There is an ancient dispute that spans the centuries, and which perhaps we have never ceased to listen to. It concerns the name of the second month of the year, that uncertain bridge between the rigor of winter and the promise of spring.

Someone, writes Ovid in the Fasti, argues that April is named thus because in it the earth opens, because the frost yields and the shoots begin to sprout.

It is a reasonable explanation, rational, almost scientific. But there are those who cannot resign themselves to this explanation. And they cannot resign themselves because they feel that behind the name of a month lies something deeper, something that botany and meteorology cannot grasp.

There is a goddess, Venus, who claims her month “with outstretched hand.” And she claims it with a force that traverses the sky, the earth, the sea, and even the hearts of men.

Ovid’s poetry is a hymn to life awakening, but it is also an act of accusation against that subtle form of envy that would reduce beauty to a natural phenomenon, love to an instinct, spring to a mere succession of atmospheric events. “Where does envy not reach?” asks the poet.

And the question is still ours today, in a time that seems to have forgotten that the world is not only matter, that nature is not only mechanical, that spring is not only the moment when flowers bloom.

It is, first and foremost, the moment when Venus returns to govern the universe.

For Venus, according to Ovid, is not just one goddess among many. She is the one who “governs the whole of the world.”

She is the one who gives laws to the sky, to the earth, and to the sea. She is the one who, with her stimulus, causes all species to reproduce, from the birds weaving their songs to the rams butting heads yet daring not to scratch the brow of the beloved lamb.

She is the one who makes the bull gentle when he accompanies the heifer, he who “makes all pastures and the entire forest tremble.” She is the one who keeps alive all that lives beneath the surface of the sea, and the countless fish that fill the waters. There is no creature, in short, that does not answer her law. And there is no creature, perhaps, that does not bear her mark.

But there is more. For Venus does not limit herself to governing nature. She also civilized men. “It was this Goddess, first, who made men less fierce,” writes Ovid. From her came cleanliness, the care of oneself, the ability to make oneself attractive. From her came the first song of love sung before the barred door of the one who had refused to spend the night with her lover.

From her came eloquence, for words served to convince the reluctant girl. And from her came a thousand activities, a thousand discoveries, a thousand arts, for the desire to seduce drives man to invent, to seek, to improve himself. In short, without Venus there would be no culture, no art, no civilization.

Love is not only the force that makes trees and animals born. It is also the force that makes poets, orators, artists born. It is the force that makes man something more than a fierce animal.

And so, who can still deny Venus her month? Who can still maintain that April is called so only because the earth opens? “Let such madness stay far from me,” exclaims Ovid, almost with a shiver of horror. For denying the name of Venus to April means denying the very principle of life, of beauty, of culture. It means wanting to reduce the world to what can be measured, cataloged, explained without residue.

It means yielding to that subtle form of envy that cannot tolerate that there is something greater, more beautiful, more powerful than human reason.

And Ovid, as a good Roman, adds an argument that must have seemed decisive to his contemporaries: Venus has a right to her month also because she protected Rome.

It was she who took up arms for Troy, when a javelin struck her delicate hand and made her groan. It was a Trojan judge, Paris, who made her win against Juno and Minerva.

She was called the daughter-in-law of Assaracus, so that the great Caesar could claim his Julian ancestors. Venus, in short, is not just any goddess. She is the goddess who watched over the destiny of Rome, who protected her heroes, who guaranteed her lineage. And if Rome became great, it is also thanks to her.

But there is another argument, perhaps the simplest and the most beautiful. “Furthermore, for Venus, there is no season more suitable than spring.” It is in spring that the earth shines, it is in spring that the countryside melts, it is now that the blades of grass sprout, it is now that the vine sends forth shoots from the thickened bark.

The beauty of Venus suits the fair season, and as usual, she follows her dear Mars. In spring, finally, she exhorts the curved ships to go into the sea from which she was born, to no longer fear the threats of winter. It is the moment of resumption, of voyage, of adventure. It is the moment when everything begins again.

Perhaps, today, we have lost something of this sensitivity. We have learned to explain the world without resorting to gods, and that is fine. But perhaps we have also lost the capacity to be amazed, to recognize that behind the beauty of spring there is something that reason cannot exhaust.

We have lost the capacity to feel that April is not only the month in which the earth opens, but also the month in which the heart opens, in which love blooms again, in which life resumes its course with a force that no envy can stop.

And so, perhaps, we should listen once again to the words of Ovid. We should remember that envy, that which would reduce everything to what can be explained, is always lurking. But that there is something stronger, something that resists its claim.

It is beauty, it is love, it is life that every year returns to bloom in April. And it is Venus, the goddess who “with outstretched hand” claims her month, who reminds us of this. With the strength of one who knows that the world is not only matter, but also mystery.

And that mystery, sometimes, has the face of a woman, the scent of spring, the name of a month.

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