More dreadful, some strange vengeance on the Gods
From Jove befallen, had not Minerva, touch’d
With timely fears for all, upstarting sprung 150
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 Jove 160
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 death 170
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
With fragrant clouds, they found Saturnian Jove
The Thunderer, and in his presence stood. 190
He, nought displeased that they his high command
Had with such readiness obey’d, his speech
To Iris, first, in accents wing’d address’d

    Swift Iris, haste—­to royal Neptune bear

My charge entire; falsify not the word. 195
Bid him, relinquishing the fight, withdraw
Either to heaven, or to the boundless Deep. 
But should he disobedient prove, and scorn
My message, let him, next, consider well
How he will bear, powerful as he is, 200
My coming.  Me I boast superior far
In force, and elder-born; yet deems he slight
The danger of comparison with me,
Who am the terror of all heaven beside. 

    He spake, nor storm-wing’d