Appear out of the east;
Fair child of beauty, glorious lamp of love,
How cheerfully thou lookest from above!”
The maids who had accompanied the bride to her husband’s house, approached the youths who had just left the bridegroom, and they commence a very elegant contention concerning the merits of the star, which the chorus of virgins is pleased to characterize as a cruel planet. They are silenced, however, by the youths hinting that they are not such enemies to Hesper as they pretend to be. Then the maids, draw a beautiful, and, with Catullus, a favourite comparison between an unblemished virgin, and a delicate flower in a garden:
“Ut flos in septis secretus nascitur hortis,
Ignotus pecori, nullo convulsus aratro,
Quem mulcent auræ, firmat sol, educat imber;
Multi illum pueri, multæ optavere puellæ.
Idem cum tenui carptus defloruit ungui,
Nulli illum pueri, nullæ optavere puellæ.