sed si Vestales ulciscitur ista puellas pestis, ab infido quae gignitur inproba mundo, cur non Christicolum tantum populatur agellos, per quos virginibus vestris stata dona negantur? utimur et ruris reditu et ratione colendi, exercere manum non paenitet: et lapis illic si stetit, antiquus quem cingere sueverat error fasceolis vel gallinae pulmone rogare, frangitur et nullis violatur Terminus extis, et quae fumificas arbor vittata lucernas servabat, cadit ultrici succisa bipenni.
But if this cruel curse, which arises from a world we cannot trust, is avenging the Vestal maids, why does it not waste only the Christians fields, since it is through them that the established gifts are refused to your Virgins? We have the benefit of the return from our land and our method of tillage, and have no cause to regret the labour of our hands: and if a stone has stood there which ancient superstition used to gird with bands and petition with a hens lights, it is broken now and Terminus is profaned by having no offering of entrails, and the tree that was decked with ribbons and used to hold smoking lanterns is felled by the stroke of the avenging axe.
final_alignments\Prudentius_Reply_to_Symmachus_Book2.json