I thus remind thee now, that thou may’st cease
Henceforth from artifice, and mayst be taught
How little all the dalliance and the love,
Which, stealing down from heaven, thou hast by fraud
Obtain’d from me shall favour thy designs.’
“It may be incidentally remarked, that these lines illustrate not merely the features of the ancient mythology, but also the condition of woman as treated by the heroes of Homer and by his contemporaries. We happen just to have opened upon another striking example of the elegance of the ancient mythology during the Augustan age. It is a passage of Ovid, almost too indecent and silly to be alluded to, though Addison was not ashamed to translate it, beginning—
‘Forte Jovem memorant, diffusum nectare, curas
Seposuisse graves, vacuaque agitasse remissos
Cum Junone jocos.’[446]