,
and in the centre was painted a large Greek O, crossed with a serpent
that had the head of a hawk; and after eight trumpeters who were
gesticulating in a thousand graceful and sportive ways, representing
those tibicines who, having been prevented from eating in the temple,
fled in anger to Tibur, but were made drunk and put to sleep by deceit,
and brought back with many privileges to Rome; beginning, I say, with
Demogorgon, there was seen his car in the form of a dark and double
cavern drawn by two awful dragons, and for Demogorgon was seen a figure
of a pallid old man with the hair ruffled, all wrapped in mist and dark
fog, lying in utter sloth and negligence in the front part of the
cavern, and accompanied on one side by youthful Eternity adorned
(because she never grows old) with verdant draperies, and on the other
side by Chaos, who had the appearance, as it were, of a mass without
any shape. Beyond that cavern, which contained the three figures
described, rose a graceful little mound all covered and adorned with
trees and various plants, representing Mother Earth, at the back of
which was seen another cavern, but darker and deeper than that already
described, wherein Erebus was shown likewise lying in the guise that has
been told of his father Demogorgon, and in like manner accompanied on
one side by Night, the daughter of Earth, with two children in her arms,
one white and the other dark, and on the other side by AEther, the child
of the aforesaid Night and Erebus, who must be figured, so it appeared,
as a resplendent youth with a ball of turquoise-blue in the hand. At the
foot of the car, then, was seen riding Discord, who separates things
confused and is therefore held by philosophers to preserve the world,
and who is regarded as the first daughter of Demogorgon; and with her
the three Fates, who were shown spinning various threads and then
cutting them. And in the form of a youth all robed in draperies of
turquoise-blue was seen Polus, who had a terrestrial globe in the hand,
and over him, alluding to the fable that is related of him, many sparks
appeared to have been scattered from a vase of glowing coals that was
beneath him; and there was seen Python, also the son of Demogorgon, all
yellow and with a mass of fire in the hand, who seemed to have come in
the company of his brother Polus. After them, then, came Envy, the
daughter of Erebus and Night, and with her Timidity, her brother, in the
form of a pallid