pour, a veil floating in the wind.

Behind, Minerva, standing on a pedestal, leans upon her spear. The
Gorgon's skin covers her breast, and a linen peplum descends in regular
folds even to her toe-nails. Her grey eyes, which shine beneath her
vizor, gaze intently into the distance.

At the right of the palace the aged Neptune is riding on a dolphin
beating with its fins a vast expanse of azure, which is the sky or the
sea, for the perspective of the ocean prolongs the blue ether; the two
elements become mingled in one.

On the other side, Pluto, fierce, in a mantle black as night, with a
tiara of diamonds and a sceptre of ebony, is in the midst of an isle
enclosed by the windings of the Styx;--and this ghostly stream rushes
into the darkness, which forms under the cliff a great black gap, a
shapeless abyss.

Mars, clad in bronze, brandishes, with an air of fury, his huge sword
and shield.

Hercules, standing lower, gazes up at him, leaning on his club.

Apollo, with radiant face, is driving, with his right arm extended, four
white horses at a gallop; and Ceres, in a chariot drawn by oxen, is
advancing towards him with a sickle in her hand.

Bacchus goes before her on a very low car slowly drawn along by lynxes.
Erect, beardless, with vine-branches over his forehead, he passes,
holding a goblet from which wine is flowing. Silenus, at his side, is
dangling upon an ass. Pan, with pointed ears, is blowing his pipe; the
Mimallones beat drums; Maenads scatter flowers; the Bacchantes throw back
their heads with hair dishevelled.

Diana, with her tunic tucked up, sets out from the wood with her nymphs.

At the bottom of a cavern, Vulcan is hammering the iron between the
Cabiri; here and there, the old river-gods, resting upon green stones,
water their urns; and the Muses, standing up, are singing in the dales.

The Hours, of equal height, hold each other by the hand; and Mercury is
placed in a slanting posture, upon a rainbow, with his magic wand, his
winged sandals and his broad-brimmed hat.

But at the top of the staircase of the gods, amid clouds soft as
feathers, whose folds as they wind around let fall roses, Venus
Anadyomene is gazing at her image in a mirror; her pupils cast
languishing glances underneath her rather heavy eyelashes. She has long,
fair tresses, which spread out over her shoulders, her dainty breasts,
her slender figure, her hips widening like the curves of a lyre, her
two rounded thighs, the