Page:The Story of the Iliad.djvu/263

Rh "So thou hast had thy will, and hast roused Achilles, the swift of foot. Truly thou art as a mother to the Greeks!" And Hera answered: "Will not a man make good his word to his fellow, though he be but a man? Then how should I, who am chief among the goddesses, not send trouble on the Trojans, against whom I have great wrath?"

But Thetis went to the house of Hephæstus. She found him busy at his work, making twenty cauldrons with three feet, that were to stand about the house of the gods. Golden wheels had they beneath, that they might go of their own motion into the chambers of the gods, and of their own motion return. But Charis, which is by interpretation Grace, that was wife to Hephæstus, espied Thetis, and caught her by the hands, and said, "Why, goddess, whom we love and honour, comest thou to our house, though thou art not wont so to do?" So spake she, and led her in, and set her on a silver-studded chair, and put a chair beneath her feet. Then she called to her husband, saying:—