You, O my golden-throned muse, Did surely dictate that sweet hymn, Which the noble Teian bard, From the fair and fertile isle, Chief muse of lovely womanhood, Sang with his dulcet voice. But it is plain enough in reality that this piece of poetry is not Sappho's. And I think myself that Hermesianax is joking concerning the love of Anacreon and Sappho. For Diphilus the comic poet, in his play called Sappho, has represented Archilochus and Hipponax as the lovers of Sappho. Now it appears to me, my friends, that I have displayed some diligence in getting up this amorous catalogue for you, as I myself am not a person so mad about love as Cynulcus, with his calumnious spirit, has represented me. I confess, indeed, that I am amorous, but I do deny that I am frantic on the subject. And why should I dilate upon my sorrows, When I may hide them all in night and silence? as Æschylus the Alexandrian has said in his Amphitryon. And this is the same Æschylus who composed the Messenian poems—a man entirely without any education. [Sidenote: LOVE.] 73. Therefore I, considering that Love is a mighty and most powerful deity, and that the Golden Venus is so too, recollect the verses of Euripides on the subject, and say— Dost thou not see how great a deity Resistless Venus is? No tongue can tell, No calculation can arrive at all Her power, or her dominions' vast extent; She nourishes you and me and all mankind, And I can prove this, not in words alone, But facts will show the might of this fair goddess. The earth loves rain when the parch'd plains are dry, And lose their glad fertility of yield From want of moisture. Then the ample heaven, When fill'd with rain, and moved by Venus' power, Loves to descend to anxious earth's embrace; Then when these two are join'd in tender love They are the parents of all fruits to us, They bring them forth, they cherish them; and so The race of man both lives and flourishes. And that most magnificent poet Æschylus, in his Danaides, introduces Venus herself speaking thus— Then, too, the earth feels love, and longs for wedlock, And rain, descending from the amorous air, Impregnates his desiring mate; and she Brings forth delicious food for mortal man,— Herds of fat sheep, and corn, the gift of Ceres; The trees love moisture, too, and rain descends T' indulge their longings, I alone the cause. 74. And again, in the Hippolytus[53] of Euripides, Venus says— And all who dwell to th' eastward of the sea, And the Atlantic waves, all who behold The beams of the rising and the setting sun, Know that I favour those who honour me, And crush all those who boast themselves against me.