Metamorphoses 11.21 - "Slow down, cowboy"

It doesn't matter the religion, the new guy needs a trainer.

Thoughts on this passage:

• inferi means "those beneath". So to mortals, the inferi are the dead. To the gods, the inferi are us.
• traditionem, from which we get "tradition", means surrender. Huh. That looks like something worth looking up in the OED.
• The priest actually sounds like he knows what he's talking about, and I like his patience and his shared sympathy for the challenges of discipleship.
• Oh my stars, this was ONE CHAPTER. And it took me an hour and a half. This week's assignment is going to get down to the wire, I think.

[21] Quo facto idem sollicitius sedulum colendi frequentabam ministerium, spe futura beneficiis praesentibus pignerata. Nec minus in dies mihi magis magisque accipiendorum sacrorum cupido gliscebat, summisque precibus primarium sacerdotem saepissime conveneram petens ut me noctis sacratae tandem arcanis initiaret. At ille, vir alioquin gravis et sobriae religionis observatione famosus, clementer ac comiter et ut solent parentes inmaturis liberorum desideriis modificari, meam differens instantiam, spei melioris solaciis alioquin anxium mihi permulcebat animum: nam et diem, quo quisque possit initiari, deae nutu demonstrari et sacerdotem, qui sacra debeat ministrare, eiusdem providentia deligi, sumptus etiam caerimoniis necessarios simili praecepto destinari. Quae cuncta nos quoque observabili patientia sustinere censebat, quippe cum aviditati contumaciaeque summe cavere et utramque culpam vitare ac neque vocatus morari nec non iussus festinare deberem; nec tamen esse quemquam de suo numero tam perditae mentis vel immo destinatae mortis, qui, non sibi quoque seorsum iubente domina, temerarium atque sacrilegum audeat ministerium subire noxamque letalem contrahere; nam et inferum claustra et salutis tutelam in deae manu posita, ipsamque traditionem ad instar voluntariae mortis et precariae salutis celebrari, quippe cum transactis vitae temporibus iam in ipso finitae lucis limine constitutos, quis tamen tuto possint magna religionis committi, silentia, numen deae soleat elicere et sua providentia quodam modo renatos ad novae reponere rursus salutis curricula; ergo igitur me quoque oportere caeleste sustinere praeceptum, quanquam perspicua evidentique magni numinis dignatione iam dudum felici ministerio nuncupatum destinatumque;  nec secus quam cultores ceteris cibis profanis ac nefariis iam nunc temperarem, quo rectius ad arcana purissimae religionis secreta pervaderem.

With this thing done, I was carefully cultivating my painstaking service of woshiping, with the future hope having been pledged to present services. In the days it was not lessened and the desire of acquiring the sacred knowledge was increasing more and more, and seeking for these highest prayers , I often met with the high-ranking priest so that he might finally initiate me into the secrets of the sacred night.  But he, a man otherwise grave and famous in his observation of sober religious rites, leniently and courteously and as parents are accustomed to be controlled in the immature desires of their children, putting off my urgency, he soothed my anxious spirit otherwise with the comforts of a better hope: That for the day on which anyone is able to be initiated, by the nod of the goddess it is demonstrated and the priest, who ought to administer the sacred things, is chosen by her same providence, the cost even for the supplies of the ceremony is settled on by a similar command. And he judged that we all sustain with watchful patience, of course that I ought to be extremely wary with greed and defiance and to shun fault on both sides and not to delay having been called nor hurry when I have not been ordered. Nevertheless  that there was not anyone from her number so degenerate in mind or indeed bent on death who, and not separated for herself by the order of the goddess, intends to engage in sacrilegious and reckless service and bring on a fatal punishment; For the gates of those beneath and the tutelage of the safe is located in the hand of the goddess, and that the same surrender to the likeness of voluntary death is celebrated as prayer-obtained safety, of course when those positioned on the threshold now in that same end of light, with their timespans for life accomplished, nevertheless any able to be brought the great silence of religion in safety, the divinity of the goddess is accustomed to coax out and to restore by her divine providence in a certain manner those reborn again to a course of new salvation; Ergo and therefore I myself am instructed to sustain by the order of heaven, although by the clear and obvious regard of the great goddess now and in the past I have been called and destined to this happy ministry; I am not otherwise than the rest of the worshipers and now immediately I refrain from unholy and impious meals, by which more correctly I go through to the secret mysteries of unpolluted religion.