mortals are now, but he even alone easily wielded it. With it he struck Æneas on the hip, where the thigh is turned in the hip;—they call it the socket;—the socket he smote violently, and broke besides both tendons, and the rugged stone tore off the skin. But the hero having fallen on his knees, remained so, and supported himself with his strong hand upon the ground, and dark night vailed his eyes.
And there, of a truth, Æneas, the king of men, had perished, unless Venus, the daughter of Jove, had quickly perceived him, his mother, who brought him forth to Anchises, as he fed his oxen;[1] but around her own dear son she spread her white arms, and before him she extended the folds of her shining robe, as a fence against arrows, lest any of the swift-horsed Greeks having cast the steel into his breast, should take away his life. She, indeed, stealthily bore off her beloved son from the battle. Nor was the son of Capaneus forgetful of those commands which warlike Diomede gave him: but he detained his own solid-hoofed steeds apart from the tumult, having stretched forth the reins from the rim; and rushing forward, drove from the Trojans to the well-greaved Greeks the beautiful-maned steeds of Æneas, and gave them to Deipylus, his beloved companion (whom he honored above all his coevals, because he possessed in his mind sentiments congenial with himself), to drive them to the hollow ships: but the hero himself, having ascended his chariot, took the splendid reins; and instantly drove his solid-hoofed steeds after the son of Tydeus with ardor; but Diomede pursued Venus with the cruel steel,[2] knowing that she was an unwarlike goddess, nor [one] of those goddesses who administer the war of men, neither Minerva, nor city-destroying Bellona. But when he had now overtaken her, having pursued her through a great
- ↑ Cf. Theocrit. i. 105: Οὐ λέγεται τὰν Κύπριν ὁ βουκόλος, ἕρπε ποτ' Ἰδὰν, Ἕρπε ποτ' Ἀγχίσαν. See Hymn. in Vener. 54, sqq.; and Grote, Hist. of Greece, vol. i. p. 73.
- ↑ It is well known that these battles and woundings of the gods gave so much scandal to Plato, that he wished to cast Homer out of his republic, much to the indignation of Heraclides Ponticus, Alleg. Hom. p. 511. The fathers of the early church made no small use of Plato's opinion on this head. Cf. Euseb. P. E. ii. 10; Tertull. Apol. § xiv.; Augustin. C. D. ii. 14; Minucius Felix, 22; who all make use of his testimony as an argument against Paganism. See Coleridge, Classic Poets, p. 64.
