THE WONDERS VENUS WROUGHT
Of all the many strange things that happened in the days of the old gods and goddesses, the most wonderful of all came to pass one spring morning near the island of Cyprus.
One expects all kinds of surprises in spring, new leaves and flowers on bare branches, the nesting and singing of the wild birds and brighter sunshine than in months before, but this wonder of Greece was quite unexplainable. To this day no one seems to have been able to account for it or understand it. There was hardly a breeze to stir the blue sea and the waters lay like a turquoise mirror, smooth and still. Suddenly the fishermen who were casting their nets on the shore saw a bright, rose colored cloud that trembled and then began to drop lower toward the sea until it floated lightly on the surface of the water. It was so soft and ethereal that it seemed as if a breath would blow it away, but it rose and fell like mist and seemed to almost breathe.
No one spoke, watching the wonder, and suddenly the cloud began to take form and shape. It really breathed, and it blossomed into the most beautiful woman who had ever been seen on earth or on Mount Olympus either. Her hair was as bright as sunlight and her face glowed with warm color like that of the rosy cloud from which she had come. Her flowing garments were as soft and lovely as the tinted sky at sunrise, and she stretched out her slender white arms toward the shore.
At once the four Zephyrs of the west who had not been anywhere about before came and surrounded this beauteous being, and with their help she glided toward the island of Cyprus. The four Seasons descended from Mount Olympus to meet her there, as the people of Cyprus watched and wondered at the marvel.
"Can it be possible that this heavenly being has come to remain with us?" they asked each other.
And even as they wondered the second strange thing happened.
Vulcan, the smith of Mount Olympus, had a shop on Cyprus. Here his anvil could be heard ringing every day from sunrise until sunset, for Vulcan was shaping and fitting together the parts of a gold throne for Jupiter. He was making other things with his skilful hands, weapons and armor for the gods and the heroes, and thunderbolts for Jupiter. He was a lonely smith, very much handicapped by his lameness, and seldom went about much unless it was to take his finished work home to Mount Olympus.
But this is what happened that long ago morning in spring. With amazing grace this lovely person who had been born in the foam of the sea made her way to the abode of Vulcan. She was the goddess of love, Venus, who is sometimes called Aphrodite. She had come to be the wife of Vulcan who was, in spite of his lameness, the god of fire.