8
The ceiling of this hall—call it the face if you will—well-featured itself, is as much embellished by the gilding as heaven by the stars at night, with sprinkled lights and scattered flowers of fire. If all were fire, it would be terrible, not beautiful, to us. You will observe that the gilding yonder is not purposeless, and not intermingled with the rest of the decorations for its own charm alone. It shines witha sweet radiance, and colours the whole hall with its flush; for when the light, striking the gold, lays hold of it and combines with it, they gleam jointly and make the flush doubly brilliant.
9
Such is the top, the summit of the hall: it needs a Homer to praise it by calling it “highceiled” like the chamber of Helen Il. 3, 423; Od. 4. 121.Il. 3, 423; Od. 4. 121. or “dazzling” like Olympus. Il. 1, 253; 13, 243; Od. 20, 103. The rest of the decoration, the frescoes on the walls, the beauty of their colours, and the vividness, exactitude, and truth of each detail might well be compared with the face of spring and with a flowery field, except that those things fade and wither and change and cast their beauty, while this is spring eternal, field unfading, bloom undying. Naught but the eye touches it and culls the sweetness of what it sees.
