Numerous were the modes of sacrifice to Mercury, and the places in which
they were offered; among others, the Roman merchants yearly celebrated a
festival in his honour. After the votaries had sprinkled themselves with
water, they offered prayers to the divinity, and entreated him to be
favourable to them, and to forgive any artful measures, perjuries, or
falsehoods they had used in the pursuit of gain; and this may be considered
to have been particularly necessary when it is remembered that the
merchants, who had promised him all the incense in the world to obtain his
{112} protection, proved that they had profited by his principles, by
offering him only a hundredth part, when they had secured his good offices.
Jupiter soon missed the services of his intelligent messenger, and recalled
him to Olympus. Here, Mercury rendering some kindness to Venus, the goddess
fell in love with him, and bore to him Hermaphrodite, a child which united
the talents of his father with the graces of his mother; at the age of
fifteen, he began to travel, and bathing one day in a fountain in Cana,
excited the passion of Salmaeis, the nymph who presided over it.
"From both the illustrious authors of his race
The child was named; nor was it hard to trace
Both the bright parents through the infant's face.
When fifteen years, in Ida's cool retreat,
The boy had told, he left his native seat,
And sought fresh fountains in a foreign soil:
The pleasure lessened the attending toil.
With eager steps the Lycian fields he crossed,
And fields that border on the Lycian coast;
A river here he viewed so lovely bright,
It showed the bottom in a fairer light,
Nor kept a sand concealed from human sight.
The fruitful banks with cheerful verdure crowned,
And kept the spring eternal on the ground.
A nymph presides, nor practised in the chase,
Nor skilful at the bow, nor at the race;
Of all the blue-eyed daughters of the main,
The only stranger to Diana's train;
Her sisters often, as 'tis said, would cry
'Fye, Salmaeis, what always idle! fye;
Or take the quiver, or the arrows seize
And mix the toils of hunting with thy ease.'
Nor quivers she, nor arrows e'er would seize,
Nor mix the toils of hunting with her ease;
But oft would bathe her in the crystal tide,
Oft with a comb her dewy locks divide;
Now in the limped streams she views her face,
And dressed her image in the floating glass:
On beds of leaves she now reposed her limbs,
Now gathered flowers that grew about her streams,
And there by chance was gathering as she stood
To view the boy--"