It is not, however, situated near to his rising in summer or in winter, but where the sun pours the day from his vernal chariot. But through twice six ells that place rises above the mountains, whose tops are thought to be lofty among us. No enfeebling diseases, no sickly old age, nor cruel death, nor harsh fear, approaches hither, nor dreadful crime, nor mad desire of riches, nor Mars, nor fury, burning with the love of slaughter.
Bitter grief is absent, and want clothed in rags, and sleepless cares, and violent hunger.
Here a species of tree, rising with lofty stem, bears mellow fruits not about to fall on the ground. It obeys and submits to Phoebus, a remarkable attendant. Its parent nature has given it to possess this office. When at its first rising the saffron morn grows red, when it puts to flight the stars with its rosy light, thrice and four times she plunges her body into the sacred waves, thrice and four times she sips water from the living stream. And when the sun has thrown back the threshold of the shining gate, and the light gleam of the first light has shone forth, she begins to pour strains of sacred song, and to hail the new light with wondrous voice, which neither the notes of the nightingale nor the flute of the Muses can equal with Cyrrhaean strains.