out, King Agamemnon leading the way.

Meanwhile Neptune had kept no blind look-out, and came up to them
in the semblance of an old man. He took Agamemnon's right hand in
his own and said, "Son of Atreus, I take it Achilles is glad now
that he sees the Achaeans routed and slain, for he is utterly
without remorse--may he come to a bad end and heaven confound
him. As for yourself, the blessed gods are not yet so bitterly
angry with you but that the princes and counsellors of the
Trojans shall again raise the dust upon the plain, and you shall
see them flying from the ships and tents towards their city."

With this he raised a mighty cry of battle, and sped forward to
the plain. The voice that came from his deep chest was as that of
nine or ten thousand men when they are shouting in the thick of a
fight, and it put fresh courage into the hearts of the Achaeans
to wage war and do battle without ceasing.

Juno of the golden throne looked down as she stood upon a peak of
Olympus and her heart was gladdened at the sight of him who was
at once her brother and her brother-in-law, hurrying hither and
thither amid the fighting. Then she turned her eyes to Jove as he
sat on the topmost crests of many-fountained Ida, and loathed
him. She set herself to think how she might hoodwink him, and in
the end she deemed that it would be best for her to go to Ida and
array herself in rich attire, in the hope that Jove might become
enamoured of her, and wish to embrace her. While he was thus
engaged a sweet and careless sleep might be made to steal over
his eyes and senses.

She went, therefore, to the room which her son Vulcan had made
her, and the doors of which he had cunningly fastened by means of
a secret key so that no other god could open them. Here she
entered and closed the doors behind her. She cleansed all the
dirt from her fair body with ambrosia, then she anointed herself
with olive oil, ambrosial, very soft, and scented specially for
herself--if it were so much as shaken in the bronze-floored house
of Jove, the scent pervaded the universe of heaven and earth.
With this she anointed her delicate skin, and then she plaited
the fair ambrosial locks that flowed in a stream of golden
tresses from her immortal head. She put on the wondrous robe
which Minerva had worked for her with consummate art, and had
embroidered with manifold devices; she fastened it about her
bosom with golden clasps, and she girded herself with a girdle
that had a hundred tassels: then she fastened her earrings, three
brilliant pendants that glistened most beautifully, through the
pierced lobes of her ears, and threw a lovely new veil over her
head. She bound her sandals on to her feet, and when she had
arrayed herself perfectly to her satisfaction, she left her room
and called Venus to come aside and speak to her. "My dear child,"
said she, "will you do what I am going to ask of you, or will
refuse me because you are angry at my being on the Danaan side,
while you are on the Trojan?"

Jove's daughter Venus answered, "Juno, august queen of goddesses,
daughter of mighty Saturn, say what you want, and I will do it
for you at once, if I can, and if it can be done at all."

Then Juno told her a lying tale and said, "I want you to endow me
with some of those fascinating charms, the spells of which bring
all things mortal and immortal to your feet. I am going to the
world's end to visit Oceanus (from whom all we gods proceed) and
mother Tethys: they received me in their house, took care of me,
and brought me up, having taken me over from Rhaea when Jove
imprisoned great Saturn in the depths that are under earth and
sea. I must go and see them that I may make peace between them;
they have been quarrelling, and are so angry that they have not
slept with one another this long while; if I can bring them round
and restore them to one another's embraces, they will be grateful
to me and love me for ever afterwards."

Thereon laughter-loving Venus said, "I cannot and must not refuse
you, for you sleep in the arms of Jove who is our king."

As she spoke she loosed from her bosom the curiously embroidered
girdle into which all her charms had been wrought--love, desire,
and that sweet flattery which steals the judgement even of the
most prudent. She gave the girdle to Juno and said, "Take this
girdle wherein all my charms reside and lay it in your bosom. If
you will wear it I promise you that your errand, be it what it
may, will not be bootless."

When she heard this Juno smiled, and still smiling she laid the
girdle in her bosom.

Venus now went back into the house of Jove, while Juno darted
down from the summits of Olympus. She passed over Pieria and fair
Emathia, and went on and on till she came to the snowy ranges of
the Thracian horsemen, over whose topmost crests she sped without
ever setting foot to ground. When she came to Athos she went on
over the, waves of the sea till she reached Lemnos, the city of
noble Thoas. There she met Sleep, own brother to Death, and
caught him by the hand, saying, "Sleep, you who lord it alike
over mortals and immortals, if you ever did me a service in times
past, do one for me now, and I shall be grateful to you ever
after. Close Jove's keen eyes for me in slumber while I hold him
clasped in my embrace, and I will give you a beautiful golden
seat, that can never fall to pieces; my clubfooted son Vulcan
shall make it for you, and he shall give it a footstool for you
to rest your fair feet upon when you are at table."


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