Of what use is such shamming?  It is an illusion to suppose that one is really changed by making the pretence.  One resume’s one’s first nature upon the earliest occasion for hiding it.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 19:  At the Siege of Troy.  He was mistaken for Achilles.]

[Illustration:  A guide for the footsteps of love.]

XLI

LOVE AND FOLLY

(Book XII.—­No. 14)

Everything to do with love is mystery.  Cupid’s arrows, his quiver, his torch, his boyhood:  it is more than a day’s work to exhaust this science.  I make no pretence here of explaining everything.  My object is merely to relate to you, in my own way, how the blind little god was deprived of his sight, and what consequences followed this evil which perchance was a blessing after all.  On the latter point I will decide nothing, but will leave it to lovers to judge upon.

One day as Folly and Love were playing together, before the boy had lost his vision, a dispute arose.  To settle this matter Love wished to lay his cause before a council of the gods; but Folly, losing her patience, dealt him a furious blow upon the brow.  From that moment and for ever the light of heaven was gone from his eyes.

Venus demanded redress and revenge, the mother and the wife in her asserting themselves in a way which I leave you to imagine.  She deafened the gods with her cries, appealing to Jupiter, Nemesis, the judges from Hades, in fact all who would be importuned.  She represented the seriousness of the case, pointing out that her son could now not make a step without a stick.  No punishment, she urged, was heavy enough for so dire a crime, and she demanded that the damage should be repaired.

When the gods had each well considered the public interest on the one hand and the complainant’s demands upon the other, the supreme court gave as its verdict that Folly was condemned for ever more to serve as a guide for the footsteps of Love.

XLII

THE FOREST AND THE WOODCUTTER

(Book XII.—­No. 16)

A woodcutter had broken or lost the handle of his hatchet and found it not easy to get it repaired at once.  During the time, therefore, that it was out of use, the woods enjoyed a respite from further damage.  At last the man came humbly and begged of the forest to allow him gently to take just one branch wherewith to make him a new haft, and promised that then he would go elsewhere to ply his trade and get his living.  That would leave unthreatened many an oak and many a fir that now won universal respect on account of its age and beauty.

The innocent forest acquiesced and furnished him with a new handle.  This he fixed to his blade and, as soon as it was finished, fell at once upon the trees, despoiling his benefactress, the forest, of her most cherished ornaments.  There was no end to her bewailings:  her own gift had caused her grief.