but Venus bathed
thee in her own milk. Thou dost not know thyself, Ocelle mi! Look not at
her. Turn thy eyes to me, Ocelle mi! Touch this goblet of wine with thy
lips, and I will put mine on the same place."

And he pushed up nearer and nearer, and she began to withdraw toward
Acte. But at that moment silence was enjoined because Caesar had risen.
The singer Diodorus had given him a lute of the kind called delta;
another singer named Terpnos, who had to accompany him in playing,
approached with an instrument called the nablium. Nero, resting the
delta on the table, raised his eyes; and for a moment silence reigned in
the triclinium, broken only by a rustle, as roses fell from the ceiling.

Then he began to chant, or rather to declaim, singingly and
rhythmically, to the accompaniment of the two lutes, his own hymn to
Venus. Neither the voice, though somewhat injured, nor the verses were
bad, so that reproaches of conscience took possession of Lygia again;
for the hymn, though glorifying the impure pagan Venus, seemed to her
more than beautiful, and Caesar himself, with a laurel crown on his head
and uplifted eyes, nobler, much less terrible, and less repulsive than
at the beginning of the feast.

The guests answered with a thunder of applause. Cries of, "Oh, heavenly
voice!" were heard round about; some of the women raised their hands,
and held them thus, as a sign of delight, even after the end of the
hymn; others wiped their tearful eyes; the whole hall was seething as in
a beehive. Poppaea, bending her golden-haired head, raised Nero's hand
to her lips, and held it long in silence. Pythagoras, a young Greek
of marvellous beauty,--the same to whom later the half-insane Nero
commanded the flamens to marry him, with the observance of all
rites,--knelt now at his feet.

But Nero looked carefully at Petronius, whose praises were desired by
him always before every other, and who said,--"If it is a question of
music, Orpheus must at this moment be as yellow from envy as Lucan,
who is here present; and as to the verses, I am sorry that they are not
worse; if they were I might find proper words to praise them."

Lucan did not take the mention of envy evil of him; on the contrary, he
looked at Petronius with gratitude, and, affecting ill-humor, began to
murmur,--"Cursed fate, which commanded me to live contemporary with such
a poet. One might have a place in the memory of man, and on Parnassus;
but now one will quench, as