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De spectaculis

17

1 similiter impudicitiam omnem amoliri iubemur. hoc igitur modo etiam a theatro separamur, quod est privatum consistorium impudicitiae, ubi nihil probatur quam quod alibi non probatur. 2 ita summa gratia eius de spurcitia plurimum concinnata est, quam Atellanus gesticulatur, quam mimus etiam per muliebres repraesentat, sensum sexus et pudoris exterminans, ut facilius domi quam scaenae erubescant, quam denique pantomimus a pueritia patitur ex corpore, ut artifex esse possit. 3 ipsa etiam prostibula, publicae libidinis hostiae, in scaena proferuntur, plus miserae in praesentia feminarum, quibus solis latebant, perque omnis aetatis, omnis dignitatis ora transducuntur; locus, stipes, elogium, etiam quibus opus non est, praedicatur, etiam (taceo de reliquis) quae in tenebris et in speluncis suis delitescere decebat, ne diem contaminarent. 4 erubescat senatus, erubescant ordines omnes! ipsae illae pudoris sui interemptrices de gestibus suis ad lucem et populum expavescentes semel anno erubescunt.

5 quodsi nobis omnis impudicitia exsecranda est, cur liceat audire quod loqui non licet, cum etiam scurrilitatem et omne vanum verbum indicatum a deo sciamus? cur aeque liceat videre quae facere flagitium est? cur quae ore prolata communicant hominem, ea per aures et oculos admissa non videantur hominem communicare, cum spiritui appareant aures et oculi nec possit mundus praestari cuius apparitores inquinantur? 6 habes igitur et theatri interdictionem de interdictione impudicitiae. si et doctrinam saecularis litteraturae ut stultitiae apud deum deputatam aspernamur, satis praescribitur nobis et de illis speciebus spectaculorum, quae saeculari litteratura lusoriam vel agonisticam scaenam dispungunt. 7 quodsi sunt tragoediae et comoediae scelerum et libidinum auctrices cruentae et lascivae, impiae et prodigae, nullius rei aut atrocis aut vilis commemoratio melior est: quod in facto reicitur, etiam in dicto non est recipiendum.

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The Shows

Chapter XVII.

Are we not, in like manner, enjoined to put away from us all immodesty? On this ground, again, we are excluded from the theatre, which is immodesty's own peculiar abode, where nothing is in repute but what elsewhere is disreputable. So the best path to the highest favour of its god is the vileness which the Atellan ¹ gesticulates, which the buffoon in woman's clothes exhibits, destroying all natural modesty, so that they blush more readily at home than at the play, which finally is done from his childhood on the person of the pantomime, that he may become an actor. The very harlots, too, victims of the public lust, are brought upon the stage, their misery increased as being there in the presence of their own sex, from whom alone they are wont to hide themselves: they are paraded publicly before every age and every rank--their abode, their gains, their praises, are set forth, and that even in the hearing of those who should not hear such things. I say nothing about other matters, which it were good to hide away in their own darkness and their own gloomy caves, lest they should stain the light of day. Let the Senate, let all ranks, blush for very shame! Why, even these miserable women, who by their own gestures destroy their modesty, dreading the light of day, and the people's gaze, know something of shame at least once a year. But if we ought to abominate all that is immodest, on what ground is it right to hear what we must not speak? For all licentiousness of speech, nay, every idle word, is condemned by God. Why, in the same way, is it right to look on what it is disgraceful to do? How is it that the things which defile a man in going out of his mouth, are not regarded as doing so when they go in at his eyes and ears--when eyes and ears are the immediate attendants on the spirit--and that can never be pure whose servants-in-waiting are impure? You have the theatre forbidden, then, in the forbidding of immodesty. If, again, we despise the teaching of secular literature as being foolishness in God's eyes, our duty is plain enough in regard to those spectacles, which from this source derive the tragic or comic play. If tragedies and comedies are the bloody and wanton, the impious and licentious inventors of crimes and lusts, it is not good even that there should be any calling to remembrance the atrocious or the vile. What you reject in deed, you are not to bid welcome to in word.