She said; and with the left hand both the wrists Of Dian grasping, with her ample right The bow and quiver from her shoulders tore; And with them, as she turn’d away her head, With scornful laughter buffeted her ears: The arrows keen were scatter’d on the ground: Weeping, the Goddess fled; as flies a dove The hawk’s pursuit, and in a hollow rock Finds refuge, doom’d not yet to fall a prey; So, weeping, Dian fled, and left her bow. Them Hermes to Latona thus: “With thee I strive not; shame it were to meet in fight A consort of the cloud-compelling Jove. Freely amid th’ Immortals make thy boast, That by thy prowess thou hast vanquish’d me.” Thus he: Latona gather’d up the bow, And fallen arrows, scatter’d here and there Amid the whirling dust; then, these regain’d, Following her daughter, from the field withdrew. Meanwhile to high Olympus fled the Maid, And to the brazen-floor’d abode of Jove. There, weeping, on her father’s knees she sat, While quiver’d round her form th’ ambrosial robe. The son of Saturn tow’rds him drew his child, And thus, with gracious smile, enquiry made: “Which of the heav’nly pow’rs hath wrong’d thee thus My child, as guilty of some open shame?” To whom the bright-crown’d Goddess of the chase: “Thy wife, my father, white-arm’d Juno; she Hath dealt thus rudely with me; she, from whom All jars and strife among the Gods proceed.” Such converse while they held, the gates of Troy Apollo enter’d, for the well-built wall Alarm’d, lest e’en against the will of fate The Greeks that day should raze it to the ground. The other Gods were to Olympus gone, Triumphant these, and those in angry mood, And took their seats before the cloud-girt Sire. But on the Trojans pressing, Peleus’ son Horses and men alike, promiscuous, slew. As in a city, which the Gods in wrath Have fir’d, whose volleying smoke ascends to Heav’n, On all her people grievous toil is cast, On many, harm and loss; such toil, such loss Achilles wrought amid the Trojan host. Upon a lofty tow’r, the work of Gods, The aged Priam stood, and thence beheld By fierce Achilles driven in flight confused, Their courage quite subdued, the Trojan host: Then, groaning, from the tow’r he hasten’d down, And to the warders cried along the wall: “Stand to the gates, and hold them open’d wide, That in the crowd of fugitives may pour, And refuge find; for close upon their flight Achilles hangs; disaster now is near. But while our friends, receiv’d within the walls, Find time to breathe again, replace in haste The closely-fitting portals; for I fear That man of blood may e’en the city storm.”