Or had my feet not fetched me off, heaps of mortality Had kept me consort.” Jupiter, with a contracted brow, Thus answered Mars: “Thou many minds, inconstant changeling thou, Sit not complaining thus by me, whom most of all the Gods, Inhabiting the starry hill, I hate; no periods Being set to thy contentions, brawls, fights, and pitching fields; Just of thy mother Juno’s moods, stiff-neck’d, and never yields, Though I correct her still, and chide, nor can forbear offence, Though to her son; this wound I know tastes of her insolence; But I will prove more natural; thou shalt be cur’d, because Thou com’st of me, but hadst thou been so cross to sacred laws, Being born to any other God, thou had’st been thrown from heav’n Long since, as low as Tartarus, beneath the giants driv’n.” This said, he gave his wound in charge to Pæon, who applied Such sov’reign med’cines, that as soon the pain was qualified, And he recur’d; as nourishing milk, when runnet is put in, Runs all in heaps of tough thick curd, though in his nature thin, Ev’n so soon his wound’s parted sides ran close in his recure; For he, all deathless, could not long the parts of death endure, Then Hebe bath’d, and put on him fresh garments, and he sate Exulting by his sire again, in top of all his state. So, having, from the spoils of men, made his desir’d remove, Juno and Pallas re-ascend the starry court of Jove. THE END OF THE FIFTH BOOK. [1] This simile likewise Virgil learns of him. [2] How far a heavenly horse took at one reach or stroke in galloping or running; wherein Homer’s mind is far from being expressed in his interpreters, all taking it for how far Deities were borne from the earth, when instantly they came down to earth: _τόσσον ἐπιθρώσκουσι,_ etc. _tantun uno saltu conficiunt, vel, tantum subsultim progrediuntur, deorum altizoni equi, etc. uno_ being understood, and the horse’s swiftness highly expressed. The sense, otherwise, is senseless and contradictory. [3] ᾽Αμβροσίην is the original word, which Scaliger taxeth very learnedly, asking how the horse came by it on those banks, when the text tells him Simois produced it; being willing to express by hyperbole the delicacy of that soil. If not, I hope the Deities could ever command it. THE SIXTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ILIADS THE ARGUMENT The Gods now leaving an indiff’rent field, The Greeks prevail, the slaughter’d Trojans yield. Hector, by Helenus’ advice, retires In haste to Troy, and Hecuba desires To pray Minerva to remove from fight The son of Tydeus, her affected knight, And vow to her, for favour of such price, Twelve oxen should be slain in sacrifice. In mean space Glaucus and Tydides meet; And either other with remembrance greet Of old love ’twixt their fathers, which inclines Their hearts to friendship; who change arms for signs Of a continu’d love for either’s life. Hector, in his return, meets with his wife, And, taking in his armed arms his son, He prophesies the fall of Ilion.