All minds at ease, I judge, here or on earth,120 However tranquil some and joyous now. So spake the awful spouse of Jove, and sat. Then, all alike, the Gods displeasure felt Throughout the courts of Jove, but she, her lips Gracing with smiles from which her sable brows125 Dissented,[5] thus indignant them address’d. Alas! how vain against the Thunderer’s will Our anger, and the hope to supersede His purpose, by persuasion or by force! He solitary sits, all unconcern’d130 At our resentment, and himself proclaims Mightiest and most to be revered in heaven. Be patient, therefore, and let each endure Such ills as Jove may send him. Mars, I ween, Already hath his share; the warrior God135 Hath lost Ascalaphus, of all mankind His most beloved, and whom he calls his own. She spake, and with expanded palms his thighs Smiling, thus, sorrowful, the God exclaim’d. Inhabitants of the Olympian heights!140 Oh bear with me, if to avenge my son I seek Achaia’s fleet, although my doom Be thunder-bolts from Jove, and with the dead Outstretch’d to lie in carnage and in dust. He spake, and bidding Horror and Dismay145 Lead to the yoke his rapid steeds, put on His all-refulgent armor. Then had wrath More dreadful, some strange vengeance on the Gods From Jove befallen, had not Minerva, touch’d With timely fears for all, upstarting sprung150 From where she sat, right through the vestibule. She snatch’d the helmet from his brows, the shield From his broad shoulder, and the brazen spear Forced from his grasp into its place restored. Then reprimanding Mars, she thus began.155 Frantic, delirious! thou art lost for ever! Is it in vain that thou hast ears to hear, And hast thou neither shame nor reason left? How? hear’st thou not the Goddess? the report Of white-arm’d Juno from Olympian Jove160 Return’d this moment? or perfer’st thou rather, Plagued with a thousand woes, and under force Of sad necessity to seek again Olympus, and at thy return to prove Author of countless miseries to us all?165 For He at once Grecians and Trojans both Abandoning, will hither haste prepared To tempest[6] us in heaven, whom he will seize, The guilty and the guiltless, all alike. I bid thee, therefore, patient bear the death170 Of thy Ascalaphus; braver than he And abler have, ere now, in battle fallen, And shall hereafter; arduous were the task To rescue from the stroke of fate the race Of mortal men, with all their progeny.175 So saying, Minerva on his throne replaced The fiery Mars. Then, summoning abroad Apollo from within the hall of Jove, With Iris, swift ambassadress of heaven, Them in wing’d accents Juno thus bespake.180 Jove bids you hence with undelaying speed To Ida; in his presence once arrived, See that ye execute his whole command. So saying, the awful Goddess to her throne Return’d and sat. They, cleaving swift the air,185 Alighted soon on Ida fountain-fed, Parent of savage kinds. High on the point Seated of Gargarus, and wrapt around