pectinis ingenio numquam felicior artis
contigit eventus; nulli sic consona telae
fila nec in tantum veri duxere figuras.
hic Hyperionio Solem de semine nasci
locks, is braided round her head and secured by a Cyprian pin, and a brooch cunningly fabricated by her spouse Vulcan supports her cloak thick studded with purple jewels.
Behind her hasten Diana, fair queen of Arcadian Lycaeus, and Pallas who, with her spear, protects the citadel of Athens—virgins both; Pallas, cruel goddess of war, Diana bane of wild creatures. On her burnished helmet the Triton-born goddess wore a carved figure of Typhon, the upper part of his body lifeless, the lower limbs yet writhing, part dead, part quick. Her terrible spear, piercing the clouds as she brandished it, resembled a tree; only the Gorgon’s hissing neck she hid in the spread of her glittering cloak. But mild was Diana’s gaze and very like her brother looked she; Phoebus’ own one had thought her cheeks and eyes, her sex alone disclosed the difference. Her shining arms were bare, her straying locks fluttered in the gentle breeze, and the chord of her unstrung bow hung idle, her arrows slung behind her back. Her Cretan tunic, gathered with girdles twain, flows down to her knees, and on her waving dress Delos wanders and stretches surrounded by a golden sea.
Between the two Ceres’ child, now her mother’s pride, so soon to be her sorrow, treads the grass with equal pace, their equal, too, in stature and beauty; Pallas you might have thought her, had she carried a shield, Diana, if a javelin. A brooch of polished jasper secured her girded dress. Never did art give happier issue to the shuttle’s skill; never was cloth so beautifully made nor embroidery so lifelike. In it she had worked the birth of the sun from the seed of Hyperion, the birth, too, of the moon,
fecerat et pariter, forma sed dispare, Lunam, 45