Page:Tales from Chaucer.djvu/146

, youth and beauty, riches, jealousy, and flattery; feasting and dancing, carols and instruments, and many more than I can enumerate. And there was painted her famed dwelling on Mount Citheron: nor were forgotten the histories of fair Narcissus, the folly of King Solomon, Hercules' might, the enchantment of Medea and Circe, the fierce courage of Turnus, or the base servitude of Croesus. The figure of the goddess, glorious to behold, was seen naked floating in the wide sea: half her form hidden by the bright green waves. In her hand she bore a harp, and on her head a fresh garland of roses: above it were her doves hovering. Before her stood her son Cupid, winged and hoodwinked. He carried a bow with bright and keen arrows.

The interior of the mighty Mars' temple was painted like the famous one in Thrace, that frosty region where the god holds his chief dwelling. First upon the wall was depictured a forest, that harboured neither man nor beast, full of old barren trees, gnarred and stubby; through which a storm was roaring as if it would crash every bough. At the bottom of a