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64 friendship between both parties. And if, moreover, this shall perchance be grateful and pleasing to all, the city of king Priam, indeed, may be inhabited, but let Menelaus lead back again Argive Helen."

Thus he spoke: but Minerva and Juno murmured with closed lips, for they were sitting near, and were devising evils for the Trojans. Minerva, indeed, was silent, nor said any thing, indignant with her father Jove, for dreadful rage possessed her. But Juno could not retain her fury in her breast, but addressed him:

"Most baleful son of Saturn! what a sentence hast thou uttered! How dost thou wish to render my labor vain, and my sweat fruitless, which I have sweated through with toil? For the steeds are tired to me assembling the host, evils to Priam and to his sons. Do so: but all we the other gods do not approve."

But her cloud-compelling Jove, in great wrath, answered: "Strange one! how now do Priam and the sons of Priam work so many wrongs against thee, that thou desirest implacably to overturn the well-built city of Ilion? But if thou, entering the gates and the lofty walls, couldst devour alive Priam and the sons of Priam, and the other Trojans, then perhaps thou mightst satiate thy fury. Do as thou wilt, lest this contention be in future a great strife between thee and me. But another thing I tell thee, and do thou lay it up in thy soul: whenever haply I, anxiously desiring, shall wish to destroy some city, where men dear to thee are born, retard not my rage, but suffer me; for I have given thee this of free will, though with unwilling mind. For of those cities of earthly men, which are situated under the sun and the starry heaven, sacred Ilion was most honored by me in my heart, and Priam and the people of Priam skilled in the ashen spear. For there my altars never lacked a due banquet and libation, and savor; for this honor were we allotted."

Him then the venerable full-eyed Juno answered: "There are three cities, indeed, most dear to me: Argos, and Sparta,