No More Learning

For mortal men celestial powers engage,
And gods on gods exert eternal rage:
From thee, O father! all these ills we bear,
And thy fell daughter with the shield and spear;
Thou gavest that fury to the realms of light,
Pernicious, wild, regardless of the right.
All heaven beside reveres thy sovereign sway,
Thy voice we hear, and thy behests obey:
'Tis hers to offend, and even offending share
Thy breast, thy counsels, thy distinguish'd care:
So boundless she, and thou so partial grown,
Well may we deem the wondrous birth thy own.
Now frantic Diomed, at her command,
Against the immortals lifts his raging hand:
The heavenly Venus first his fury found,
Me next encountering, me he dared to wound;
Vanquish'd I fled; even I, the god of fight,
From mortal madness scarce was saved by flight.
Else hadst thou seen me sink on yonder plain,
Heap'd round, and heaving under loads of slain!
Or pierced with Grecian darts, for ages lie,
Condemn'd to pain, though fated not to die. "

Him thus upbraiding, with a wrathful look
The lord of thunders view'd, and stern bespoke:
"To me, perfidious! this lamenting strain?
Of lawless force shall lawless Mars complain?
Of all the gods who tread the spangled skies,
Thou most unjust, most odious in our eyes!
Inhuman discord is thy dire delight,
The waste of slaughter, and the rage of fight.
No bounds, no law, thy fiery temper quells,
And all thy mother in thy soul rebels.
In vain our threats, in vain our power we use;
She gives the example, and her son pursues.
Yet long the inflicted pangs thou shall not mourn,
Sprung since thou art from Jove, and heavenly-born.
Else, singed with lightning, hadst thou hence been thrown,
Where chain'd on burning rocks the Titans groan.
"

Thus he who shakes Olympus with his nod;
Then gave to Paeon's care the bleeding god. (160)
With gentle hand the balm he pour'd around,
And heal'd the immortal flesh, and closed the wound.
As when the fig's press'd juice, infused in cream,
To curds coagulates the liquid stream,
Sudden the fluids fix the parts combined;
Such, and so soon, the ethereal texture join'd.
Cleansed from the dust and gore, fair Hebe dress'd
His mighty limbs in an immortal vest.
Glorious he sat, in majesty restored,
Fast by the throne of heaven's superior lord.
Juno and Pallas mount the bless'd abodes,
Their task perform'd, and mix among the gods.

[Illustration: JUNO. ]

JUNO.





BOOK VI.


ARGUMENT.

THE EPISODES OF GLAUCUS AND DIOMED, AND OF HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE.

The gods having left the field, the Grecians prevail. Helenus, the chief
augur of Troy, commands Hector to return to the city, in order to appoint
a solemn procession of the queen and the Trojan matrons to the temple of
Minerva, to entreat her to remove Diomed from the fight. The battle
relaxing during the absence of Hector, Glaucus and Diomed have an
interview between the two armies; where, coming to the knowledge, of the
friendship and hospitality passed between their ancestors, they make
exchange of their arms. Hector, having performed the orders of Helenus,
prevails upon Paris to return to the battle, and, taking a tender leave of
his wife Andromache, hastens again to the field.

The scene is first in the field of battle, between the rivers Simois and
Scamander, and then changes to Troy.