To Aeternalis.[61]
Phoebus’ every breath from the Castalian spring, the tripod’s every moan within the shrine of prophecy—all these are poetry. Of prose the Muses will have none. In poetry only can I express myself, so wholly does my patron, Apollo, possess me.
IV. (LIV.)
Description of a Herd.
Not such were the beauteous herds that the land once ruled over by triple Geryon produced. Not such the bulls thou bathest, Clitumnus, in thy stream for pious vows to offer duly to Tarpeian Jove. Not such the steer that, they say, scattered the sand of Tyre[62] what time he brought home his well-loved burden. Not the fields of Crete, nor Gnossos that knew of passion for a bull, nor Ida could have pastured the like. Even he whose monstrous figure united ill-assorted limbs, the Cretan child[63] who by his strange form revealed his mother’s shame—even he could scarce have shown a shape so fair had all his rough limbs resembled those of his sire.
[61] Aeternalis was proconsul of Asia in 396 (Cod. Theod. iv. 4. 3, xi. 39. 12).
[62] Tyrias, because Europa was the daughter of Phoenix, eponymous king of Phoenicia. Ovid depicts her as being carried away from Tyre (Fasti v. 605; Met. ii. 845).
[63] i.e. the Minotaur.
V. (LXXXVI.)