In the eighteenth and incredibly beautiful car, drawn by two white
stags, there was seen coming, with the gilded bow and gilded quiver, the
huntress Diana, who was shown seated with infinite grace and loveliness
upon two other stags, which with their hindquarters made for her, as it
were, a most fanciful seat; the rest of the car being rendered strangely
gracious, lovely, and ornate by nine of her most pleasing fables. For
the first of these was seen how, moved by pity for the flying Arethusa,
who was seen pursued by the enamoured Alpheus, the Goddess converted her
into a fountain; even as for the second she was seen praying AEsculapius
that he should consent to restore to life for her the dead but innocent
Hippolytus; which being accomplished, she was then seen in the third
ordaining him guardian of her temple and her sacred wood in Aricia. For
the fourth she was seen chasing Cynthia, violated by Jove, from the pure
waters where she used to bathe with her other virgin Nymphs; and for the
fifth was seen the deceit practised by her on the above-named Alpheus,
when, seeking presumptuously to obtain her as his wife, he was taken by
her to see her dance, and there, having smeared her face with mire in
company with the other Nymphs, she constrained him, not being able to
recognize her in that guise, to depart all derided and scorned. For the
sixth, then, she was seen in company with her brother Apollo, chastising
proud Niobe and slaying her with all her children; and for the seventh
she was seen sending the great and savage boar into the Calydonian
forest, which laid all AEtolia waste, having been moved to just and
righteous wrath against that people because they had discontinued her
sacrifices. Even as for the eighth she was seen not less wrathfully
converting the unhappy Actaeon into a stag; but in the ninth and last,
moved on the contrary by pity, she was seen transforming Egeria, weeping
for the death of her husband, Numa Pompilius, into a fountain. At the
foot of the car, then, were seen coming eight of her huntress Nymphs,
with their bows and quivers, dressed in graceful, pleasing, loose, and
easy garments, composed of skins of various animals as it were slain by
them; and with them, as the last, concluding the small but gracious
company, was young Virbius, crowned with spotted-leaf myrtle, and
holding in one hand a little broken chariot, and in the other a bunch of
tresses virginal and blonde.
NINETEENTH CAR, OF CERES.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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