Iliad by Homer - Join iZDOT

Homer’s Iliad
Thus she spoke, and Mars gave her his gold-bedizened steeds. She
mounted the chariot sick and sorry at heart, while Iris sat beside
her and took the reins in her hand. She lashed her horses on and
they flew forward nothing loth, till in a trice they were at high
Olympus, where the gods have their dwelling. There she stayed
them, unloosed them from the chariot, and gave them their
ambrosial forage; but Venus flung herself on to the lap of her
mother Dione, who threw her arms about her and caressed her,
saying, “Which of the heavenly beings has been treating you in this
way, as though you had been doing something wrong in the face of
day?”
And laughter-loving Venus answered, “Proud Diomed, the son of
Tydeus, wounded me because I was bearing my dear son Aeneas,
whom I love best of all mankind, out of the fight. The war is no
longer one between Trojans and Achaeans, for the Danaans have
now taken to fighting with the immortals.”
“Bear it, my child,” replied Dione, “and make the best of it. We
dwellers in Olympus have to put up with much at the hands of
men, and we lay much suffering on one another. Mars had to suffer
when Otus and Ephialtes, children of Aloeus, bound him in cruel
bonds, so that he lay thirteen months imprisoned in a vessel of
bronze. Mars would have then perished had not fair Eeriboea,
stepmother to the sons of Aloeus, told Mercury, who stole him
away when he was already well-nigh worn out by the severity of
his bondage. Juno, again, suffered when the mighty son of
Amphitryon wounded her on the right breast with a three-barbed
arrow, and nothing could assuage her pain. So, also, did huge
Hades, when this same man, the son of aegis-bearing Jove, hit him
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