Kitap 3
Your voice unheard, who will your skill commend!
Had not Appelles drawn the sea-born queen,Every one has heard of Apelles, the famous painter. He was a native of Cos, or, as others write, Ephesus, and born in the 112th Olympiad, about the 422nd year of Rome. For his great skill in his art he was called the prince of painters; and so industrious, that Nulla dies sine linea is his known motto. Alexander forbad any painter but him to draw his portrait. His master-piece was reckoned the Venus rising out of the sea, of which Ovid speaks, and which the Emperor Augustus dedicated in the temple of his father Julius Caesar. This piece was at last ruined by time, and Nero put another in its place, drawn by Dorotheus. Apelles had begun another Venus for the inhabitants of Cos, which would have excelled the first, but he was hindered by death from finishing it; and after him none had the boldness to put the last hand to it, as Pliny informs us.
Her beauties still beneath the waves had been.
Poets inspir'd write only for a name,
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And think their labours well repay'd with fame.
In former days, I own, the poets were
Of gods and king the most peculiar care:
Majestic awe was in the name allow'd,
And they with rich possessions were endowed
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Ennius with honours was by Scipio grac'd,
And next his own the poets statue plac'd.
But now their ivy crowns bear no esteem,
And all their learning's thought an idle dream.
Still there's a pleasure that proceeds from praise:
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What could the high renown of Homer raise,
