The Project Gutenberg Etext of the Iliad of - Stanford Exploration ...

1 ILIAD. XIV. 185
are contained; and I think that thou wilt not return with thy object unaccomplished,
whatsoever thou desirest in thy mind.”
Thus she spake, and the large-eyed venerable Juno smiled, and smiling, then
placed it in her bosom. But Venus, the daughter of Jove, departed to the palace;
and Juno, hastening, quitted the summit of Olympus, and, having passed over
Pieria and fertile Emathia, she hastened over the snowy mountains of Equestrian
Thrace, most lofty summits, nor did she touch the ground with her feet. From
Athos she descended to the foaming deep, and came to Lemnos, the city of
divine Thoas, where she met Sleep, the brother of Death; to whose hand she
then clung, and spoke, and addressed him:
“O Sleep, 1 king of all gods and all men, 2 if ever indeed thou didst listen to
my entreaty, now too be persuaded; and I will acknowledge gratitude to thee all
my days. Close immediately in sleep for me the bright eyes of Jove under his
eyelids, after I couch with him in love; and I will give thee, as gifts, a handsome
golden throne, forever incorruptible. And my limping son, Vulcan, adorning it,
shall make it, and below thy feet he shall place a footstool, upon which thou
mayest rest thy shining feet while feasting.”
But her sweet Sleep answering, addressed: “Juno, venerable goddess, daughter
of great Saturn, any other of the everlasting gods could I easily lull to sleep,
and even the flowing of rapid Ocean, who is the parent of all; but I could not
approach Saturnian Jove, nor lull him to sleep, unless at least, he himself command
me. For once already, at least, has he terrified me by his threats, on that
day when the magnanimous son of Jove (Hercules) sailed from Ilium, having
sacked the city of the Trojans. Then I lulled the mind of ægis-bearing Jove,
being poured gently around him, while thou wast planning evils in thy mind
[against the hero], rousing the blasts of bitter winds over the deep; and thou
didst afterward carry him away apart from all his friends to well-inhabited Cos.
But he, when awakened, was enraged, hurling about the gods through his mansion,
and me chiefly of all he sought, and would have cast me down, a lost one,
from the æther into the deep, had not Night, vanquisher of gods and men, preserved
me, to whom I came flying. So he restrained himself, angry as he was;
for he dreaded lest he should do things which were disagreeable to swift 3 Night.
And now again dost thou urge me to perform this another dangerous deed.”
But him the venerable large-eyed Juno in turn answered: “O Sleep, why
thinkest thou these things within thy mind? Canst thou suppose that farsounding
Jove favors the Trojans, as he was enraged on account of Hercules, his
own son? But come, [do this], and I will give thee one of the younger Graces
to wed, and to be called thy spouse, Pasithea, 4 whom thou fondly desirest day
analogy .... In all cases it stands either quite absolute, that is, with the object understood,
or the accusative belongs to a verb immediately following.”—Buttm. Lexil. pp. 505, sq.
1 Cf. Hesiod, Theog. 214. The dying words of Gorgias of Leontium are very elegant:
∗)/hde me o( u( /pnos a)/rxetai parakatati/ qesqai tw=| a)delfw=|.—Ælian, Var. Hist. ii.
35. 2So the Orphic hymn: ∗)/upne, a)/nac pa/ ntwn maka/ rwn qnhtw=n t’ a)nqrw/ pwn.
3 But see Buttm. Lexil. p. 369. Translate, “quick and fearful night.”
4 The most beautiful of the Graces,—“blandarum prima sonorum,” according to Statius,
Theb. ii. 286. Cf. Virg. Æn. i. 257, sqq.