Chapter III: The Transition (4)

[274] It ought, however, to be said that, being the first paragraph of the whole book, its style is not so free and simple as in more level passages. Though I do not pretend to understand the meaning clearly, I subjoin a translation.--"Phoebus advancing at that moment, when the forehead of Matuta Leucothea whitened, already free from Ocean's waves, had not yet shown his whirling wheels suspense. But bent with his swift chargers, Pyrous first and Eous just disclosed to view, on painting the pale chariot of his daughter with vermeil roses, in most vehement flight pursuing her, made no delay. And sparkling over the azure and unquiet wavelets, his light-showering tresses flowed in curls. Upon whose advent at that point descending to her rest stayed Cynthia without horns, urging the two steeds of her carriage with the Mule, the one white and the other dark, drawing toward the furthest horizon which divides the hemispheres where she had come, and, routed by the piercing star who lures the day, was yielding. At that time when the Riphaean mountains were undisturbed, nor with so cold a gust the rigid and frost-creating east-wind with the side-blast blowing made the tender branches quake, and tossed the mobile stems and spiked reeds and yielding grasses, and vexed the pliant tendrils, and shook the flexible willows, and bent the frail fir-branches 'neath the horns of Taurus in their wantonness. As in the winter time that wind was wont to breathe. Likewise the boastful Orion was at the point of staying to pursue with tears the beauteous Taurine shoulder of the seven sisters."

[275] When the book was translated into French and republished at Paris in the sixteenth century, the blocks were imitated, and at a later epoch it became fashionable to refer them to Raphael. The mistake was gross. Its only justification is the style adopted by the French imitators in their rehandling of the illustrations to Poliphil's soul pleading before Venus. These cuts seem to have felt the influence of the Farnesina frescoes.

[276] Here is the description of Poliphil's reception by the damsels: "Respose una lepidula placidamente dicendo. Da mi la mano. Hora si tu sospite & il bene venuto. Nui al presento siamo cinque sociale comite come il vedi. Et io me chiamo Aphea. Et questa che porta li buxuli & gli bianchissimi liuteamini, e nominata Offressia. Et questaltra che dil splendente speculo (delitie nostre) e gerula, Orassia e il suo nome. Costei che tene la sonora lyra, e dicta Achoe. Questa ultima, che questo vaso di pretiosissimo liquore baiula, ha nome Geussia."

[277] A portion of the passage describing this dalliance may be extracted as a further specimen of the author's style: "Cum lascivi vulti, et gli pecti procaci, ochii blandienti et nella rosea fronte micanti e ludibondi. Forme prae-excellente, Habiti incentivi, Moventie puellare, Risguardi mordenti, Exornato mundissimo. Niuna parte simulata, ma tutto dalla natura perfecto, cum exquisita politione, Niente difforme ma tutto harmonia concinnissima, Capi flavi cum le trece biondissime e crini insolari tante erano bellissime complicate, cum cordicelle, o vero nextruli di seta e di fili doro intorte, quanto che in tutto la operatione humana excedevano, circa la testa cum egregio componimento invilupate e cum achi crinali detente, e la fronte di cincinni capreoli silvata, cum lascivula inconstantia praependenti." There is an obvious study of Boccaccesque phrase, with a no less obvious desire to improve upon its exquisiteness of detail, masking an incapacity to write connectedly.

[278] The reiteration of sensuous phrases is significant. These inscriptions, [Greek: panton tokadi, pan dei poiein kata ten autou phusin, gonos kai euphuia], together with the Triumphs of Priapus and Cupid, accord with the supremacy of Venus Physizoe.