And views contending gods with careless eyes.
The Power of battles lifts his brazen spear,
And first assaults the radiant queen of war.
"What moved thy madness, thus to disunite
Ethereal minds, and mix all heaven in fight?
What wonder this, when in thy frantic mood
Thou drovest a mortal to insult a god?
Thy impious hand Tydides' javelin bore,
And madly bathed it in celestial gore."[1]
He spoke, and smote the loud-resounding shield,
Which bears Jove's thunder on its dreadful field;
The adamantine aegis of her sire,
That turns the glancing bolt, and forked fire.
Then heaved the goddess in her mighty hand
A stone, the limit of the neighbouring land,
There fixed from eldest times; black, craggy, vast:
This at the heavenly homicide she cast.
Thundering he falls; a mass of monstrous size,
And seven broad acres covers as he lies.
The stunning stroke his stubborn nerves unbound;
Loud o'er the fields his ringing arms resound:
The scornful Dame her conquest views with smiles,
And, glorying, thus the prostrate god reviles:
"Hast thou not yet, insatiate fury I known
How far Minerva's force transcends thy own?
Juno, whom thou rebellious darest withstand,
Corrects thy folly thus by Pallas' hand;
Thus meets thy broken faith with just disgrace,
And partial aid to Troy's perfidious race."
The goddess spoke, and turned her eyes away,
That, beaming round, diffused celestial day.
Jove's Cyprian daughter, stooping on the land,
Lent to the wounded god her tender hand:
Slowly he rises, scarcely breathes with pain,
And propt on her fair arm forsakes the plain:
This the bright empress of the heavens surveyed,
And scoffing thus to war's victorious Maid:
"Lo, what an aid on Mars's side is seen!
The smiles' and loves' unconquerable queen!
Mark with what insolence, in open view,
She moves : let Pallas, if she dares, pursue."
Minerva smiling heard, the pair o'ertook,
And slightly on her breast the wanton struck:
She, unresisting, fell, her spirits fled;
On earth together lay the lovers spread.
"And like these heroes, be the fate of all,"
Minerva cries, "who guard the Trojan wall!
- ↑ Book v., line 1049, page 122.
