Vertumnus Borrowing the Figure of an Old Woman to Win Pomona's Love

Translation

Among the Hamadryad nymphs, a dweller of the wilds,
POMONA was the keeper of the gardens, whose care was the seeds
Of the fruit-bearing tree, the orchards of the enclosed country,
And to marry vines to elms, and to prune the tresses with a curved
Sickle, to graft the shoot onto the unwilling trunk,
And to burden pear trees with fruit, and give strength to apple trees;
And to sprinkle the struggling gardens with fountains,
Where the cucumber twists, and the gourd with swollen belly
Lies long; and the cabbage leans with drooping stalk:
Only the arugula lay neglected among the brambles:
The nymph, impatient of men, devoted to the study of tilling,
Fled the lascivious woodland deities, the Fauns,
And although, having suffered endless unworthy repulses,
VERTUMNUS, acting to vary his appearance into all manner of shapes,
Simulated an old woman, and sat upon the clod:
And as he soothes her rigid ears with Paphian words,
The grace of his mouth is restored, worthy of Bacchus or Apollo,
And the hidden form of his ancient youth is renewed;
The Goddess was conquered, and confessing a like fire with a blush,
She went into his embraces, [giving] honeyed kisses. B. Schrevelius

Bloemaert inv.
Saenredam sculp.
A. 1605