Primavera (Botticelli)

#52

It's Spring and Goddesses are with child:
Queen, handmaidens, sisters, all,
Though one may have been defiled.
Not by Cupid, who gets away with Murder,
His arrows inflicting Lover's Pall.
Nor young Mercury with his caduceus
Resisting threats to the Natural Order.
No, suspicion falls on Zephyrus,
Whose puffed cheeks and pallor
Terrify Flora and draw a flower
From her mouth, in mockery of birth.
Venus looks upon us, the Human Races,
With envy, ignored by oblivious Graces.
Primavera drops dry petals to the Earth.

The Birth Of Venus (Botticelli), Sonnet #15

She attempts what modesty she possesses,
Only hands and improbably long tresses.
There's no wonder that she has been created,
But an urgency to bring her shell to shore,
To cover up her still shocking nakedness.
Sweet Aura seems dazed and elated,
Zephyr and Hora labor grimly to restore
Blindness to our vision of her loveliness.
She is, in her distracted state, already a woman,
Though she's not utterly unmindful of us.
She understands that we are only human:
We have no choice and will worship Venus.
But, it is unclear. Are we to honor her divinity,
Or, as men, become the prey of her virginity?