cinnama, nec sicco frondescunt vimina costo 95
tardaque sudanti prorepunt balsama rivo.
Quo postquam delapsus Amor longasque peregit
penna vias, alacer passuque superbior intrat.
caesariem tunc forte Venus subnixa corusco
fingebat solio. dextra laevaque sorores 100
stabant Idaliae: largos haec nectaris imbres
that Cupid dips his arrows. A thousand brother Loves with quivers play all around upon the banks, a tender company like to Cupid himself in face and of equal age. The nymphs are their mothers; Cupid is the only child of golden Venus. He with his bow subdues the stars and the gods and heaven, and disdains not to wound mighty kings; of the others the common people is the prey. Other deities, too, are here: Licence bound by no fetters, easily moved Anger, Wakes dripping with wine, inexperienced Tears, Pallor that lovers ever prize, Boldness trembling at his first thefts, happy Fears, unstable Pleasure, and lovers’ Oaths, the sport of every lightest breeze. Amid them all wanton Youth with haughty neck shuts out Age from the grove.
Afar shines and glitters the goddess’ many-coloured palace, green gleaming by reason of the encircling grove. Vulcan built this too of precious stones and gold, wedding their costliness to art. Columns cut from rock of hyacinth support emerald beams; the walls are of beryl, the high-builded thresholds of polished jaspar, the floor of agate trodden as dirt beneath the foot. In the midst is a courtyard rich with fragrant turf that yields a harvest of perfume; there grows sweet spikenard and ripe cassia, Panchaean cinnamon-flowers and sprays of oozy balm, while balsam creeps forth slowly in an exuding stream.