lofty mountains. But when they had ascended the well-wrought couch, he first took the shining ornaments off her body, the brooches, and bended circlets, and the pendant drops and necklaces. And Anchises loosed her girdle, and stripped off her splendid garments, and placed her on the gold-studded throne. But he then, under the behest and destiny of the gods, was couched with the immortal goddess, not clearly knowing it. But when the shepherds again return back into the stall, and the cows and sturdy[1] sheep from the flowery pastures, then indeed she breathed sweet sleep into Anchises, painless, but she herself put beautiful garments around her body. And when the divine one of goddesses had put on all [her garments] around her body, she stood by the couch of the well-made dwelling, she raised her head, and immortal beauty shone from her cheeks, such as is [the beauty] of beautifully-crowned Cytherea. And she aroused him from slumber and spoke, and addressed him:
"Arise, son of Dardanus, why sleepest thou an unwakeful sleep? and say, whether I seem to be at all like what thou at first didst perceive me with thine eyes."[2]
Thus she spoke, but he heard very briskly from his sleep, but when he beheld the neck and beauteous eyes of Venus, he dreaded, and turned his eyes another way. And again he hid his fair face in his garment, and beseeching her, he spoke winged words: "Immediately, O goddess, that I first beheld thee with mine eyes, I perceived that thou wast a goddess; but thou didst not speak the truth. But, I implore thee by Ægis-bearing Jove, leave me not to live weak[3] among mor-
- ↑ Perhaps answering to the "petulci" of Virgil; "fat and frolic sheep," is Chapman's version.
- ↑ "———Anchises, wake;
Thy fond repose and lethargy forsake:
Look on the nymph who late from Phrygia came,
Behold me well—say, if I seem the same."Congreve. - ↑ Anchises seems to have been subsequently punished by paralysis caused by a flash of lightning. Cf. Servius on Æn. ii. 649, "Cum inter æquales exultaret Anchises, gloriatus traditur de concubitu Veneris: quod cum Jovi Venus questa esset, emeruit ut in Anchisem fulmina mitterentur; sed Venus cum eum fulmine posse vidisset interimi, miserata juventas; in aliam partem detorsit: Anchises tamen afflatus igne cœlesti, semper debilis vixit." Hesych., ἀμενηνά, ἀσθενῆ, κατὰ στέρησιν τῆς δυνάμεως.
