Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/225

though she boast the cloud that veiled the heavenly rape^[1]! She verily gave to the gods him on whom Juno ever looks in wrath, and withdraws her hand and refuses the nectar; but thou, beloved of heaven and famed for thy fair foster-son, hast sent to Latium him whom Ausonian Jove and Roman Juno^[2] alike behold with favouring brow and both approve. Nor without the will of heaven was such pleasure vouchsafed to the lord of earth.

Golden Venus, it is said, while on her way from the height of Eryx to the Idalian groves, driving her gentle swans, entered the shrine at Pergamum, where the great helper of the sick is present to aid, and stays the hurrying fates and bends, a kindly deity, o’er his health-bringing snake. Here she espies a lad of wondrous, starlike beauty, playing before the very altars of the god. And at first deceived somewhat by the sudden sight of his fair form she deems him one of her own sons; but he had no bow nor shade of wings on his bright shoulders. She marvels at his boyish charm, and gazing at his features and his locks, “Shalt thou go,” she cries, “to the Ausonian city, neglected by Venus, and endure a mean dwelling and slavery’s base yoke? May that never be! I myself will find a master worthy of that beauty. Come, lad, come with me! I will convey thee in my winged chariot through the air, a wondrous present to a monarch. No common servitude awaits thee: to the Palace art thou destined, to be the minister of love. Never, I declare, never the whole world over have I beheld or given birth to aught so fair.^[3] Straightway will the Latmian