when the sun, ceasing to make any further progress, returns and converts his course again to us. For there is then a kind of tropic in nature itself, which verily increaseth the time of light to us and shortens the time of darkness, and makes the Lord and Ruler of the whole current of nature to approach nearer to us. _Question 20._ When the women beautify the temple of the Goddess appropriate to women, which they call Bona, why do they bring no myrtle into the house, although they be zealous of using all budding and flowering vegetables? _Solution._ Is not the reason (as the fabulous write the story) this, that the wife of Faulius a diviner, having drunk wine secretly and being discovered, was whipped by her husband with myrtle rods; hence the women bring in no myrtle, but offer to her a drink-offering of wine, which they call milk? Or is it this, that, as they abstain from many things, so especially they reserve themselves chaste from all things that appertain to venery when they perform that divine service; for they do not only turn their husbands out of doors but banish from the house every male kind, when they exercise this canonical obedience to their Goddess. They therefore reject myrtle as an abomination, it being consecrated to Venus; and the Venus whom at this day they call Murcia they anciently called Myrtia, as it would seem. _Question 21._ Why do the Latins worship a woodpecker, and all of them abstain strictly from this bird? _Solution._ Is it because one Picus by the enchantments of his wife transformed himself, and becoming a woodpecker uttered oracles, and gave oraculous answers to them that enquired? Or, if this be altogether incredible and monstrous, there is another of the romantic stories more probable, about Romulus and Remus, when they were exposed in the open field, that not only a she-wolf gave them suck, but a certain woodpecker flying to them fed them; for even now it is very usual that in meads and groves where a woodpecker is found there is also a wolf, as Nigidius writes. Or rather, as they deem other birds sacred to various Gods, so do they deem this sacred to Mars? For it is a daring and fierce bird, and hath so strong a beak as to drill an oak to the heart by pecking, and cause it to fall. _Question 22._ Why are they of opinion that Janus was double-faced, and do describe and paint him so? _Solution._ Was it because he was a native Greek of Perrhaebia (as they story it), and going down into Italy and cohabiting with the barbarians of the country, changed his language and way of living? Or rather because he persuaded those people of Italy that were savage and lawless to a civil life, in that he converted them to husbandry and formed them into commonwealths? _Question 23._ Why do they sell things which pertain to funerals in the temple of Libitina, seeing they are of opinion that Libitina is Venus?