i.        Goethe 

          Of course I was pleased 
               to find the figure 
                    has great intrinsic 
                    merit, aside from 
               its celebrity, 
          to recommend it. 

ii.       Preferring to it The Hermaphrodite 
                         which is in an adjoining niche, 
          Her Highness called the statue “the only 
                         happy couple she ever saw.” 

iii.      No less an arbiter than Canova 
             has indicated the seven points 
                from which the radiant god 
                   may be readily studied 
                      to best advantage 

                   (for a trifling sum 
                a copy of this precious 
           diagram can be purchased 
           from any of the attendants 
           in the Belvedere courtyard). 

iv.      The evident high breeding of the god 
                 has always been apparent; 
           as Hippolyte Taine himself remarked, 
                 Apollo must have had servants. 

v.       Classical Simplicity demands a Static Port. 
                      Indeed Count d’Orsay, 
          who believed it impossible to approve statues in action 
          for longer than he himself could stand in the same attitude, 
                      was once heard to say 
          he felt able to admire the Apollo for hours . . . even days! 

          To which with some spirit Lady Blessington offered 
                      Her famous réplique: 
          “The god with his arm outstretched and a heavy blanket on it 
          wearies me after five minutes! Of course my fatigue might be 
                      relieved, dear Alfred, 
          were it you in that very costume who had taken that very pose.” 

vi.     The Novelist and the Naturalist 

          “Once he was holding something, George. Just look! 
                      his fingers are still 
          curled round an invisible spear—perhaps 
                      to kill a dragon . . .” 

          “Far from trying to kill the serpent, Marian, 
                      it is more likely 
          the god was merely stimulating it with a dart 
                      so as to rouse it 
          from its hibernation. Dragons are boreal . . .” 

vii.    Suggesting the god had been removed 
                      from Greece by Nero, 
          Herr Winckelmann was never quite happy 
                      with the piece, and his 
          unqualified enthusiasm was limited 
               to the legs and knees. 

viii.   Monsieur Beyle studied it 
                    like something from China, 
          but it aroused, he said, 
                    neither pain nor pleasure.