De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, Book I (the allegory of the wedding), part 2 of 2 (about §§ 34-94)
When Delius had fallen silent here, Jupiter, turning to his wife, asks what her will was. But she, soothed by much reasoning—first, because Phoebus, who was wont to bring serenity, was pleading, and who had also made her own learned daughters fly up to their parents’ sight; next, because Juno was not wont to oppose marriages; and then because she loved Cyllenius, who, nursed at her breasts, had drunk the cup of immortality, and so too conferred his mother’s favor; it was added to her wishes that Clarius had bound her by much conciliation—urges that it should surely be done and hastened, lest Cyllenius, likewise flattered by the allurements of Cypris, should in anger wish to beget a brother for Hermaphroditus. She goaded Jove a little, lest Cyllenius, made sluggish by his wife’s caresses, should suddenly grow numb with sleepy languor and, now as if idle with a marital holiday, refuse to run about under the commands of Jove. ‘For I perceive,’ she said, ‘that he has long been burning with love of Philologia, and that, prepared by her zeal, he has acquired very many disciplines in her household, and that, of notable tongue himself, he has gained too much charm of eloquence in order to please the virgin, and then resounds on the lyre and the golden tortoise-shell and learned strings. I add that he celebrates the wonderful skill and elegance of painting, when the sculptor and animator breathes life even into living faces in bronze or marble. Everything is surely pleasing that adorns the grace of youthful charms.’ They had therefore long been bound by mutual love, and for that reason had been separated a little, lest, hastening to the chamber with youthful affection, when he must run about, being more sluggish all night he should somewhat counterfeit an irregular. Then Juno said: ‘But it is fitting that he undergo the bond of that same virgin, who does not suffer him to be idle even when he wishes to rest. Is there anyone who asserts that he does not know Philologia’s laborious vigils and the pallor of her perennial lucubrations? Who, through all the nights, runs about heaven, the seas, and Tartarus, and crosses the seats of all the gods by the investigation of curious search, who numbers the fabric of the world and the volumes of the circles, the orbed parallels or the obliquely crossed poles, and the climes and the turnings of the axes, along with the multitude of the stars themselves, unless Philologia, with a certain slender application, is wont to, as often as she, having made the gods complain of her compulsion and insistence, compels them, resting in the silence of the bedtime or the dead of night, to come to her by an unheard-of entreaty?’
So far is Cyllenius from being able to grow sluggish and entangled under this that, with his wings roused and stirred by the same, he is pressed to seek the extramundane wide spaces. Why then, best of kings, is it deferred, since for the skill alone of Atlas’s grandson I shall vouch for two watchers?’ When Juno, clinging, as she hung close to the loftier Jove, was whispering this into his inclined ears, Pallas, gliding gradually from a certain place of purer and more vibrating light, descended gleaming, and, as if clinging to Jove’s head, flying over it, at length stood, resting on a certain loftier platform. Whom Jupiter, as, being loftier, he clung to his wife, looked up to from near and contiguous, and began thus: ‘O virgin, better part of us, opportunely mixed with the wishes of Maia’s son, whether you descend soothed by the Delian’s voices, or because without you it was not for Jove to form counsel, or you hasten lest our consent seem mutilated: you should know, however, that Cyllenius asks the marriage of Philologia. My mind is not yet ready. I await what you advise. For I know how acceptable to you is the incessant labor of that virgin, and that she is numbered among your attendants. It is fitting, therefore, that you especially decide whatever you provide, in dispensing concerning her marriage.’ Then Pallas, somewhat more submissive and suffused with the blush of virginal modesty, veiling her eyes with the ruddy peplos which she wore around her head, somewhat disapproved that a virgin be consulted about marriages, and especially about that of one whom, for the duties of association, she wished to remain always untouched. She disdained, moreover, to give such consent, since she is so reckoned devoid of all union that she was neither born of any mingling nor, with Arithmetic as witness, is shown herself to procreate anything. And then the solitary virginity laid bare her crown of seven rays, that she might not be present at the causes and unions of future things. But because Jupiter had desired and demanded her counsel, she advises that the married gods and the aged goddesses be assembled to decide this. For it befits Cyllenius, she says, that, as the reward of his services, the favor of the most powerful of the heavenly ones should sanction his bonds. A decree of Jove is also made more august when it is brought forth with the assembly of the gods attesting, and the bride herself, who is to wed a god, could not suit unless by decree of the senate she ceased to be mortal. Tritonia advising many things of this kind, both of the royal pair consent. And soon Jove’s scribe is ordered to summon the heaven-dwellers, each according to his rank and in fitting measures, and especially the senators of the gods, who were reputed the Penates of the Thunderer himself, whose names, because the heavenly secret did not allow them to be published, the consent gave them a name from the fact that they equally promise all things. Jupiter himself calls for Jovian Vulcan, although he never descended from his gleaming seat. Then also, that among the others the most powerful be asked, the colleagues of Jove himself, who are numbered with the same Thunderer as twice six, and whom the Ennian distich embraces: Juno, Vesta, Minerva, Ceres, Diana, Venus, Mars, Mercury, Jove, Neptune, Vulcan, Apollo; likewise the remaining seven, who are not called among the twelve. After these, very many, high according to their ranks, the heaven-dwellers and the people of all the gods are to be summoned, excluding the impertinent. Without delay the soldiers of Jove hasten through the different regions of heaven; for the gods dwelt singly in very separate places, and although through the Zodiac tract some had assigned one or two houses to the animals, they yet dwelt in other abodes. For all heaven is said to be divided into sixteen regions. In the first of these they are recalled as having seats, after Jove himself, the Consentes, the Penates, Salus, the Lares, Janus, the Favores and the Opertanei, and Nocturnus. In the second likewise dwelt, besides the house of Jove, which is lofty there too, Praediatus, Quirinus, Mars, and the military Lapse. Juno also had her dwelling there, Fons also, the Nymphs, and the Novensiles. But from the third region one was chosen to be called: for the houses of Jove Secundanus, of Jove Opulentia, and of Minerva are established there. But all were present at this time around Jove himself. But Discord and Sedition, who would summon them to the sacred nuptials, especially since they have always been enemies of Philologia herself? From the same region, therefore, only Pluto, because he is the bridegroom’s uncle, is summoned. Then Lynsa the woodland, Mulciber, the heavenly Lar, and also the military one, and Favor came from the fourth region. From the next, passing the houses of the married kings, are summoned Ceres, Tellurus, and the father of Earth, Vulcan, and Genius. You also, sons of Jove, Pales and Favor, with Celerity, daughter of the Sun, are summoned from the sixth. For Mars, Quirinus, and Genius had been requested above. But Liber also and Secundanus Pales are called from the seventh. Fraud indeed from the same, after long deliberation, it was decided to employ, because she had often obeyed Cyllenius himself. The eighth is passed over, since all had been summoned above from it, and only the Fruit of Spring is employed from it. The Genius of Juno Sospita is summoned from the ninth. And Neptune and the Lar of all, Cunctalis and Neverita, and you, Conse, have come from the tenth. From another come Fortune and Health, with Dread, Pallor, and the Manes rejected, since these could not come into Jove’s sight. From the twelfth only Sancus is summoned. The Fates are asked for from another. The others, the gods of the Manes, were detained there. From the next seven, Saturn and his heavenly Juno are accordingly summoned. Veiovis and the public gods are summoned from the fifteenth boundary.
