Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/232

220 other, with spears in their hands, and a dog between them. Above them, let there be a small head of Vulcan wearing a cap, and having the pincers of a smith beside it. In the other horn shall be a Battus turned into stone, for having betrayed the theft of cows committed by Mercury. This must be the figure of an old Shepherd pointing with a finger of the right hand towards the place where the cows were hidden, and leaning with his left arm on a slight wand or rod; from the middle downwards let him be of the black or touch-stone, into which he was converted: let the remainder of the space be occupied by those sacrifices offered to Mercury by the ancients, to the end that they might obtain uninterrupted sleep. To figure these, you must have an Altar, with the Statue of the God thereon; at his feet must be a fire, into which those around are throwing wood for burning; they hold cups of wune in their hands, and of this wine they pour out a part, but the other part they drink.

“In the centre of the Oval (that all the Heaven may be filled), let the Twilight appear, as the medium between the Aurora and the Night; and to signify this, I find that you must make a youth entirely naked (he is sometimes winged and sometimes not); he must have two lighted torches in his hand, one of which he extends towards the Aurora, and the other towards the Night. Some make this youth with the two torches to be riding on a Horse, either of the Sun or of Aurora; but that would not suit our purpose; wherefore we will have him as I say, and turning towards the Night: but beneath his feet shall be a large star, which may be considered that of Venus, seeing that Venus and Phosphor, Hesperus and Twilight, appear to be one and the same; take care, however, that from this figure to the Aurora all the minor stars shall have disappeared.

“We have hitherto spoken of such things as must appear to be outside of the Chamber, we now come to that which is to appear as within it; and first, of the portion above the bed, where we will have Sleep depicted; but to do this, we must first describe the dwelling thereof. This, Ovid places in Lemnos or among the Cimbri; Homer, in the Ægean Sea; Statius, in the country of the Ethiopians; and Ariosto, in Arabia. But wherever the place may be, it shall suffice you to represent a Mountain, of which we are to suppose that a perpetual darkness reigns there and the sun never shines. At the