“It will be a plaguy business,” answers Jove, “for me to offend Juno and put up with all the bitter tongue she will give me.  As it is, she is always nagging at me and saying I help the Trojans, still, go away now at once before she finds out that you have been here, and leave the rest to me.  See, I nod my head to you, and this is the most solemn form of covenant into which I can enter.  I never go back upon it, nor shilly-shally with anybody when I have once nodded my head.”  Which, by the way, amounts to an admission that he does shilly-shally sometimes.

Then he frowns and nods, shaking the hair on his immortal head till Olympus rocks again.  Thetis goes off under the sea and Jove returns to his own palace.  All the other gods stand up when they see him coming, for they do not dare to remain sitting while he passes, but Juno knows he has been hatching mischief against the Greeks with Thetis, so she attacks him in the following words: 

“You traitorous scoundrel,” she exclaims, “which of the gods have you been taking into your counsel now?  You are always trying to settle matters behind my back, and never tell me, if you can help it, a single word about your designs.”

“‘Juno,’ replied the father of gods and men, ’you must not expect to be told everything that I am thinking about:  you are my wife, it is true, but you might not be able always to understand my meaning; in so far as it is proper for you to know of my intentions you are the first person to whom I communicate them either among the gods or among mankind, but there are certain points which I reserve entirely for myself, and the less you try to pry into these, or meddle with them, the better for you.’”

“‘Dread son of Saturn,’ answered Juno, ’what in the world are you talking about?  I meddle and pry?  No one, I am sure, can have his own way in everything more absolutely than you have.  Still I have a strong misgiving that the old merman’s daughter Thetis has been talking you over.  I saw her hugging your knees this very self-same morning, and I suspect you have been promising her to kill any number of people down at the Grecian ships, in order to gratify Achilles.’”

“‘Wife,’ replied Jove, ’I can do nothing but you suspect me.  You will not do yourself any good, for the more you go on like that the more I dislike you, and it may fare badly with you.  If I mean to have it so, I mean to have it so, you had better therefore sit still and hold your tongue as I tell you, for if I once begin to lay my hands about you, there is not a god in heaven who will be of the smallest use to you.’