[20] Why is it that the women, when they adorn in their houses a shrine to the women’s goddess, whom they call Bona Dea,[36] bring in no myrtle, although they are very eager to make use of all manner of growing and blooming plants?
Was this goddess, as the mythologists relate, the wife of the seer Faunus; and was she secretly addicted to wine,[37] but did not escape detection and was beaten by her husband with myrtle rods, and is this the reason why they do not bring in myrtle and, when they make libations of wine to her, call it milk?
Or is it because they remain pure from many things, particularly from venery, when they perform this holy service? For they not only exclude their husbands, but they also drive everything male out of the house[38] whenever they conduct the customary ceremonies in honour of the goddess. So, because the myrtle is sacred to Venus, they religiously exclude it. For she whom they now call Venus Murcia, in ancient days, it seems, they styled Myrtia.