sped
lightly forward, leaving Lemnos and Imbrus behind them. Presently they
reached many-fountained Ida, mother of wild beasts, and Lectum where
they left the sea to go on by land, and the tops of the trees of the
forest soughed under the going of their feet. Here Sleep halted, and
ere Jove caught sight of him he climbed a lofty pine-tree--the tallest
that reared its head towards heaven on all Ida. He hid himself behind
the branches and sat there in the semblance of the sweet-singing bird
that haunts the mountains and is called Chalcis by the gods, but men
call it Cymindis. Juno then went to Gargarus, the topmost peak of Ida,
and Jove, driver of the clouds, set eyes upon her. As soon as he did so
he became inflamed with the same passionate desire for her that he had
felt when they had first enjoyed each other's embraces, and slept with
one another without their dear parents knowing anything about it. He
went up to her and said, "What do you want that you have come hither
from Olympus--and that too with neither chariot nor horses to convey
you?"

Then Juno told him a lying tale and said, "I am going to the world's
end, to visit Oceanus, from whom all we gods proceed, and mother
Tethys; they received me into their house, took care of me, and brought
me up. 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 time. The horses that will take me over land and
sea are stationed on the lowermost spurs of many-fountained Ida, and I
have come here from Olympus on purpose to consult you. I was afraid you
might be angry with me later on, if I went to the house of Oceanus
without letting you know."

And Jove said, "Juno, you can choose some other time for paying your
visit to Oceanus--for the present let us devote ourselves to love and
to the enjoyment of one another. Never yet have I been so overpowered
by passion neither for goddess nor mortal woman as I am at this moment
for yourself--not even when I was in love with the wife of Ixion who
bore me Pirithous, peer of gods in counsel, nor yet with Danae the
daintily-ancled daughter of Acrisius, who bore me the famed hero
Perseus. Then there was the daughter of Phoenix, who bore me Minos and
Rhadamanthus: there was Semele, and Alcmena in Thebes by whom I begot
my lion-hearted son Hercules, while Semele became mother to Bacchus the
comforter of mankind. There was queen Ceres agai