But let it comfort thee to know,
young woman, that no such odious passion shall trouble thee as erstwhile
was the scourge of Myrrha, Semiramis, Byblis, Canace, and Cleopatra.
Nothing strange or new will be wrought by my son in thy regard. He has,
as have the other gods, his own special laws, which thou art not the
first to obey, and shouldst not be the last to entertain hopes
therefrom. If haply thou believest that thou art without companions in
this, foolish is thy belief. Let us pass by the other world, which is
fraught with such happenings; but observe attentively only thine own
city! What an infinite number of ladies it can show who are in the same
case with thyself! And remember that what is done by so many cannot be
deemed unseemly. Therefore, be thou of our following, and return thanks
to our beauty, which thou hast so closely examined. But return special
thanks to our deity, which has sundered thee from the ranks of the
simple, and persuaded thee to become acquainted with the delights that
our gifts bestow."
Alas! alas! ye tender and compassionate ladies, if Love has been
propitious to your desires, say what could I, what should I, answer to
such and so great words uttered by so great a goddess, if not: "Be it
done unto me according to thy pleasure"? And so, I affirm that as soon
as she had closed her lips, having already harvested within my
understanding all her words, and feeling that every word was charged
with ample excuse for what I might do, and knowing now how mighty she
was and how resistless, I resolved at once to submit to her guidance;
and instantly rising from my couch, and kneeling on the ground, with
humbled heart, I thus began, in abashed and tremulous accents:
"O peerless and eternal loveliness! O divinest of deities! O sole
mistress of all my thoughts! whose power is felt to be most invincible
by those who dare to try to withstand it, forgive the ill-timed
obstinacy wherewith I, in my great folly, attempted to ward off from my
breast the weapons of thy son, who was then to me an unknown divinity.
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