Venus bids them gather flowers. “Come, sisters, while yet the morning sun shines through the moist air, and while Lucifer, my harbinger of dawn, yet drives his dewy steeds and waters the flower-bright field.” So spake she and gathered the flower that testifies to her own woe.[126] Her companions ranged the various vales. You could have believed a swarm of bees was on the wing, eager to gather its sweetness from Hyblaean thyme, where the king bees lead out their wax-housed armies and the honey-bearing host, issuing from the beech-tree’s hollow bole, buzzes around its favourite flowers. The meadows are despoiled of their glory; this goddess weaves lilies with dark violets, another decks herself with pliant marjoram, a third steps forth rose-crowned, another wreathed with white privet. Thee also, Hyacinthus,
[126] Traditionally said to be the anemone, which is supposed to have sprung up red from the spot where Adonis was killed by the boar.
Narcissumque metunt, nunc inclita germina veris,
praestantes olim pueros: tu natus Amyclis,
hunc Helicon genuit; disci te perculit error,
hunc fontis decepit amor; te fronte retusa 135
Delius, hunc fracta Cephisus harundine luget.
Aestuat ante alias avido fervore legendi
frugiferae spes una deae: nunc vimine texto