Iliad by Homer - Join iZDOT

Homer’s Iliad
come to Olympus to punish us, and would grip us up one after
another, guilty or not guilty. Therefore lay aside your anger for the
death of your son; better men than he have either been killed
already or will fall hereafter, and one cannot protect every one’s
whole family.”
With these words she took Mars back to his seat. Meanwhile Juno
called Apollo outside, with Iris the messenger of the gods. “Jove,”
she said to them, “desires you to go to him at once on Mt. Ida;
when you have seen him you are to do as he may then bid you.”
Thereon Juno left them and resumed her seat inside, while Iris and
Apollo made all haste on their way. When they reached manyfountained
Ida, mother of wild beasts, they found Jove seated on
topmost Gargarus with a fragrant cloud encircling his head as with
a diadem. They stood before his presence, and he was pleased with
them for having been so quick in obeying the orders his wife had
given them.
He spoke to Iris first. “Go,” said he, “fleet Iris, tell King Neptune
what I now bid you- and tell him true. Bid him leave off fighting,
and either join the company of the gods, or go down into the sea. If
he takes no heed and disobeys me, let him consider well whether
he is strong enough to hold his own against me if I attack him. I am
older and much stronger than he is; yet he is not afraid to set
himself up as on a level with myself, of whom all the other gods
stand in awe.”
Iris, fleet as the wind, obeyed him, and as the cold hail or
snowflakes that fly from out the clouds before the blast of Boreas,
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