il padre mio .... visse eccellentissimo ne’ beni pubblici tra’ reggenti, e de’ beni degli iddii copioso:  me a lui donata da loro, nomino Mopsa, e vedentemi nella giovanetta eta mostrante gia bella forma, ai servigi dispose di Pallade, la quale me benivola ricevente nelle sante grotte del cavallo Gorgoneo, tra le sapientissime Muse commise, la dov’ io gustai l’acque Castalie, e l’altezza di Cirra tentante, le stelle cercai con ferma mano; e i pallidi visi, quelli luoghi colenti, sempre con riverenza seguii; e molte volte sonando Apollo la cetera sua, lui nel mezzo delle nove Muse ascoltai[54].

She continues for pages in the same strain with illustrative allusions to Caius Julius, Claudius, and Britannicus.

At the risk of devoting to the Ameto an altogether disproportionate amount of the space at my disposai I must before passing on attempt to give some notion of the kind of narrative contained in the romance, all the more so as it is little known except to students.  With this object I have translated a characteristic passage from the tale of Agape[55].

I came from my home nigh unto the temple, before whose altars, with due devotion, I began thus to pray:  ’O Venus, full of pity, sacred goddess whose altars I am joyful to approach, lend thou thy merciful ears unto my prayer; for I come to thee a young girl, though fairly fashioned yet ill-starred in love, fearful lest my empty years lead comfortless to a chill old age; therefore, if my beauty merit that I be counted among thy followers, enter thou into my breast who so desire thee, and grant that in the love of a youth not unworthy of my beauty, and through whom my wasted hours may be with delight made good, I may feel those fires of thine which many times and endlessly I have heard praised.’  I know not whether while I was thus engrossed in prayer I fell on sleep, and sleeping saw those things whereof I am about to tell, or whether, indeed, I was rapt thence in bodily form to see them; all I can tell is that suddenly I found myself borne through the heavens in a gleaming chariot drawn by white doves, and that inclining my eyes to things below I beheld the fruitful earth shrunk to a narrow room, and the rivers thereof after the fashion of serpents; and after that I had left behind the pleasant lands of Italy and the rugged mountains of Emathia, I beheld the waters of the Dircean fount and the ancient walls raised by the sound of Amphion’s lyre, and soon there appeared to me the pleasant Cytherean mount, and on it resting the holy chariots drawn by the spotless birds.  Whereon having alighted I went straying, alike uncertain of the way and of the fortune that might await me, when, as to Aeneas upon the Afric shore, so to me there amid the myrtles there appeared the goddess I had invoked, and I was filled with wonder such as I had never known before.  She was disrobed except for the thinnest purple veil, which hid but little of her form, falling