Pallas and I have borne a rankling grudge

To that curst Shepherd, that incestuous judge.

The description of the majesty of Jupiter, contained in the following passage of the first book of the Iliad, is allowed to be a true specimen of the sublime. It is the archetype from which Phidias acknowledged he had framed his divine sculpture of the Olympian Jupiter:

Η, και κυανεησιν επ’ οφρυσι νευσε Κρονιων·

Αμβροσιαι δ’ αρα χαιται επερρωσαντο ανακτος,

Κρατος απ’ αθανατοιο, μεγαν δ’ ελελιξεν Ολυμπον.

He spoke, and awful bends his sable brows,

Shakes his ambrosial curls, and gives the nod,

The stamp of fate, and sanction of the God:

High heaven, with trembling, the dread signal took,