2 Est et Venus Calva ob hanc causam, quod cum Galli Capitolium obsiderent, et deessent funes Romanis ad tormenta facienda, prima. Domitia crinem suum, post caeterae matron, imitatae earn, exsecuerune, unde facta tormenta; et post bellum statua Veneri hoc nomine collocata est: licet alii Calvam Venerem quasi puram tradant: alii Calvam, quod corda calviat, id est, fallat atque éludât. Quidam dicunt, porrigine olim capillos cecidisse fominis, et Ancum regem suae uxori statuam Calvam posuisse, quod constitit piaculo; nam mox omnibus fominis capilli renati sunt: unde institutum ut Calva Venus coleretur. --Servius ad Aen. i. passive,{1} and deponent,{2} in Servius, Plautus, and Sallust. Nobody pretends that the Greeks had a bald Venus. The _Venus Calva_ of the Romans was the _Aphrodite Dolie_ of the Greeks.{3} Beauty cannot co-exist with baldness; but it may and does co-exist with deceit. Homer makes deceitful allurement an essential element in the girdle of Venus.{4} Sappho addresses her as craft-weaving Venus.{5} Why should I multiply examples, when poetry so abounds with complaints of deceitful love that I will be bound every one of this company could, without a moment's hesitation, find a quotation in point?--Miss Gryll, to begin with. 1 Contra ille _calvi_ ratus.--Sallust: Hist. iii. Thinking himself to be deceitfully allured. 2 Nam ubi domi sola sum, sopor manus calvitur. --Plautus in Casina. For when I am at home alone, sleep alluringly deceives my hands. 3 (Greek passage) 4 (Greek passage) 5 (Greek passage) _Miss Gryll._ Oh, doctor, with every one who has a memory for poetry, it must be _l'embarras de richesses_. We could occupy the time till midnight in going round and round on the subject. We should soon come to an end with instances of truth and constancy. _The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Not so soon, perhaps. If we were to go on accumulating examples, I think I could find you a Penelope for a Helen, a Fiordiligi for an Angelica, an Imogene for a Calista, a Sacripant for a Rinaldo, a Romeo for an Angelo, to nearly the end of the chapter. I will not say quite, for I am afraid at the end of the catalogue the numbers of the unfaithful would predominate. _Miss Ilex._ Do you think, doctor, you would find many examples of love that is one, and once for all; love never transferred from its first object to a second? _The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Plato holds that such is the essence of love, and poetry and romance present it in many instances. _Miss Ilex._ And the contrary in many more.