From the last region Nocturnus and the earthly doorkeepers are likewise summoned. From all the regions of heaven, then, the gods having been summoned, the others, whom they call Azonoi, are called, Cyllenius himself reminding. Then the presidents of the elements and of public utility, and the worshippers of minds, and the whole people of powers, who are indicated to no successor of Numa, at once all summoned by Jove’s command, came into the heavenly hall with the stars vibrating together. Then Janus stood at the threshold, and the soldiers of Jove before the royal doors; Fame, heralding, called by name even all who were to enter. But within the consistory of the king a certain woman, who was called Adrastia, turned the heavenly urn and the upper lot with the speed of an irrevocable snatching, and received from the revolving orb the spheres as they fell, in the fold of her curving breast; she was Heimarmene. Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, since they take down Jove’s sentences with the orthographic zeal of truth, as the clerks of the gods and keepers of the archives, when they saw the senate and curia gathering and the Thunderer himself being robed publicly, sharpen their styluses for the acts and decrees of the heavenly ones and prepare the wax. Then Jupiter, taking the public garments which he assumes when about to convene the senate, first places on the top of his head a flaming crown of royal wreath, and covers the head from behind with a certain ruddy veil which Pallas, presider over the work, had herself woven. Next, over a quite white garment he draws glassy mantles, which, dotted with starry eyes, the frequent vibrations of fires lit up. Then two globose orbs, of which one shone with gold, the other with electrum, he seized with his outstretched right hand; his left impressed a nine-toned lyre, like one leaning on it. Shoes grassy with the wave of emerald greenness Earth had attached to his feet. He sat on a robe interwoven from peacocks’ feathers and eyed, on which a painting variegated with many-colored dots flourished. Beneath the shoes he pressed down a trident. Beneath his throne the seat of Juno was not unseemly adorned. She herself, with covered head, shone with a certain milky veil, on which was set a diadem of precious gems: for neither the green of the Scythian stone, nor the vibrating and flashing light of the thunderstones, nor the depth of the wave-colored hyacinth was believed to be lacking. But all that crown of her flashing head Thaumantias was reported to have brought to the queen of the heavenly ones. The face of the goddess herself, shining with constant grace, was like her brother’s, except that he shone with unchanging joy, while hers is more often clouded by the cloud of constant changes. For her garment was glassy, but the mantle was misty, which yet, if touched by the approach of any light, would shine among the shadowing mists with the grace of clear transparency. She bore a thunderbolt in her right hand, and in her left a drum with terrifying booms of sound, beneath which, sweating much, the lowest parts below seemed to flood with dewy flows. Her shoes were quite dark, the sole especially being colored with the blackness of black night. For a many-colored zone encircled her knees, which now shone with a bright orb, now, the variety of its vanishing grace being thinned, so slanted away wholly as if nothing of different colors had been there before. Both of the kings, then, fittingly adorned in these garments, behold before the session a certain sphere placed on a starry platform, engraved with manifold variety, which had been so compacted of all the elements that nothing was lacking of whatever is believed to be contained by all nature. There were all of heaven, air, the seas, and the diversity of the earth, and the bars of Tartarus. Cities too, crossroads, and the forms of all living creatures, to be counted in species as in genus. This sphere seemed a kind of image and idea of the world. In this, what all, what each of the peoples of all the nations stirred up in daily motions shone back in the reforming mirror. There, whom Jupiter wished to increase, whom to depress, whom to be born, whom to die, he himself formed with his own hand. What part of the earth he wished to destroy, what to bless, what to make vast and what famous, the arbitrary fashioner varied.
