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THE BATTLE OF THE GODS.
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doth not become us, now that the others have joined battle! It were shameful that we should go back to Olympus and have not first fought together. And surely thou art foolish. Dost thou not remember what we suffered, thou and I alone of all the gods, when by the will of Zeus, we served King Laomedon for the space of a year, labouring for wages? I, indeed, built a wall about Troy, broad and very fair, that no man should spoil the city, and thou didst tend the herd of oxen in the glens of Mount Ida. But when the Hours brought the term of our hiring to an end, then did this evil Laomedon rob us of all our hire, and threaten us, and send us away. As for thee, he sware that he would bind thy hands and feet, and sell thee to some far island across the sea. Also, he affirmed that he would cut off the ears of both of us. So we departed, wrathful in heart, and lacking the hire which he promised and paid not. Yet for all this, thou helpest this people, and joinest not thyself to us, that these men of Troy may perish altogether—they and their wives and their children."

To him Apollo made answer: "Earth-