reat pain
sat down beside Jove the son of Saturn. He showed Jove the immortal
blood that was flowing from his wound, and spoke piteously, saying,
"Father Jove, are you not angered by such doings? We gods are
continually suffering in the most cruel manner at one another's hands
while helping mortals; and we all owe you a grudge for having begotten
that mad termagant of a daughter, who is always committing outrage of
some kind. We other gods must all do as you bid us, but her you neither
scold nor punish; you encourage her because the pestilent creature is
your daughter. See how she has been inciting proud Diomed to vent his
rage on the immortal gods. First he went up to the Cyprian and wounded
her in the hand near her wrist, and then he sprang upon me too as
though he were a god. Had I not run for it I must either have lain
there for long enough in torments among the ghastly corpses, or have
been eaten alive with spears till I had no more strength left in me."

Jove looked angrily at him and said, "Do not come whining here, Sir
Facing-both-ways. I hate you worst of all the gods in Olympus, for you
are ever fighting and making mischief. You have the intolerable and
stubborn spirit of your mother Juno: it is all I can do to manage her,
and it is her doing that you are now in this plight: still, I cannot
let you remain longer in such great pain; you are my own offspring, and
it was by me that your mother conceived you; if, however, you had been
the son of any other god, you are so destructive that by this time you
should have been lying lower than the Titans."

He then bade Paeeon heal him, whereon Paeeon spread pain-killing herbs
upon his wound and cured him, for he was not of mortal mould. As the
juice of the fig-tree curdles milk, and thickens it in a moment though
it is liquid, even so instantly did Paeeon cure fierce Mars. Then Hebe
washed him, and clothed him in goodly raiment, and he took his seat by
his father Jove all glorious to behold.

But Juno of Argos and Minerva of Alalcomene, now that they had put a
stop to the murderous doings of Mars, went back again to the house of
Jove.

BOOK VI

Glaucus and Diomed--The story of Bellerophon--Hector
and Andromache.

THE fight between Trojans and Achaeans was now left to rage as it
would, and the tide of war surged hither and thither over the plain as
they aimed their bronze-shod spears at one another between the streams
of Simois and Xanthus.

First, Aja