The attributes and symbols of Venus are neatly described by Ben Jonson in his masque of Loves Triumph through Callipolis. Venus is supposed to say:
Here, here I present am,
Both in my girdle and my flame;
Wherein are woven all the powers
The Graces gave me, or the Hours,
My nurses once, with all the arts
Of gaining and of holding hearts.
[1] The title of which has also been translated The Book of the Coming Forth in Day.
[2] This movable 'life' or heart is known to students of tradition as the 'life-index.' This is a common incident in medieval romance.
[3] These were translated into English by Lady Charlotte Guest, and published in 1849. Eleven of them are taken from the Red Book of Hergest, a fourteenth-century manuscript in the library of Jesus College, Oxford. The tale of Taliesin is included with these, but is taken from a much later manuscript.
[4] Book III, canto xi, 34.
[5] Comus.
[6] Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I.