Kitap 2
13
The country blooms with all sorts of flowers and of green things, too, cultivated plants and shady forest-trees. The vines bear twelve times a year, bringing forth their fruit every month. But the pears and apples and other fruits are said to come thirteen times yearly, for in one month, called there the month of Minos, the trees bear twice. Instead of grain the ears bear loaves, ready for eating, on their heads like mushrooms. There are three hundred and sixty-five springs of water about the city, as many more of honey, and five hundred of perfumed oil; but these are smaller. There are seven rivers of milk and eight of wine.
14
The place of their banquets is outside the city, in what is called the Elysian Field. It is a very beautiful meadow surrounded by a dense wood of all sorts of trees, which shade the guests as they lie beneath them on beds of blossoms. The winds wait upon the guests and serve them with everything but wine. This they need not serve, for surrounding the place are great trees of the clearest crystal, and the fruits of these trees are wine-cups of every sort of workmanship and size. So that, when any one comes to table, he gathers one or two of the cups and sets them beside him, and they are straightway filled with wine. This, then, is the manner of their drinking, and as for garlands, they have none, but the nightingales and other tuneful birds gather flowers from the neighboring meadows in their beaks, and let them fall like snow as they fly over the guests, singing the while. And I will tell you how they are anointed with perfumes. Thick clouds draw up perfume from the springs and the river; then they station themselves above the banquet, and when the winds gently press them they let fall a light rain like dew.
