Achilles (Mythological character); Epic poetry, Greek -- Translations into English; Trojan War
Now Hera of the golden throne stood on the peak of Olympus, and saw
with her eyes, and anon knew him that was her brother and her lord’s
going to and fro through the glorious fight, and she rejoiced in her
heart. And she beheld Zeus sitting on the topmost crest of
many-fountained Ida, and to her heart he was hateful. Then she took
thought, the ox-eyed lady Hera, how she might beguile the mind of
aegis-bearing Zeus. And this seemed to her in her heart to be the best
counsel, namely to fare to Ida, when she had well adorned herself, if
perchance he would desire to sleep beside her and embrace her body in
love, and a sweet sleep and a kindly she could pour on his eyelids and
his crafty wits. And she set forth to her bower, that her dear son
Hephaistos had fashioned, and therein had made fast strong doors on the
pillars, with a secret bolt, that no other god might open. There did
she enter in and closed the shining doors. With ambrosia first did she
cleanse every stain from her winsome body, and anointed her with olive
oil, ambrosial, soft, and of a sweet savour; if it were but shaken, in
the bronze-floored mansion of Zeus, the savour thereof went right forth
to earth and heaven. Therewith she anointed her fair body, and combed
her hair, and with her hands plaited her shining tresses, fair and
ambrosial, flowing from her immortal head. Then she clad her in her
fragrant robe that Athene wrought delicately for her, and therein set
many things beautifully made, and fastened it over her breast with
clasps of gold. And she girdled it with a girdle arrayed with a hundred
tassels, and she set earrings in her pierced ears, earrings of three
drops, and glistering, therefrom shone grace abundantly. And with a
veil over all the peerless goddess veiled herself, a fair new veil,
bright as the sun, and beneath her shining feet she bound goodly
sandals. But when she had adorned her body with all her array, she went
forth from her bower, and called Aphrodite apart from the other gods,
and spake to her, saying: “Wilt thou obey me, dear child, in that which
I shall tell thee? or wilt thou refuse, with a grudge in thy heart,
because I succour the Danaans, and thou the Trojans?”
Then Aphrodite the daughter of Zeus answered her: “Hera, goddess queen,
daughter of mighty Kronos, say the thing that is in thy mind, my heart
bids me fulfil it, if fulfil it I may, and if it may be accomplished.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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