—Boyesen.
Partly awakened, Endymion rested his eyes for an instant upon the bright maiden ere she vanished, but that one glance kindled a great passion in his heart. Diana descended night after night to caress him while he slept, and even while wrapped in slumber he watched for her coming and enjoyed the bliss of her presence. At last she threw over him the spell of eternal sleep and, that none might know of her passion, concealed him in a cave, where she continued always to come and gaze enraptured upon his face and press soft kisses upon his lips.
“Queen of the wide air; thou most lovely queen,
Of all the brightness that mine eyes have seen;
As thou exceedest all things in thy shrine,
So every tale does this sweet tale of thine.”
—Keats.
INTERPRETATION.
“This story suggests aspiring and poetic love, a life spent more in dreams than in reality, and an early and welcome death.” Mueller, the great authority on philology, says that in ancient language the people said, “Diana kisses Endymion to sleep,” instead of, “It is night.” Some mythologists consider Endymion the personification of sleep.