arrow, and she writhed with pain. And Pluto suffered, when the hero-son Of aegis-bearing Jove, with a swift shaft, Smote him beside the portals of the dead, And left him filled with pain. He took his way To high Olympus and the home of Jove, Grieving and racked with pain, for deep the dart Had pierced his brawny shoulder, torturing him. There Paean with his pain-dispelling balms Healed him, for he was not of mortal race. O daring man and reckless, to make light Of such impieties and violate The sacred persons of the Olympian gods! It was the blue-eyed Pallas who stirred up Tydides to assail thee thus. The fool! He knew not that the man who dares to meet The gods in combat lives not long. No child Shall prattling call him father when he comes Returning from the dreadful tasks of war. Let then Tydides, valiant though he be, Beware lest a more potent foe than thou Encounter him, and lest the nobly-born Aegialeia, in some night to come— Wise daughter of Adrastus, and the spouse Of the horse-tamer Diomed—call up The servants of her household from their sleep, Bewailing him to whom in youth she gave Her maiden troth—the bravest of the Greeks.”
She spake, and wiped the ichor from the hand Of Venus; at her touch the hand was healed And the pain left it. Meantime Pallas stood, With Juno, looking on, both teasing Jove With words of sarcasm. Blue-eyed Pallas thus Addressed the god: “O Father Jupiter, Wilt thou be angry at the word I speak?— As Venus, wheedling some Achaian dame To join the host she loves, the sons of Troy, Caressed the fair, arrayed in gay attire, A golden buckle scratched her tender hand.”
As thus she spake, the Father of the gods And mortals, calling golden Venus near, Said, with a smile: “Nay, daughter, not for thee Are tasks of war; be gentle marriage-rites Thy care; the labors of the battle-field Pertain to Pallas and the fiery Mars.”
Thus with each other talked the gods, while still The great in battle, Diomed, pursued Aeneas, though he knew that Phoebus stretched His