With gold, received her blithely, and enrobed

With heavenly vestments: her immortal head

They wreathed with golden fillet, beautiful,

And aptly framed: her perforated ears

They hung with jewels of the mountain-brass

And precious gold: her tender neck, and breast

Of dazzling white, they deck’d with chains of gold,

Such as the Hours wear braided with their locks.

Hymn to Venus.

[39] His herald from above.] The first edition had “winged herald;” but the wings of Mercury are the additions of later mythologists. Homer, in the Odyssey, speaks only of