Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/112

She raised her in her arms, beheld her bleed,
And asked what god had wrought this guilty deed?
⁠Then she: "This insult from no god I found,
An impious mortal gave the daring wound:
Behold the deed of haughty Diomed!
'Twas in the son's defence the mother bled.
The war with Troy no more the Grecians wage;
But with the gods, the immortal gods, engage."
⁠Dioné then: "Thy wrongs with patience bear,
And share those griefs inferior Powers must share;
Unnumbered woes mankind from us sustain,
And men with woes afflict the gods again.
The mighty Mars, in mortal fetters bound,
And lodged in brazen dungeons under ground,
Full thirteen moons imprisoned roared in vain;
Otus and Ephialtes^[1] held the chain;
Perhaps had perished, had not Hermes' care
Restored the groaning god to upper air.
Great Juno's self has borne her weight of pain,
The imperial partner of the heavenly reign;
Amphitryon's son infixed the deadly dart,
And filled with anguish her immortal heart.
Even hell's grim king Alcides' power confessed,
The shaft found entrance in his iron breast;
To Jove's high palace for a cure he fled,
Pierced in his own dominions of the dead;
Where Pæon,^[2] sprinkling heavenly balm around,
Assuaged the glowing pangs and closed the wound.
Rash, impious man! to stain the blessed abodes,
And drench his arrows in the blood of gods!
But thou, though Pallas urged thy frantic deed,
Whose spear ill-fated makes a goddess bleed,
Know thou, whoe'er with heavenly power contends,
Short is his date, and soon his glory ends;
From fields of death when late he shall retire,
No infant on his knees shall call him sire.
Strong as thou art, some god may yet be found,
To stretch thee pale and gasping on the ground;
Thy distant wife, Ægialé the fair,
Starting from sleep with a distracted air,
Shall rouse thy slaves, and her lost lord deplore,
The brave, the great, the glorious, now no more!"
⁠This said, she wiped from Venus' wounded palm
The sacred ichor, and infused the balm.
Juno and Pallas with a smile surveyed,
And thus to Jove began the blue-eyed Maid:

⁠"Permit thy daughter, gracious Jove! to tell

1. Two of the giants, fabled to have piled Pelion on Ossa.
2. The god of healing, not Apollo.