and crept with fair downcast eyes towards the bed. It was strewn for the
Prince, as was of wont, with soft garments: and above it lay skins of
bears and deep-voiced lions that he had slain in the lofty hills. When
then they twain had gone up into the well-wrought bed, first Anchises
took from her body her shining jewels, brooches, and twisted armlets,
earrings and chains: and he loosed her girdle, and unclad her of her
glistering raiment, that he laid on a silver-studded chair. Then through
the Gods' will and design, by the immortal Goddess lay the mortal man,
not wotting what he did.

Now in the hour when herdsmen drive back the kine and sturdy sheep to the
steading from the flowery pastures, even then the Goddess poured sweet
sleep into Anchises, and clad herself in her goodly raiment. Now when
she was wholly clad, the lady Goddess, her head touched the beam of the
lofty roof: and from her cheeks shone forth immortal beauty,--even the
beauty of fair-garlanded Cytherea. Then she aroused him from sleep, and
spake, and said:

"Rise, son of Dardanus, why now slumberest thou so deeply? Consider, am
I even in aspect such as I was when first thine eyes beheld me?"

So spake she, and straightway he started up out of slumber and was
adread, and turned his eyes away when he beheld the neck and the fair
eyes of Aphrodite. His goodly face he veiled again in a cloak, and
imploring her, he spake winged words:

"Even so soon as mine eyes first beheld thee, Goddess, I knew thee for
divine: but not sooth didst thou speak to me. But by Zeus of the AEgis I
implore thee, suffer me not to live a strengthless shadow among men, but
pity me: for no man lives in strength that has couched with immortal