'The incomparable beauty of these cool banks, Elicio, causes me no small wonder; and not without reason, for when one has seen as I have the spacious banks of the renowned Betis, and those that deck and adorn the famous Ebro, and the well-known Pisuerga, and when one in foreign lands has walked by the banks of the holy Tiber, and the pleasing banks of the Po, made noted by the fall of the rash youth, and has not failed to go round the cool spots of the peaceful Sebeto, it must needs have been a great cause that should move me to wonder at seeing any others.' 'You do not go so far out of the way in what you say, as I believe, discreet Timbrio,' answered Elicio, 'as not to see with your eyes how right you are to say it; for without doubt you can believe that the pleasantness and coolness of the banks of this river excel, as is well known and recognised, all those you have named, though there should enter among them those of the distant Xanthus, and of the renowned Amphrysus, and of the loving Alpheus. For experience holds and has made certain, that almost in a straight line above the greater part of these banks appears a sky bright and shining, which with a wide sweep and with living splendour seems to invite to joy and gladness the heart that is most estranged from it; and if it is true that the stars and the sun are sustained, as some say, by the waters here below, I firmly believe that those of this river are in a large measure the cause that produces the beauty of the sky that covers it, or I shall believe that God, for the same reason that they say He dwells in Heaven, makes here His sojourn for the most part. The earth that embraces it, clad with a thousand green adornments, seems to make festival and to rejoice at possessing in itself a gift so rare and pleasing, and the golden river as though in exchange, sweetly interweaving itself in its embraces, fashions, as if with intent, a thousand windings in and out, which fill the soul of all who behold them with wondrous pleasure; whence it arises that, though the eyes turn again to behold it many a time, they do not therefore fail to find in it things to cause them new pleasure and new wonder. Turn your eyes then, valiant Timbrio, and see how much its banks are adorned by the many villages and wealthy farmhouses, which are seen built along them. Here in every season of the year is seen the smiling spring in company with fair Venus, her garments girded up and full of love, and Zephyrus accompanying her, with his mother Flora in front, scattering with bounteous hand divers fragrant flowers; and the skill of its inhabitants has wrought so much that nature, incorporated with art, is become an artist and art's equal, and from both together has been formed a third nature to which I cannot give a name. Of its cultivated gardens, compared with which the gardens of the Hesperides and of Alcinous, may keep silence, of the dense woods, of the peaceful olives, green laurels, and rounded