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METAMORPHOSES BOOK II In a retired part of the house were three chambers, richly adorned with ivory and "tortoise—shell. The right- hand room of these Pandrosos occupied, Aglauros the left, and Herse the room between. Aglauros ﬁrst saw the approaching god and made so bold as to ask his name and the cause of his visit. He, grandson of Atlas and Pleione, replied: “I am he who carry my father's messages through the air. My father is Jove himself. Nor will I con- ceal why I am here. Only do you consent to be true to your sister, and to be called the aunt of my off- spring. I have come here for Herse’s sake. I pray you favour a lover's suit." Aglauros looked at him with the same covetous eyes with which she had lately peeped at the secret of the golden-haired Minerva, and demanded a mighty weight of gold as the price of her service; meantime, she compelled him to leave the palace.

The warrior goddess now turned her angry eyes upon her, and breathed sighs so deep and perturbed that her breast and the aegis that lay upon her breast shook with her emotion. She remembered that this was the girl who had with profaning hands uncovered the secret at the time when, contrary to her com- mand, she looked upon the son of the Lemnian, without mother born. And now she would be in favour with the god and with her sister, and rich, besides, with the gold which in her greed she had demanded. Straightway Minerva sought out the ave of Envy, ﬁlthy with black gore. Her home was hidden away in a deep valley, where no sun shines and no breeze blows; a gruesome place and ull ofa numbing chill. No cheerful ﬁre burns there, and the place is wrapped in thick, black fog. When the warlike maiden goddess came to the cave, she