ad arrayed herself perfectly to her satisfaction,
she left her room and called Venus to come aside and speak to her. "My
dear child," said she, "will you do what I am going to ask of you, or
will you refuse me because you are angry at my being on the Danaan
side, while you are on the Trojan?"

Jove's daughter Venus answered, "Juno, august queen of goddesses,
daughter of mighty Saturn, say what you want, and I will do it for you
at once, if I can, and if it can be done at all."

Then Juno told her a lying tale and said, "I want you to endow me with
some of those fascinating charms, the spells of which bring all things
mortal and immortal to your feet. I am going to the world's end to
visit Oceanus (from whom all we gods proceed) and mother Tethys: they
received me in their house, took care of me, and brought me up, having
taken me over from Rhaea when Jove imprisoned great Saturn in the
depths that are under earth and sea. I must go and see them that I may
make peace between them; they have been quarrelling, and are so angry
that they have not slept with one another this long while; if I can
bring them round and restore them to one another's embraces, they will
be grateful to me and love me for ever afterwards."

Thereon laughter-loving Venus said, "I cannot and must not refuse you,
for you sleep in the arms of Jove who is our king."

As she spoke she loosed from her bosom the curiously embroidered girdle
into which all her charms had been wrought--love, desire, and that
sweet flattery which steals the judgement even of the most prudent. She
gave the girdle to Juno and said, "Take this girdle wherein all my
charms reside and lay it in your bosom. If you will wear it I promise
you that your errand, be it what it may, will not be bootless."

When she heard this Juno smiled, and still smiling she laid the girdle
in her bosom.

Venus now went back into the house of Jove, while Juno darted down from
the summits of Olympus. She passed over Pieria and fair Emathia, and
went on and on till she came to the snowy ranges of the Thracian
horsemen, over whose topmost crests she sped without ever setting foot
to ground. When she came to Athos she went on over the waves of the sea
till she reached Lemnos, the city of noble Thoas. There she met Sleep,
own brother to Death, and caught him by the hand, saying, "Sleep, you
who lord it alike over mortals and immortals, if you ever did me a
service in times past, do one for me now, and