citizens and of strangers, whom the fame of this excellent vision had
gathered thither, confounded by that matchless beauty, could but kiss
the finger-tips of their right hands at sight of her, as in adoration
to the goddess Venus herself. And soon a rumour passed through the
country that she whom the blue deep had borne, forbearing her divine
dignity, was even then moving among men, or that by some fresh
germination from the stars, not the sea now, but the earth, had put
forth a new Venus, endued with the flower of virginity.

This belief, with the fame of the maiden's loveliness, went daily
further into distant lands, so that many people were drawn together
to behold that glorious model of the age. Men sailed no longer to
Paphos, to Cnidus or Cythera, to the presence of the goddess Venus:
her sacred rites were neglected, her images stood uncrowned, the cold
ashes were left to disfigure her forsaken altars. It was to a maiden
that men's prayers were offered, to a human countenance they looked,
in propitiating so great a godhead: when the girl went forth in the
morning they strewed flowers on her way, and the victims proper to
that unseen goddess were presented as she passed along. This
conveyance of divine worship to a mortal kindled meantime the anger
of the true Venus. "Lo! now, the ancient [63] parent of nature," she
cried, "the fountain of all elements! Behold me, Venus, benign
mother of the world, sharing my honours with a mortal maiden, while
my name, built up in heaven, is profaned by the mean things of
earth! Shall a perishable woman bear my image about with her? In
vain did the shepherd of Ida prefer me! Yet shall she have little
joy, whosoever she be, of her usurped and unlawful loveliness!"
Thereupon she called to her that winged, bold boy, of evil ways, who
wanders armed by night through men's houses, spoiling their
marriages; and stirring yet more by her speech his inborn wantonness,