All things that Phoebus beholds during the bright
day, from what time he emerges from Ganges, until he plunges with his
tired steeds into the Hesperian waves, to seek due repose after his
wearisome pilgrimage; all things that are confined between cold Arcturus
and the red-hot pole, all own the absolute and authentic lordship of my
winged son; and in Heaven not only is he esteemed a god, like the other
deities, but he is so much more puissant than them all that not one
remains who has not heretofore been vanquished by his darts. He, flying
on golden plumage throughout his realms, with such swiftness that his
passage can hardly be discerned, visits them all in turn, and, bending
his strong bow, to the drawn string he fits the arrows forged by me and
tempered in the fountains sacred to my divinity. And when he elects
anyone to his service, as being more worthy than others, that one he
rules as it likes him. He kindles raging fires in the hearts of the
young, fans the flames that are almost dead in the old, awakens the
fever of passion in the chaste bosoms of virgins and instils a genial
warmth into the breasts of wives and widows equally. He has even
aforetime forced the gods, wrought up to a frenzy by his blazing torch,
to forsake the heavens and dwell on earth under false appearances.
Whereof the proofs are many. Was not Phoebus, though victor over huge
Python and creator of the celestial strains that sound from the lyres of
Parnassus, by him made the thrall, now of Daphne, now of Clymene, and
again of Leucothea, and of many others withal? Certainly, this was so.
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