ABSTRACT
In the glass of Venus, all gods are gods below the surface; we tread on them, but they reflect us and our below the surface desires with, presumably, embarrassing accuracy. The gods shift shape as Jove makes love with Danae as rain, with Europa as a bull, and the mortals shift shape as they are pursued by the gods; when Ciparissus is pursued, he turns into a cypress. The gods turn away from marriage, with Mars pursuing Venus and Jove pursuing everyone as he avoids his sister-wife in favor of mortal women and Ganymede. Among the gods, love is pursued from a male perspective, with erotic objects fairly evenly distributed among males and females. The opening images, of Danae in a tower and Ganymede captured by Jove while he wanders from Juno's bed, are indeed mirrors of the mortals in the poem, Hero in her tower across the Hellespont and Leander pulled below the surface of the ocean as the ocean's god seeks to capture him as a Ganymede apparently wandering from the bed of Jove.
