Her whole fair body with those sweets bedew’d, She passed the comb through her ambrosial hair, And braided her bright locks streaming profuse210 From her immortal brows; with golden studs She made her gorgeous mantle fast before, Ethereal texture, labor of the hands Of Pallas beautified with various art, And braced it with a zone fringed all around215 A hundred fold; her pendants triple-gemm’d Luminous, graceful, in her ears she hung, And covering all her glories with a veil Sun-bright, new-woven, bound to her fair feet Her sandals elegant. Thus full attired,220 In all her ornaments, she issued forth, And beckoning Venus from the other powers Of heaven apart, the Goddess thus bespake. Daughter beloved! shall I obtain my suit, Or wilt thou thwart me, angry that I aid225 The Grecians, while thine aid is given to Troy? To whom Jove’s daughter Venus thus replied. What would majestic Juno, daughter dread Of Saturn, sire of Jove? I feel a mind Disposed to gratify thee, if thou ask230 Things possible, and possible to me. Then thus with wiles veiling her deep design Imperial Juno. Give me those desires, That love-enkindling power by which thou sway’st Immortal hearts and mortal, all alike;235 For to the green earth’s utmost bounds I go, To visit there the parent of the Gods, Oceanus, and Tethys his espoused, Mother of all. They kindly from the hands Of Rhea took, and with parental care240 Sustain’d and cherish’d me, what time from heaven The Thunderer hurled down Saturn, and beneath The earth fast bound him and the barren Deep. Them go I now to visit, and their feuds Innumerable to compose; for long245 They have from conjugal embrace abstain’d Through mutual wrath, whom by persuasive speech Might I restore into each other’s arms, They would for ever love me and revere. Her, foam-born Venus then, Goddess of smiles,250 Thus answer’d. Thy request, who in the arms Of Jove reposest the omnipotent, Nor just it were nor seemly to refuse. So saying, the cincture from her breast she loosed Embroider’d, various, her all-charming zone.255 It was an ambush of sweet snares, replete With love, desire, soft intercourse of hearts, And music of resistless whisper’d sounds That from the wisest steal their best resolves; She placed it in her hands and thus she said.260 Take this—this girdle fraught with every charm. Hide this within thy bosom, and return, Whate’er thy purpose, mistress of it all. She spake; imperial Juno smiled, and still Smiling complacent, bosom’d safe the zone.265 Then Venus to her father’s court return’d, And Juno, starting from the Olympian height, O’erflew Pieria and the lovely plains Of broad Emathia; soaring thence she swept The snow-clad summits of the Thracian hills270 Steed-famed, nor printed, as she passed, the soil. From Athos o’er the foaming billows borne She came to Lemnos, city and abode Of noble Thoas, and there meeting Sleep, Brother of Death, she press’d his hand, and said,275