CXXIII THE DANCE OF THE FLOWERS
Mitchell S. (Mitchell Starrett) Buck translation
ANTHIS, dancing-girl of Lydia, has seven veils about her. She unrolls the yellow veil, her black hair spreads out. The rosy veil slips from her mouth. The white veil falls, revealing her naked arms.
She releases her little breasts from the red veil that unties itself. She lets fall the green veil from her double, rounded croup. She draws the blue veil from her shoulders, but she presses upon her puberty the last transparent veil.
The young men supplicate her; she tosses her head backward. Only at the sound of the flutes, she tears it a little, then, suddenly, and with the gestures of the dance, she culls the flowers of her body.
Singing: “Where are my roses? where are my perfumed violets! Where are my tufts of parsley!—Behold my roses, I give them to you. Behold my violets, will you have them? Behold my fair curled parsley.”