Lot Essay
Ovid in his Metamorphoses, V: 250-268, relates of Minerva's visit to Mt. Helicon that: 'When she had come to rest upon those slopes, she told the learned sisters: "I have heard that you now have a new and wondrous fount on Helicon: it burst out from the ground beneath the winged Pegasus' hard hoof. I've come to see this marvel: I was there when, from Medusa's blood, that horse was born.".... And Minerva looked at length at where the waters had sprung up beneath the horse's hoof when it struck hard. And then her eyes took in the ancient forests, the inmost groves, the grottoes, and the flowers - those countless points of colour on the meadows. She said the daughters of Mnemosyne, in what they did and where they lived, were blessed.'