INVOCATION

Sweet and holy Venus, mother of our Romans, Supreme sensual delight of the Gods and the human beings Who ( Which ? ), under the immense vault where sleep stars, Populate the fertile fields, the wave where run ( roam ? ) veils ( sails ? ), By you everything lives, breathes, hatch under your love And rises, happy to be born, to day banks. So, in front of your steps, the wind avoids ( runs away;flees ? ); clouds, Have your divine approach, take thunderstorms; for you, the earth ( ground ? ) spreads its flavors and its flowers; the sky blooms and bottom in light. Because as soon as he ( it ? ) dresses ( takes on ? ) his ( its ? ) spring magnificence, And as soon as, by winters, the settled ( fixed ? ) zéphir Resumes finally its journey ( running ? ) and its fertility, birds, the first ones struck by your power, O charming Goddess, announce your presence; the heavy crowd jumps up in the returning meadows, And, full of you, throws ( casts ? ) itself through torrents: Sensitive to your fires, seduced by your graces ( favours ? ) So animals the uncountable races, In the wandering transport of the lovers cavort, Where you want to lead them dash on your steps. Finally, in the heart of seas, on hard mountains, In passionate rivers, in young campaigns, In nests of birds and their green asylums, Subjected to your power, all the different beings, The wounded heart of love, frissonnants by caresses, Are burning to propagate their race and their sorts.

The invocation which appears to us to have most charm is that of him ( her;it ? ) _Art of aimer_ of Ovide.

Romans, if it is somebody among you to whom the art to like ( love ? ) is unknown, who he reads my verses, who he educates himself and that he likes ( loves ? )! Is not it the art which makes the fast vessels navigate by means of the sail and of the oar? Who drives ( guides ? ) in the journey ( running ? ) light tanks? The art also has to govern the love.

Far from here, light strips, ornament of the chastity and you long dresses who come down ( fall ? ) up to feet! I shall sing the guiles and the innocent thefts of a love which is afraid of nothing, and my verses will offer nothing reprehensible.

The author of her ( it ? ) _Callipèdie _, Latin poem of the Middle Age, was inspired by Ovide in the invocation which follows:

O you, Graces ( Favours ? ), divine models, and you, Venus, mother of the courtship and all which charms us, you whom Pâris, on the mountain Ida, exactly proclaimed the most beautiful, inspire I songs deserving of sanctuaries of Idalie, so that my muse does not spoil a so beautiful subject and teaches to all the human race a priceless art.