IMAGE OF SPRING ON A ROYAL WOVEN TAPESTRY
IMAGE OF SPRING IN A WOVEN TAPESTRY, PHRYGIAN WORK
It is the season of spring, A and the flowers are its sign, and this clear air is diffused over them very gently. For this reason the leaves whisper sweetly, and the grass seems to sway in a way, receiving some breeze and moving it with friendly wafts. It is a graceful sight. The rivers are now making peace with their banks, and their violent flow is checked; and things that were previously hidden by the flood of waters appear above them, and provide the hands with the opportunity to take hold of the good things that are among them. One of these is what this youth has seized, who, indeed, holding it with his left hand, and having bowed his head calmly, and sat down so far as not to dip his nostrils in the stream, has plunged his right hand, bare and without noise, into the waters, and is searching through the channels beneath the churning water, testing the holes with his fingers B, lest anything, disturbed by the youth's feet, should be hiding in them for fear of the splashing. The partridges, for their part, rejoice, because, through the sun's rays which now restore their strength, they are recovering the vigor they had lost due to those things that are by nature wont to harm them, which now, because of the temperate equilibrium, are not at all harmful to them. Wherefore they dwell in the fields with cheerfulness, and leading their chicks to pasture, they are the first to touch the food, showing the meal by their action. But the songbirds perched in the trees rarely touch the fruits; rather, they spend the greater part of their time in singing. I think they wish to proclaim with their voice that better things are now succeeding, C since the queen of the seasons has shone forth; and that henceforth serenity is here instead of cloud, calm instead of storm, and, in sum, delightful things instead of those which cause pain. Everything takes heart, and even the meanest of living creatures—gnats, bees, cicadas, and all kinds of such species; of which some have set out from their hives, and others have just now had their birth due to the symmetry of the season, or, if you will, due to the inrush of warmth toward a corresponding humidity; they buzz around man and stand before the traveler, and sing melodiously in harmony with him, if he happens to be singing. Some compete, some fight, and some settle upon the flowers. But all things are a pleasure to behold. Children playing by the garden D attempt to hunt these creatures quite innocently and gracefully. For one of the children, having already bared his own head of its covering, uses this instead of any other hunting instrument; and for the most part