The Priestesses of Astarte

THE PRIESTESSES OF ASTARTE

Astarte's priestesses engage in love at the rising of the moon; then they arise and bathe themselves in a great basin with a silver rim.

With crook'd fingers they comb their tangled locks, and their purple-tinted hands twined in their jet-black curls are like so many coral-branches in a dark and running sea.

They never pluck their deltas, for the goddess's triangle marks their bellies as a temple; but they tint themselves with paint-brush, and heavily scent themselves.

Astarte's priestesses engage in love at the setting of the moon, then in a tent where bums a high gold lamp they stretch themselves at random.