“And he soothes Pasiphae in her passion for the snow-white bull: happy woman if herds had never been! Ah, ill-fated maid, what madness seized thee? The daughters of Proetus with imaginary lowings filled the fields; yet none of them pursued such vile embraces of a beast, however they might dread the plough about their necks, and often feel for horns on their smooth foreheads. Ah, ill-fated maid, thou now art roaming on the mountains! He, resting his snowy side on the soft hyacinth, ruminates the blenched herbs under some gloomy oak, or courts some female in the numerous herd.”

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The Riphaean mountains are in the north of Russia. The sands are the sands of the deserts. ↩

Beatrice. ↩