78 
a&e& aa ost. 
the foot of Olympus, sat the Queen of Beauty and of 
Love; with her golden tresses unbound, and her 
matchless countenance buried within the palms of her 
milk white hands, and sobbing as if her fond, immortal 
heart would break. Beside her was laid the dead body 
of Adonis, his face half-hidden beneath the floating fall 
of her hair, as she bent over him and wept. Beyond 
them lay the stiffened bulk of the grim and grisly boar, 
his hideous jaws flecked with blood and foam, and his 
terrible tusks glittering like the heads of pointed spears, 
as they stood out, sharp and white, in the unclouded 
sunset. Not an immortal comforter was by: for the 
far-seeing eye of Jove was fixed listlessly upon the 
golden nectar-cup, as it passed from hand to hand, 
along the rounded circle of the gods, while they were 
recounting the deeds of other days, when they waged 
war against the Titans. Even the chariot of Venus 
stood unyoked at the foot of the mount; the silken 
traces lay loosely thrown together upon the ground, 
and the white doves were idly hovering round in the 
air; for the weeping goddess was so overwhelmed 
with sorrow, that she had forgotten to waft her light¬ 
winged whisper to the Mount of Olympus; nor had 
they received any summons from the charioteer Love, 
who lay sleeping upon a bed of Boses, with his bow 
and arrows by his side. 
In the glade of this vast forest of the old primeval 
world, whose echoes had never been startled by the 
blows of a descending axe, nor a branch rent from 
their majestic boles, saving by the dreaded bolts of the 
Thunderer, or some earth-shaking storm, which, in his 
9 ,nger, he had blown abroad, the Goddess of Beauty 
