For enjoyment is connected, in the first instance, with appetite; and in the second place, with pleasure. And Sophocles the poet, being a man fond of enjoyment, in order to avoid accusing old age, attributed his impotence in amatory pleasures to his temperance, saying that he was glad to be released from them as from some hard master. But I say that the Judgment of Paris is a tale originally invented by the 'ancients, as a comparison between pleasure and virtue. Accordingly, when Venus, that is to say pleasure, was preferred, everything was thrown into confusion. And that excellent writer Xenophon seems to me to have invented his fable about Hercules and Virtue on the same principle. For according to Empedocles—
Mars was no god to them, nor gallant War,[p. 819] And Menander, in his Harp-player, speaking of some one who was very fond of music, says—
Nor Jupiter the king, nor Saturn old,
Nor Neptune; Venus was their only queen.
Her they propitiate and duly worship
With pious images, with beauteous figures
Skilfully carved; with fragrant incenses,
And holy offerings of unmix'd myrrh,
And sweetly smelling frankincense; and many. .
A pure libation of fresh golden honey
They pour'd along the floor.
He was to music much devoted, and
Sought ever pleasing sounds to gratify
His delicate taste.
