The reader cannot fail to call to mind the admirable travesty of this
story by Shakspere, in the 'Midsummer Night's Dream.'

FABLE II. [IV.167-233]

The Sun discovers to Vulcan the intrigue between Mars and Venus, and
then, himself, falls in love with Leucothoe. Venus, in revenge for the
discovery, resolves to make his amours unfortunate.

Here she ended; and there was {but} a short time betwixt, and {then}
Leuconoe began[27] to speak. Her sisters held their peace. "Love has
captivated even this Sun, who rules all things by his aethereal light.
I will relate the loves of the Sun. This God is supposed to have been
the first to see the adultery of Venus with Mars; this God is the first
to see everything. He was grieved at what was done, and showed to the
husband, the son of Juno,[28] the wrong done to his bed, and the place
of the intrigue. Both his senses, and the work which his skilful right
hand was {then} holding, quitted him {on the instant}. Immediately, he
files out some slender chains of brass, and nets, and meshes, which can
escape the eye. The finest threads cannot surpass that work, nor yet the
cobweb that hangs from the top of the beam. He makes it so, too, as to
yield to a slight touch, and a gentle movement, and skilfully arranges
it drawn around the bed. When the wife and the gallant come into the
same bed, being both caught through the artifice of the husband, and
chains prepared by this new contrivance, they are held fast in the
{very} midst of their embraces.

"The Lemnian {God} immediately threw open the folding doors[29] of
ivory, and admitted the Deities. {There} they lay disgracefully bound.
And yet many a one of the Gods, not the serious ones, could fain wish
thus to become disgraced. The Gods of heaven laughed, and for a long
time was this the most noted story in all heaven. The Cytherean[30]
goddess exacts satisfaction of the Sun, in remembrance of this betrayal;
and, in her turn, disturbs him with the like passion, who had disturbed
her secret amours. What now, son of Hyperion,[31] does thy beauty, thy
heat, and thy radiant light avail thee? For thou, who dost burn all
lands with thy flames, art {now} burnt with a new flame; and thou, who
oughtst to be looking at everything, art gazing on Leucothoe, and on one
maiden art fixing those eyes which thou oughtst {to be fixing} on the
universe. At one time thou art rising earlier in the Eastern sky; at
another thou art setting late in t