Iliad by Homer - Join iZDOT

Homer’s Iliad
with care, and she spoke up in a rage. “Fools that we are,” she
cried, “to be thus madly angry with Jove; we keep on wanting to go
up to him and stay him by force or by persuasion, but he sits aloof
and cares for nobody, for he knows that he is much stronger than
any other of the immortals. Make the best, therefore, of whatever
ills he may choose to send each one of you; Mars, I take it, has had
a taste of them already, for his son Ascalaphus has fallen in battlethe
man whom of all others he loved most dearly and whose father
he owns himself to be.”
When he heard this Mars smote his two sturdy thighs with the flat
of his hands, and said in anger, “Do not blame me, you gods that
dwell in heaven, if I go to the ships of the Achaeans and avenge the
death of my son, even though it end in my being struck by Jove’s
lightning and lying in blood and dust among the corpses.”
As he spoke he gave orders to yoke his horses Panic and Rout,
while he put on his armour. On this, Jove would have been roused
to still more fierce and implacable enmity against the other
immortals, had not Minerva, ararmed for the safety of the gods,
sprung from her seat and hurried outside. She tore the helmet from
his head and the shield from his shoulders, and she took the
bronze spear from his strong hand and set it on one side; then she
said to Mars, “Madman, you are undone; you have ears that hear
not, or you have lost all judgement and understanding; have you
not heard what Juno has said on coming straight from the presence
of Olympian Jove? Do you wish to go through all kinds of
suffering before you are brought back sick and sorry to Olympus,
after having caused infinite mischief to all us others? Jove would
instantly leave the Trojans and Achaeans to themselves; he would
284