[295] Well, then, let us examine these fine injunctions of his, and see how they were contrived to gain an unquestioned victory over the truths which have ever the power to prevail. His advice was this. Knowing that the one way by which the Hebrews could be overthrown was disobedience, he set himself to lead them, through wantonness and licentiousness, to impiety, through a great sin to a still greater, and put before them the bait of pleasure.
[296] “You have in your countrywomen, king,” he said, “persons of pre-eminent beauty. And there is nothing to which a man more easily falls a captive than women’s comeliness. If, then, you permit the fairest among them to prostitute themselves for hire, they will ensnare the younger of their enemies.
[297] But you must instruct them not to allow their wooers to enjoy their charms at once. For coyness titillates, and thereby makes the appetites more active, and inflames the passions. And, when their lust has them in its grip, there is nothing which they will shrink from doing or suffering.
[298] Then, when the lover is in this condition, one of those who are arming to take their prey should say, with a saucy air: ‘You must not be permitted to enjoy my favours until you have left the ways of your fathers and become a convert to honouring what I honour. That your conversion is sincere will be clearly proved to me if you are willing to take part in the libations and sacrifices which we offer to idols of stone and wood and the other images.’
[299] Then the lover, caught in the meshes of her multiform lures, her beauty and the enticements of her wheedling talk, will not gainsay her, but, with his reason trussed and pinioned, will subserve her orders to his sorrow, and be enrolled as a slave of passion.”