ith toil? For the steeds are tired to me assembling the
host, evils to Priam and to his sons. Do so: but all we the other gods
do not approve."

But her cloud-compelling Jove, in great wrath, answered: "Strange one!
how now do Priam and the sons of Priam work so many wrongs against thee,
that thou desirest implacably to overturn the well-built city of Ilion?
But if thou, entering the gates and the lofty walls, couldst devour
alive[170] Priam and the sons of Priam, and the other Trojans, then
perhaps thou mightst satiate thy fury. Do as thou wilt, lest this
contention be in future a great strife between thee and me. But another
thing I tell thee, and do thou lay it up in thy soul: whenever haply I,
anxiously desiring, shall wish to destroy some city, where men dear to
thee are born, retard not my rage, but suffer me; for I have given thee
this of free will, though with unwilling mind. For of those cities of
earthly men, which are situated under the sun and the starry heaven,
sacred Ilion was most honoured by me in my heart, and Priam and the
people of Priam skilled in the ashen spear. For there my altars never
lacked a due banquet and libation, and savour; for this honour were we
allotted."

[Footnote 170: Literally, "eat raw." Cf. Xenoph. Anab. iv. 8, 14.
[Greek: Toutous en pos dynometha, kai omous dei
kataphagein].--Clarke.]

Him then the venerable full-eyed Juno answered: "There are three cities,
indeed, most dear to me: Argos, and Sparta, and wide-wayed Mycenae;[171]
destroy these whenever they become hateful to thy soul. In behalf of
these I neither stand forth, nor do I grudge them to thee: for even
were I to grudge them, and not suffer thee to destroy them, by grudging
I avail nothing, since thou art much more powerful. And yet it becomes
[thee] to render my labour not fruitless; for I am a goddess, and thence
my race, whence thine; and wily Saturn begat me, very venerable on two
accounts, both by my parentage, and because I have been called thy
spouse. Moreover, thou rulest amongst all the immortals. But truly let
us make these concessions to each other: I, on my part, to thee, and
thou to me; and the other immortal gods will follow. Do thou without
delay bid Minerva go to the dreadful battle-din of the Trojans and
Greeks, and contrive that the Trojans may first begin to injure the most
renowned Greeks, contrary to the leagues."

[Footnote 171: "It certainly seems to me, that, in a reference so