dess Venus fell at the knees of her mother Dione; and she embraced her daughter in her arms, and soothed her with her hand, and addressed her, and said:
"Which of the heavenly gods, beloved daughter, has wantonly done such things to thee, as if thou hadst openly wrought some evil?"
But her laughter-loving Venus answered: "The son of Tydeus, haughty Diomede, has wounded me, because I was withdrawing from battle my beloved son Æneas, who is by far most dear to me of all. For it is no longer the destructive contest of Trojans and of Greeks; but now the Greeks fight even with the immortals."
But her Dione, divine one of goddesses, answered: "Endure, my daughter, and bear up, although grieved; for many of us, possessing Olympian habitations, have in times past endured pains at the hand of men,[1] imposing heavy griefs on one another. Mars, in the first place, endured it, when Otus and valiant Ephialtes, the sons of Aloëus, bound him in a strong chain. He was chained in a brazen prison for thirteen months: and perhaps Mars, insatiate of war, had perished there, had not his step-mother, all-fair Eëribæa, told it to Mercury; but he stole Mars away, already exhausted, for the cruel chain subdued him. Juno also suffered, when the brave son of Amphitryon smote her in the right breast with a three-pronged shaft. Then most irremediable pain seized her. Among these Pluto also endured a swift shaft, when the same hero, the son of ægis-bearing Jove, afflicted him with pains at Pylos among the dead, having wounded him. But he went to the palace of Jove, and the lofty Olympus, grieving in his heart, and transfixed with pains; for the shaft had pierced into his huge shoulder, and tortured his soul. But Pæon healed him, sprinkling pain-assuaging remedies, for he was not at all mortal. Audacious, regardless one! who felt no compunction in doing lawless deeds—who with his bow violated the gods that dwell in Olympus. But against thee
- ↑ Speaking of those humiliations of the gods, Grote, Hist. t. i. p. 78, well observes : "The god who serves is for a time degraded; but the supreme god who commands the servitude is in the like proportion exalted, while the idea of some sort of order and government among these super-human beings was never lost sight of"
