“O Father Jove, and all ye blessed ones, And deathless! Come, for here is what will move Your laughter, yet is not to be endured. Jove’s daughter, Venus, thus dishonors me, Lame as I am, and loves the butcher Mars; For he is well to look at, and is sound Of foot, while I am weakly—but for this Are none but my two parents to be blamed, Who never should have given me birth. Behold Where lie embraced the lovers in my bed— A hateful sight. Yet they will hardly take Even a short slumber there, though side by side, Enamored as they are; nor will they both Be drowsy very soon. The net and chains Will hold them till her father shall restore All the large gifts which, on our marriage-day, I gave him to possess the impudent minx His daughter, who is fair, indeed, but false.”
He spake, and to the brazen palace flocked The gods; there Neptune came, who shakes the earth; There came beneficent Hermes; there too came Apollo, archer-god; the goddesses, Through womanly reserve, remained at home. Meantime the gods, the givers of all good, Stood in the entrance; and as they beheld The cunning snare of Vulcan, there arose Infinite laughter from the blessed ones, And one of them bespake his neighbor thus:—
“Wrong prospers not; the slow o’ertakes the swift.
Vulcan the slow has trapped the fleetest god Upon Olympus, Mars; though lame himself, His net has taken the adulterer, Who now must pay the forfeit of his crime.”
So talked they with each other. Then the son Of Jove, Apollo, thus to Hermes said:—
“Hermes, thou son and messenger of Jove, And bountiful of gifts, couldst thou endure, Fettered with such strong chains as these, to lie Upon a couch with Venus at thy side?”