to divinity. Happy sometimes the immortals to forsake Otympus, and to exchange stately dwellings, for modest residences; altogether those of friendship, where, as ease, we lead the private and retired life of citizens. Ceres and Juno possessed not far from each other, their villa, their Trianon, their « Country seat as the English term it. Ceres made cboice of a corner possessing a smiling landscape; it was an estate of middling extent, inclosed by delightful hills, and interspersed with wood, with fields, meadows, and rustic habitations Less moderate in her taste, Juno fixed upon the centre of a stately and umbrageous wood. She delighted in solemn trees, only admitting under their vaulted foliage, a sombre light, and whose strong branches might sustain perhaps, offerings from devotees of rich hangings, bearing the name embroidered in gold of the suppliant to the goddess, and an indication of the sort of benefit, that was solicited as well from her kindness, as from her immense power. Besides which, she chose to have a temple of noble and bold proportions, where all should appear dignified and worthy of the wife, and sister of Jupiter. That of Ceres, on the contrary, was remarkable for its simplicity, for its slender columns, and for the smallness of its extent. At the entrance lay heaped up, and in confusion, sheaves of barley and of wheat, flexible ears of corn, plaised into crowns, with sickles and rakes, the first fruits of harvest, and implements of agriculture, offered by the busbandmen to the good goddess. Psyche prostrate, after calling to mind her intercourse with Cupid, her curiosity, and is fatal consequences; also the anger of Venus, and what she had to dread from it, asked the favour alone of being permitted to conceal herself, if it were merely for a day or two; under the sheaves, and to subsist upon the grain that might fall from them; par les chemins et les champs, elle préféra se livrer ellemême, et venir dire aux suivantes de Vénus : « Celle que vous cherchez, la voici.» Du reste, on n'imaginerait que difficilement quelles suivantes Apulée donne à Vénus. Ce sont des personnifications d'êtres abstraits, comme on en retrouve tant au moyen âge de notre littérature française; et Vénus a pour acolytes l'Habitude à la pantomime compassée, aux plis de robe invariablement symétriques; l'Inquiétude aux gestes incertains et brefs, aux regards mobiles, à l'oreille fine et attentive; la Tristesse enfin au front soucieux, aux longs vélemens de deuil. |