I came from my home nigh unto the temple, before whose altars, with due
devotion, I began thus to pray: 'O Venus, full of pity, sacred goddess
whose altars I am joyful to approach, lend thou thy merciful ears unto
my prayer; for I come to thee a young girl, though fairly fashioned yet
ill-starred in love, fearful lest my empty years lead comfortless to a
chill old age; therefore, if my beauty merit that I be counted among thy
followers, enter thou into my breast who so desire thee, and grant that
in the love of a youth not unworthy of my beauty, and through whom my
wasted hours may be with delight made good, I may feel those fires of
thine which many times and endlessly I have heard praised.' I know not
whether while I was thus engrossed in prayer I fell on sleep, and
sleeping saw those things whereof I am about to tell, or whether,
indeed, I was rapt thence in bodily form to see them; all I can tell is
that suddenly I found myself borne through the heavens in a gleaming
chariot drawn by white doves, and that inclining my eyes to things below
I beheld the fruitful earth shrunk to a narrow room, and the rivers
thereof after the fashion of serpents; and after that I had left behind
the pleasant lands of Italy and the rugged mountains of Emathia, I
beheld the waters of the Dircean fount and the ancient walls raised by
the sound of Amphion's lyre, and soon there appeared to me the pleasant
Cytherean mount, and on it resting the holy chariots drawn by the
spotless birds.
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