Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/266

264 Than new-fallen snow, and dazzling as the light;

Last her fair feet celestial sandals grace.

Thus issuing radiant, with majestic pace,

Forth from the dome the imperial goddess moves,

And calls the mother of the smiles and loves.

"How long," to Venus thus apart she cried,

"Shall human strife celestial minds divide?

Ah yet, will Venus aid Saturnia's joy,

And set aside the cause of Greece and Troy?"

"Let heaven's dread empress" Cytherea said,

"Speak her request, and deem her will obeyed."

"Then grant me," said the queen, "those conquering charms,

That power, which mortals and immortals warms,

That love, which melts mankind in fierce desires,

And burns the sons of heaven with sacred fires!

For lo! I haste to those remote abodes

Where the great parents, sacred source of gods,

Ocean and Tethys their old empire keep,

On the last limits of the land and deep.

In their kind arms my tender years were passed,

What time old Saturn, from Olympus cast,

Of upper heaven to Jove resigned the reign,

Whelmed under the huge mass of earth and main.

For strife, I hear, has made the union cease,

Which held so long that ancient pair in peace.

What honour, and what love, shall I obtain,

If I compose those fatal feuds again,

Once more their minds in mutual ties engage,

And what my youth has owed, repay their age?"

She said. With awe divine the queen of love

Obeyed the sister and the wife of Jove,

And from her fragrant breast the zone unbraced,

With various skill and high embroidery graced.

In this was every art, and every charm,

To win the wisest, and the coldest warm:

Fond love, the gentle vow, the gay desire,

The kind deceit, the still reviving fire,

Persuasive speech, and more persuasive sighs,

Silence that spoke, and eloquence of eyes.

This on her hand the Cyprian goddess laid;

"Take this, and with it all thy wish," she said:

With smiles she took the charm; and smiling pressed

The powerful cestus to her snowy breast.

Then Venus to the courts of Jove withdrew;

Whilst from Olympus pleased Saturnia flew.

O'er high Pieria thence her course she bore,

O'er fair Emathia's ever-pleasing shore,

O'er Hæmus' hills with snows eternal crowned: