When the glistening torch of Diana rises late in the day and is ignited by the rosy light of her brother, the sweet breath of the West Wind with its exhalation removes all clouds from the sky. In the same way that wind by the power of his strings relieves men’s breasts and transforms the heart that is wilting in the face of love’s pledges.

The joyful radiance of the evening star brings to the race of mortals the more welcome moisture of sleep-inducing dew.

How blessed is the antidote of sleep! What storms of cares and griefs it assuages! As it creeps along the closed passages of the eyes, it equals with its joy the sweetness of love.

Morpheus draws into the mind a gentle wind inclining the ripe harvest, the murmur of rills along glistening courses of sand, the circling movement of the beasts of the mill, which in sleep steal the sight from our eyes.

After the pleasurable interchange of love, the brain matter is fatigued. By reason of this the eyes, swimming in the barque of the lids, darken in a strange and novel way. Oh, how blessed is the passage from love to sleep, but sweeter the return to love!

Steam wells forth from the exultant belly and bedews the three cells of the brain. Here it wreathes the eyes as they droop in sleep and fills the lids with its fumes, so that the sight may not journey far. So the physical powers, which appear stronger in their service, bind the eyes.

It is sweet to relax under the lovely foliage of a tree to the plaintive song of the nightingale. But it is sweeter to sport on the grass with a beautiful maiden. If the scent of mingled plants breathes forth, if rose petals provide a couch, once the wearying intercourse of love is over it is sweet to win the nurture of sleep as it seeps into our languid bodies.

In what depths does the mind of the unstable lover shift! Love’s army is like a ship without an anchor, wandering over the sea, wavering hesitant between hope and fear.