culos nihil necesse est,
Qui tum denique habent salem et leporem."

I am of Catullus' opinion, and make the same apology in mine own behalf;
_Hoc etiam quod scribo, pendet plerumque ex aliorum sententia et
auctoritate; nec ipse forsan insanio, sed insanientes sequor. Atqui detur
hoc insanire me; Semel insanivimus omnes, et tute ipse opinor insanis
aliquando, et is, et ille, et ego, scilicet_.[4443] _Homo sum, humani a me
nihil alienum puto_:[4444] And which he urgeth for himself, accused of the
like fault, I as justly plead, [4445]_lasciva est nobis pagina, vita proba
est_. Howsoever my lines err, my life is honest, [4446]_vita verecunda est,
musa jocosa mihi_. But I presume I need no such apologies, I need not, as
Socrates in Plato, cover his face when he spake of love, or blush and hide
mine eyes, as Pallas did in her hood, when she was consulted by Jupiter
about Mercury's marriage, _quod, super nuptiis virgo consulitur_, it is no
such lascivious, obscene, or wanton discourse; I have not offended your
chaster ears with anything that is here written, as many French and Italian
authors in their modern language of late have done, nay some of our Latin
pontificial writers, Zanches, Asorius, Abulensis, Burchardus, &c., whom
[4447]Rivet accuseth to be more lascivious than Virgil in Priapeiis,
Petronius in Catalectis, Aristophanes in Lycistratae, Martialis, or any
other pagan profane writer, _qui tam atrociter_ ([4448]one notes) _hoc
genere peccarunt ut multa ingeniosissime scripta obscaenitatum gratia
castae mentes abhorreant_. 'Tis not scurrile this, but chaste, honest, most
part serious, and even of religion itself. [4449]"Incensed" (as he said)
"with the love of finding love, we have sought it, and found it." More yet,
I have augmented and added something to this light treatise (if light)
which was not in the former editions, I am not ashamed to confess it, with
a good [4450]author, _quod extendi et locupletari hoc subjectum plerique
postulabant, et eorum importunitate victus, animum utcunque renitentem eo
adegi, ut jam sexta vice calamum in manum sumerem, scriptionique longe et a
studiis et professione mea alienae, me accingerem, horas aliquas a seriis
meis occupationibus interim suffuratus, easque veluti ludo cuidam ac
recreationi destinans_;

[4451] "Cogor------retrorsum
Vela dare, atque literare cursus
Olim relictos"------

_etsi non ignorarem novos fortasse detractores novis hisce
interpol