III. TO VENUS.[1]
Sing to me, O Muse, the deeds of golden Cyprian Venus, who both has excited sweet love among the gods, and has subdued the tribes of mortal men, and the heaven-descended birds, and all beasts, as many indeed as the mainland, and as many as the sea[2] cherish in great numbers. But to all of them the occupations of elegantly-crowned Cytherea are a care. But three minds she is unable to persuade or deceive, [namely] the daughter of Ægis-bearing Jove, dark-eyed Minerva; for her the occupations of golden Venus delight not, but wars and the deeds of Mars please her, and conflicts, and battles, and to practise renowned deeds. He first taught mortal[3] workmen to make waggons and various chariots in brass, and she taught soft-fleshed virgins splendid works in their dwellings, setting them in the mind of each. Nor does smile-loving Venus overcome in dalliance resounding Artemis of the golden distaff. For to her the bow is pleasant,[4] and to slay beasts o'er mountains, and lyres, and choirs, and piercing shouts, and shadowy woods, and a city of just men. Nor indeed do the occupations of Venus please the hallowed virgin, Vesta, to whom first wily Saturn gave birth, and last again,[5]
- ↑ An elegant paraphrase of this hymn, which Coleridge (p. 299) considers as "conceived in an older, more Homeric spirit, than any of the other hymns," will be found in the second volume of Congreve's works. Muller, Lit. of Greece, vii. 6, says, "it is an obvious conjecture that this hymn (the tone and expression of which has much of the genuine Homer) was sung in honour of princes of the family of Æneas, in some town of the range of Ida, where the same line continued to reign even until the Peloponnesian war." Grote, vol. i. p. 73, rather thinks that it was "probably sung at one of the festivals of Aphrodite in Cyprus."
- ↑ Cf. Eurip. Hippol. 2, sqq., and 447, φοιτᾷ δ' ἀν' αἰθέρ', ἔστι δ' ἐν θαλασσίῳ Κλύδωνι Κύπρις, πάντα δ' ἐκ ταύτης ἔφυ. Lucret. i. 17, "Denique per maria ac montis, fluviosque rapacis. Frundiferasque domos avium, camposque virentis, Omnibus incutiens blandum per pectora amorem, Efficis, ut cupide generatim secla propagent."
- ↑ Hermann prefers ἐπιχθονίοις, joining it with ποιῆσαι.
- ↑ Compare the prayer of Artemis to her father Jove, in Callimach. in Dian. 6, δός μοι παρθενίην αἰώνιον, ἄππα, φυλάσσειν . . . δός δ' ἰοὺς καὶ τόξα, κ. τ. λ.
- ↑ "Nemo, quod sciam, hunc locum explicare conatus, Vestam nempe
