d as Venus in a
picture, and beautiful young boys, like painted Cupids, stood on each
side to fan her. Her maids were dressed like Sea Nymphs and Graces, some
steering at the rudder, some working at the ropes. The perfumes
diffused themselves from the vessel to the shore, which was covered with
multitudes, part following the galley up the river on either bank, part
running out of the city to see the sight. The market-place was quite
emptied, and Antony at last was left alone sitting upon the tribunal;
while the word went through all the multitude, that Venus had come to
feast with Bacchus, for the common good of Asia. On her arrival, Antony
sent to invite her to supper. She thought it fitter he should come to
her; so, willing to show his good-humor and courtesy, he complied,
and went. He found the preparations to receive him magnificent beyond
expression, but nothing so admirable as the great number of lights;
for on a sudden there were let down all together so great numbers of
branches with lights in them so ingeniously disposed, some in squares,
and some in circles, that the whole thing was a spectacle that has
seldom been equaled for beauty.

The next day, Antony invited her to supper, and was very desirous to
outdo her as well in magnificence as contrivance; but he found he was
altogether beaten in both, and was so well convinced of it, that he was
himself the first to jest and mock at his poverty of wit, and his rustic
awkwardness. She, perceiving that his raillery was broad and gross,
and savored more of the soldier than the courtier, rejoined in the
same taste, and fell into it at once, without any sort of reluctance
or reserve. For her actual beauty, it is said, was not in itself so
remarkable that none could be compared with her, or that no one could
see her without being struck by it, but the contact of her presence,
if you lived with her, was irresistible; the attraction of her person,
joining with the charm of her conversation, and the character that
attended all she said or did, was something bewitching. It was a
pleasure merely to hear the sound of her voice, with which, like an
instrument of many strings, she could pass from one language to another;
so that there were few of the barbarian nations that she answered by an
interpreter; to most of them she spoke herself, as to the Aethiopians,
Troglodytes, Hebrews, Arabians, Syrians, Medes, Parthians, and
many others, whose language she had learnt; which was