How beautiful they were! too beautiful
To look upon; but Paris was to me
More lovelier than all the world beside.
O mother Ida, hearken ere I die.'—p. 56.
In the place where we have indicated a pause, follows a description, long, rich, and luscious—Of the three naked goddesses? Fye for shame—no—of the 'lily flower violet-eyed,' and the 'singing pine,' and the 'overwandering ivy and vine,' and 'festoons,' and 'gnarlèd boughs,' and 'tree tops,' and 'berries,' and 'flowers,' and all the inanimate beauties of the scene. It would be unjust to the ingenuus pudor of the author not to observe the art with which he has veiled this ticklish interview behind such luxuriant trellis-work, and it is obvious that it is for our special sakes he has entered into these local details, because if there was one thing which 'mother Ida' knew better than another, it must have been her own bushes and brakes. We then have in detail the tempting speeches of, first—
'The imperial Olympian,
With archèd eyebrow smiling sovranly,
Full-eyèd Here;'
secondly of Pallas—
'Her clear and barèd limbs
O'er-thwarted with the brazen-headed spear,'
and thirdly—
'Idalian Aphrodite ocean-born,
Fresh as the foam, new-bathed in Paphian wells—'
for one dip, or even three dips in one well, would not have been enough on such an occasion—and her succinct and prevailing promise of—
'The fairest and most loving wife in Greece;'—
upon evil-hearted Paris's catching at which prize, the tender and chaste Œnone exclaims her indignation, that she herself should not be considered fair enough, since only yesterday her charms had struck awe into—