“That, living, never strayed from her sweet breast.” She kisses its ruffled wings and weeps, she who had no tears to spare when Catullus sung and sued. And there is Myrto, beloved by Theocritus, her naked feet gleaming like pearls, a bunch of Coan rushes pressed in her rosy fingers; and the nameless girl who held in check Anacreon’s wandering heart with the magic of dimples, and parted lips, and thin purple floating garments. With these are later beauties: Fiammetta the ruddy-haired, whom death snatched from Boccaccio’s arms, and the gentle Catarina, raising those heavy-lidded eyes that Camoens loved and lost; Petrarch’s Laura, robed in pale green spotted with violets, one golden curl escaping wantonly beneath her veil; the fair blue-stocking, Leonora d’Este, pale as a rain-washed rose, her dress in sweet disorder; and Beatrice, with the stillness of eternity in her brooding eyes. If we listen, we hear the shrill laughter of Mignonne, a child of fifteen summers, mocking at Ronsard’s wooing; or we catch the gentler murmur of Highland Mary’s song. She blushes a little, the low-born lass, and sinks her graceful head, as though abashed by the fame her peasant lover brought her. Barefooted, yellow-haired, she passes swiftly by; and with her, hand in hand, walks Scotland’s queen, sad Jane Beaufort, “the fairest younge floure” that ever won the heart of royal captive and suffered the martyrdom of love. England sends to that far land Stella, with eyes like stars, and a veil of gossamer hiding her delicate beauty, and Celia, and false Lucasta, and Castara, tantalizingly discreet, in whose dimples Cupid is fain to linger sighing, exiled, poor frozen god, from the “Chaste nunnery of her breasts.”