The sun’s bright palace, on high columns raised, With burnish’d gold and flaming jewels blazed; The folding gates diffused a silver light, And with a milder gleam refresh’d the sight; Of polish’d ivory was the covering wrought; The matter vied not with the sculptor’s thought; For in the portal was display’d on high (The work of Vulcan) a fictitious sky; À waving sea the inferior earth embraced, And gods and goddesses the waters graced. Aegeon here a mighty whale bestrode; Triton, and Proteus (the deceiving god), With Doris here were carved, and all her train: Some loosely swimming in the figured main, While some on rocks their dropping hair divide, And some on fishes through the waters glide: Though various features did the sisters grace, A sister’s likeness was in every face. On earth a different landscape courts the eyes: Men, towns, and beasts, in distant prospects rise, And nymphs, and streams, and woods, and rural deities. O’er all, the heaven’s refulgent image shines: On either gate were six engraven signs.