into the sunlight, which stirs the sap of the trees and loads the vine with grapes, because men work injustice on one another? Is it less present because we cannot understand, because we have seen the grain broken by hail and the grapes torn from the vines by bellowing winds?
"These very gardens are a place of worship for that Aphrodite whose ways displease thee but of whom thou really knowest nothing. Her spirit is in all things and in all creatures. The most wretched prostitute is not ignorant of her, nor the richest and most voluptuous empress and queen. The very beasts of the fields warm to her touch; the swaying branches of the palms breathe her name. In the shadowy depths of the sea, her spirit moves among pearly shells and branches of pink coral. And the creature which has, for an instant only, received her gifts, has not lived in vain . . ."
