Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
DRAWN BY GERTRUDE HUEBSCH
VENUS
TO THE VENUS OF MELOS
VENUS
TO THE VENUS OF MELOS
3Modelled by the sea,which is the reservoirof all the forces, youenchant us and yousway us by that graceand by that calm which strength alonepossesses, and you bestow on us yourserenity. It prevails like the charmof melodies powerful and deep.
What triumphant amplitude! Whatvigorous shadows!
From the boundaries of the twoworlds’ throngs come to contemplateyou, venerated marble; and the twilightdeepens in the room that youmay be more clearly seen, shining4alone, while the silent hours pass,heavy with admiration.
Still you hear our clamours, immortalVenus! Having loved yourcontemporaries, you belong to us,now, to all of us, to the universe.The twenty-five centuries of your lifeseem only to have consecrated yourinvincible youth. And the generations,those waves of the ocean ofthe ages, to you, victorious over time,come and come again, attracted andrecalled irresistibly. Admiration isnot spent as a marble wears away.
To the poets, to the seekers, to thequiet artists, in the heart of the city’stumult, you give long moments ofrefuge. Mutilated, you remain entireto their eyes. If the ravages of5time have been permitted, it is onlythat a trace may continue of theirprofane effort and of their impotence.
You are not a vain and sterilestatue, the image of some unreal goddessof the Empyrean. Ready foraction, you breathe, you are a woman:and that is your glory. You aregoddess only in name; the mythologicalnectar does not run in yourveins. What is divine in you is theinfinite love of your sculptor for nature.More ardent and above allmore patient than other men, he wasable to lift a corner of the veil tooheavy for their idle hands.
And you are not, moreover, a mosaicof admirable shapes. There areno admirable shapes, but the shapes