Book 4
So ended she; at once Leuconoe
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took the narrator's thread; and as she spoke
her sisters all were silent.
that rules the world was captive made of Love.
My theme shall be a love-song of the Sun.
'Tis said the Lord of Day, whose wakeful eye
beholds at once whatever may transpire,
witnessed the loves of Mars and Venus. Grieved
to know the wrong, he called the son of Juno,
Vulcan, and gave full knowledge of the deed,
showing how Mars and Venus shamed his love,
as they defiled his bed. Vulcan amazed,—
the nimble-thoughted Vulcan lost his wits,
so that he dropped the work his right hand held.
But turning from all else at once he set
to file out chains of brass, delicate, fine,
from which to fashion nets invisible,
filmy of mesh and airy as the thread
of insect-web, that from the rafter swings.—
Implicit woven that they yielded soft
the slightest movement or the gentlest touch,
with cunning skill he drew them round the bed
where they were sure to dally. Presently
appeared the faithless wife, and on the couch
lay down to languish with her paramour.—
Meshed in the chains they could not thence arise,
nor could they else but lie in strict embrace,—
cunningly thus entrapped by Vulcan's wit.—
At once the Lemnian cuckold opened wide
the folding ivory doors and called the Gods,—
to witness. There they lay disgraced and bound.
I wot were many of the lighter Gods
who wished themselves in like disgraceful bonds.—
The Gods were moved to laughter: and the tale
was long most noted in the courts of Heaven.
The Cytherean Venus brooded on
the Sun's betrayal of her stolen joys,
and thought to torture him in passion's pains,
and wreak requital for the pain he caused.