Beholding this public fate and arranging the senate of the gods, he ordered it to be admitted. Although those whom the sacred power attests as unnameable were entering within, yet both rise even for the chiefs of the gods, and especially for the parents. But their sire proceeds slow of step and delaying, his head covered with a gray-blue mantle. In his right hand he held out a certain flame-vomiting dragon devouring the end of its own tail, which they believed taught the number of the year by name. His hoary head whitened with frosty snows, although he was believed able to become even a boy. His wife, aged and corpulent, a mother though fecund and surrounded with births, yet a grassy mantle had covered her flowery and many-colored garment, in which the whole wealth of gems and metals, and the produce of all things and the fruits of the sowings, were borne in very ample abundance. Vesta, who had also been her contemporary, clung to her. Who, because she was said to have been the nurse of Jove himself and to have supported him in her lap, dared to kiss the head of the king. After these, golden Sun with his white sister is sought. As soon as he began to approach the entrance, a certain scarlet gleam of ruddy purple came before him, and the grace of rosy splendor illumined the whole curia of the hall, the other ornaments being dimmed. But when, about to enter, he sent in the first rays of his honored head, Jupiter himself too stepped back a little and grew dim under the divinity of immense brilliance, but the sphere and orbs which his right hand held shone back as in a mirror of kindred light. Juno likewise, in the reforming mirror, resplendent with various illustrious ornaments of many colors and with the varied light of gems as in a kindred mirror, shone forth with gleaming serene rays. She had a flashing crown drawn in a circle, which flashed with twelve flames of fiery stones. For there were three gems at the front, Lychnis, Astrites, and Ceraunos, which hid her venerable form from the recognition of the beholders with vibrating flashes of rays. Of these, one was said to be taken from the brain of the Crab and the eyes of the Lion, another from the forehead of the Twins, and the third likewise so named. Six others glowed on either side, of which one was called Smaragdus, another Scythis, a third Jasper. Among their greenness a certain more entire sweetness gleamed on her brow, flashing lights big with sea. Hyacinthos, Dendrites, and Heliotropios were joined on both sides. These stones with their colors greened the lands in the fixed turns of the seasons, and they were said to have been contributed to her by Spring and Autumn, in obedience to her returning divinity. The back part of the crown was bound with the stones Hydatis, Adamant, and Crystal. For these wintry Winter had begotten. The very locks of the god you would believe tinged with gold and leafed. His face, however, was soon, in his going, of a gleaming boy, in the middle of his course of a panting youth, at the end appearing of a setting old man, though he was believed by some to change his form twelvefold. His body, all flame, with winged footsteps, a scarlet cloak but studded with much gold. In his left hand he carried a flashing shield, in his right a burning torch; his shoes were similar, of Pyropus. Beside him the Moon, with a mild and tender face, regained her brilliance from her brother’s lamp. After these were admitted the brothers of Jove, of whom one is ever greener with maritime flooding, the other pale with light-shunning shade. Each bore on his head a wreath of dominion according to the condition of his kingdom. For one was white like the salt of the sea and the hoariness of foams, of the same color, the other ebony and swart with the darkness of Tartarean night, who indeed is much richer than his brother and always wealthy in the acquisitions of what is begotten; the other, because of the bulk and loftiness of his body, stripped and spitting out riches sought by oppression. But each had a different wife. For this one, naked, leads with him the nurse of all and hostess of the gods, the other a girl glad at approaches, who for the most part so gives to those asking fruit that the vows of great name are to return to her the hundredth. Then were admitted the sons of the Thunderer himself. Among whom first strode a ruddy youth, devouring all, and thirsting even for blood. Another, sweet and gentle, bearing a sickle in his right hand and in his left a sleep-bringing bowl, was reported prone to wantonness. His steps were uncertain and entangled in the dampness of sweet strong wine. After these came two, of one and a sibling face, yet one shone with the star of light, the other of dark night. Then one of unheard-of strength, always prepared for uprooting adversities. But Juno watched askance his marvelous arms and Cleonaean jaws. Among them there were also comely women. Of whom one was said to be a virgin, another the mother of all generations. One had a bow with a quiver; the other a wreath woven of roses bound crosswise. To see her shining, and hear her speaking sweet allurements, and catch the breath of most ardent spirit exhaling fragrance, and lick her with kisses and touch her with the body, and to sigh with desire for her garments. Who, although she was believed to be the mother of all loves and pleasures, yet they yielded to her the primacy of modesty. With these gracious Ceres, a very grave woman, seemed the nursling of the earths and nurse of mortals. A certain lame craftsman also came, who, though believed to be Juno’s, was called by Heraclitus the devourer of the whole world. Then also the garrulous one of all girls, ever flowing contrariwise in luxury, swift in lightness, frisked, vaulting. Whom some assert to be Sors, some Nemesis, very many Tyche or Nortia. She, because she bore in her ampler lap the ornaments of the whole world, and, imparting them to others, conferred them with sudden motions, snatching hair from some girlishly, striking the head of others with a rod, and with the same blows with which she had coaxed them, wounded the crown with frequent blows, with her fingers folded into knuckles. As soon as she saw the Fates noting down all that was being done in Jove’s consistory, she ran to their books and tablet page, and with a certain freer confidence seized what she had seen in an unexpected description, so that certain things suddenly bursting forth as it were disturbed the series of things, while others, which the order of causes foreseen had divulged, since she could not do unforeseen things, she yet claimed for her own works.
