At such an hour, Erix and Zella shook sleep from their eyelids and came
forth, ready for the chase. Her hair no longer floated unbound, but, as
became the matron, was twisted into a knot and confined with strings of
coral, fashioned by the hand whose soft caress she returned with joys
unspeakable. Upon her drooping shoulders, white and bare, rests a quiver
well filled; and a belt of tiny sea-shells interwoven with fibres of the
lichen, crosses transversely her breast, now full and rounded to
completion. Sandals are upon her feet, and a tunic of shaggy hide covers
her from the waist to the knee; all else, the morning air, invigorating,
embraces. Thus seen, the poet of an after age, changed his story, and
called her Dian, ruler of the night; and sang her praises in verse set
to the babbling of brooks, the music of the wood, and sylvan sports.
Erix, large, erect, perfect in manly beauty, with limbs well knit,
proportional, combining activity and strength, was less incumbered than
his mate, and carried, as his sole weapon, an ashen spear, charred and
hardened at the point by fire. His was the front of Jove, the pagan, not
yet won from mortality by intellect, or raised above mere matter, to
express the soul’s labors and ambitions. And first, low bending, rose
the morning prayer.