Standing on high Olympus’ topmost peak, The golden-throned Juno downward look’d, And, busied in the glory-giving strife, Her husband’s brother and her own she saw, Saw, and rejoic’d; next, seated on the crest Of spring-abounding Ida, Jove she saw, Sight hateful in her eyes! then ponder’d deep The stag-ey’d Queen, how best she might beguile The wakeful mind of aegis-bearing Jove; And, musing, this appear’d the readiest mode: Herself with art adorning, to repair To Ida; there, with fondest blandishment And female charm, her husband to enfold In love’s embrace; and gentle, careless sleep Around his eyelids and his senses pour. Her chamber straight she sought, by Vulcan built, Her son; by whom were to the door-posts hung Close-fitting doors, with secret keys secur’d, That, save herself, no God might enter in. There enter’d she, and clos’d the shining doors; And with ambrosia first her lovely skin She purified, with fragrant oil anointing, Ambrosial, breathing forth such odours sweet, That, wav’d above the brazen floor of Jove, All earth and Heav’n were with the fragrance fill’d; O’er her fair skin this precious oil she spread; Comb’d out her flowing locks, and with her hand Wreath’d the thick masses of the glossy hair, Immortal, bright, that crown’d th’ imperial head. A robe ambrosial then, by Pallas wrought, She donn’d, in many a curious pattern trac’d, With golden brooch beneath her breast confin’d. Her zone, from which a hundred tassels hung, She girt about her; and, in three bright drops, Her glitt’ring gems suspended from her ears; And all around her grace and beauty shone. Then o’er her head th’ imperial Goddess threw A beauteous veil, new-wrought, as sunlight white; And on her well-turn’d feet her sandals bound. Her dress completed, from her chamber forth She issued, and from th’ other Gods apart She call’d to Venus, and address’d her thus: “Say, wilt thou grant, dear child, the boon I ask? Or wilt thou say me nay, in wrath that I Espouse the Greek, as thou the Trojan cause?” To whom the laughter-loving Venus thus: “Daughter of Saturn, Juno, mighty Queen, Tell me thy wish; to grant it if my pow’r May aught avail, thy pleasure shall be done.” To whom great Juno thus, with artful speech: “Give me the loveliness, and pow’r to charm, Whereby thou reign’st o’er Gods and men supreme. For to the bounteous Earth’s extremest bounds I go, to visit old Oceanus, The sire of Gods, and Tethys, who of yore From Rhaea took me, when all-seeing Jove Hurl’d Saturn down below the earth and seas, And nurs’d me in their home with tend’rest care; I go to visit them, and reconcile A lengthen’d feud; for since some cause of wrath Has come between them, they from rites of love And from the marriage-bed have long abstain’d: Could I unite them by persuasive words, And to their former intercourse restore, Their love and rev’rence were for ever mine.”