XCV THE SEA OF CYPRIS
Mitchell S. (Mitchell Starrett) Buck translation
UPON the highest promontory, I stretched myself out. The sea was black like a field of violets. The milky-way gushed out from the great divine breast.
A thousand Menades slept about me in the mangled flowers. The long grasses mingled with their hair. And then, behold, the sun was born from the waters of the east.
They were the same waters and the same shores that, one day, saw appear the white body of Aphrodite.... Suddenly, I hid my eyes in my hands.
For I saw, trembling upon the water, a thousand tiny lips of light: the pure sex or the smile of Cypris Philommeïdes.