JUVENAL, SATIRE VI
plunge three times into the Tiber, dipping her trembling head in its whirling waters, and crawling out thence naked and shivering, she will creep with bleeding knees right across the field[1] of Tarquin the Proud. If the white Io[2] shall so order, she will journey to the confines of Egypt, and fetch water from hot Meroe[3] with which to sprinkle the Temple of Isis which stands hard by the ancient sheepfold.[4] For she believes that the command was given by the voice of the Goddess herself—a pretty kind of mind and spirit for the Gods to have converse with by night! Hence the chief and highest place of honour is awarded to Anubis,[5] who, with his linen-clad and shaven crew, mocks at the weeping of the people as he runs along.[6] He it is that obtains pardon for wives who break the law of purity on days that should be kept holy, and exacts huge penalties when the coverlet has been profaned, or when the silver serpent has been seen to nod his head. His tears and carefully-studied mutterings make sure that Osiris will not refuse a pardon for the fault, bribed, no doubt, by a fat goose and a slice of sacrificial cake.
542No sooner has that fellow departed than a palsied Jewess, leaving her basket and her truss of hay,[7] comes begging to her secret ear; she is an interpreter of the laws of Jerusalem, a high priestess of the tree,[8] a trusty go-between of highest heaven. She, too, fills her palm, but more sparingly, for a Jew will tell you dreams of any kind you please for the minutest of coins.
- ↑ i.e. the Campus Martius.
- ↑ Apparently here identified with Isis. Io was changed into a white cow by Juno out of jealousy.
- ↑ An island formed by the waters of the Nile. See xiii. 163.
- ↑ The Temple of Isis was in the Campus Martius near the polling-booths (saepta) here called ovile.
- ↑ A god of the dead; he attended on Isis, and is represented with the head of a dog.
- ↑ The priest who personates Anubis laughs at the people when they lament Osiris.
- ↑ See iii. 14; Iudaei quorum cophinus faenumque supellex.
- ↑ Jews were allowed to camp out under trees as gipsies do in our own country. See iii. 15, 16.
