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from The Text
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
Greek fable portrays the goddess of beauty wearing a girdle that has the power to impart grace and love to the wearer. She is the divinity who has the Graces for companions.
The Greeks still maintained a distinction, then, between grace, or the Graces and beauty, since they attached attributes to them that do not apply to the goddess of beauty. All grace is beautiful, since the girdle of charm is a possession of the goddess of Cnidus; but not all beauty is graceful, because Venus remains as she is, even without the girdle.
According to this allegory, only the goddess of beauty wears or bestows the girdle of charm. Juno, glorious goddess of heaven, first has to procure the girdle from Venus before she can cast her spell over Jupiter on Mount Ida. Even royalty adorned with a certain degree of beauty (undeniable in the case of Jupiter's wife) is not certain to please without the presence of grace. The noble queen of the gods does not expect to win Jupiter's heart simply on the strength of her own charms, but by means of Venus's girdle.
The goddess of beauty, however, is able to relinquish her girdle and transfer its power to what is less beautiful. Thus, grace is not the exclusive prerogative of beauty; rather, it can pass over to what is less beautiful or even to what is not beautiful, but it can only be passed from the hands of the beautiful.
The same Greeks advised those who, though possessed of every spiritual gift, lack a graceful and pleasing appearance, to sacrifice to the Graces.
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