After this the rest of the throng came. Jupiter now sat on his throne and commanded all to sit in order of merit. And then the flaming benches received the starry gathering. But a certain crowned boy, with his finger pressed to his mouth, admonished them to salutary silence. All fell silent and held their mouths intent. Then Jupiter began: ‘Unless our known benignity, of the star-bearing one, compelled us to confer our inmost judgment, and it pleased us to bring into the midst whatever was silent will, I could bring forth things sure by my own guidance, and no one would desire, striving by unlawful efforts, to take away the commands of the god, the father. But sad counsel is better shut up, and presses unspeakable thoughts into silence, lest, divulged, they stir hearts to sorrows; but since it befits the father to bring forth glad joys and to join pledges publicly by a sure compact with perpetual nods, it is vain not to speak fitting thoughts. With you therefore, gods, grateful nearness, it is my wish to confer the wishes for offspring. For I deem it just that what is to be pursued be approved by compact of the heavenly ones. You know that Maia’s son, of famous pledge, dwells deservedly in our thoughts. Nor is the affection planted in me in vain, as it is the paternal wont to bind hearts. For he is our faith, speech, benignity, and true Genius, faithful recourse and interpreter of my mind, sharp Nous. This one alone can bring forth the number of the heavenly ones, this one can know the vibrated stars, what the measure of the pole, how great the depth, what the number of the marble with its drafts, and how many hinges it seizes at the margin, and what bond binds the discordant elements; and through him I myself, father, sanction compacts—but perhaps piety alone should recount what gifts parental probity weighs: he who, flying ahead of Phoebus’s yoked team, often, does he not fall back to the lot of a servant? He also so serves the paternal honors that it is in doubt who more claims him as his own. The ages urge that he be rightly yoked in marriage after his deserved labors, and strength demands that it be added to the bridal chamber. But the virgin pleased, indeed very learned and equal in zeal, but whose origin is earthly, her purpose being to tend to the stars; she often flies ahead on rapid axes, and often surpasses the globe of the world, going. Let the cradle therefore not hinder that she was born of nothing, to be reckoned so, and you, gods, who recall that your own rattles were tender on earth, which hide sacred things in hidden shrines. Let them be joined to equals, for it is fitting, with auspices, and let the stars heap up with our grandsons.’ But after Jupiter made an end of speaking, the whole senate of the gods is roused to vote, and all cry out that it must be done at once, and add to the sentence, in a decree, that henceforth mortals whom the eminence of a distinguished life, and the greatest summit of merits, and genius have lifted to heavenly desire and the purpose of starry longing be co-opted into the number of the gods, and soon among others, whom either the Nile gave or Thebes, Aeneas, Romulus, and others, whom afterwards the name of learning inserted among the stars, be named as designated heaven-dwellers, that after their bodily members they may become curial members of the gods. Jove also assenting to this, a certain grave and notable woman, who was called Philosophy, is ordered to publish this decree of the heavenly senate, engraved on bronze tablets, through the orbs and crossroads. Then Juno appoints that, for the marriage of the aforesaid youths and to accomplish the nuptial rites, the whole senate of the gods should assemble the next day at dawn in the palaces which in the Galaxy make Jove’s chief habitation. This being done, the king himself rose from his throne, and all that number of the gods returned to their own seats and courses.