught in her net. Know then, my friend, that if you become a pleasure-lover you will be all these things: unscrupulous, impudent, cross-tempered, unsociable, intractable, lawless, troublesome, passionate, headstrong, coarse, impatient of rebuke, reckless, evil-planning, ill to live with, unjust, inequitable, unfriendly, irreconcilable, implacable, covetous, amenable to no law, without friend, without home, without city, seditious, disorderly, impious, unholy, wavering, unstable, excommunicate, profane, accursed, a buffoon, unblest, murder-stained, low-minded, rude, beast-like, slavish, cowardly, incontinent, unseemly, shame-working, shame-enduring, unblushing, immoderate, insatiable, braggart, conceited, stubborn, mean, envious, censorious, quarrelsome, slanderous, vainglorious, deceitful, cheating, aimless, ignorant, stupid, dissident, [faithless], disobedient, unruly, a swindler, dissembling, mischievous, mistrustful, ill-reputed, skulking, unapproachable, abandoned, evil-minded, inconsistent, prating, garrulous, a babbler, windy-worded, a flatterer, dull-minded, unconsidering, unforeseeing, improvident, negligent, unpreparing, tasteless, erring, tripping, utterly failing, unregulated, unchampioned, lickerish, easily led, flaccid, pliable, full of cunning, double-minded, double-tongued, plot-hatching, treacherous, rascally, incorrigible, dependent, ever insecure, vagrant, agitated, a creature of impulse, an easy victim, frenzied, fickle, clinging to life, a glory-hunter, violent-tempered, ill-conditioned, sullen, disconsolate, quick to wrath, timorous, dilatory, dawdling, suspicious, faithless, stubborn, evil-thinking, a pessimist, lacrimose, malicious, maniacal, deranged, unformed, mischief-plotting, filthy-lucre-loving, selfish, servile, feud-loving, truckling to the mob, ill-managing, stiff-necked, womanish, decadent, dissolute, a scoffer, a glutton, a simpleton, a mass of misery and misfortune without relief. “Such then is the true story of that grand pageant which Pleasure, the lovely, the much coveted reveals. This truth she purposely concealed for fear lest, if you knew it, you should eschew association with her. But the riches of goodness that I have stored in my treasuries are such in number and greatness that none can tell of them as is their due. They who have already had part in them know them, and they too whose nature is attuned to them shall in their time know them, when they are bidden to sit down at that banquet, where you shall not find the pleasures that only bring the crammed belly and the bloated body, but where the mind ranging amid the virtues and nourished therewith rejoices and is glad.
On the Sacrifices of Abel and Cain 5
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