So did she speak; and straightway to her Athênê replied:

‘Yea, mine heart even as thine herein was pondering

When with questions thou searchedst me, Hêrê. Howbeit, as touching the thing,

Not yet in mine heart have I found this wile, which shall help the need {20}

Of the soul of the chieftains: and yet have I mused upon many a rede.’

She spake; and their eyes on the threshold before their feet they cast,

As they pondered of this and of that, till Hêrê cried at the last—

For a thought in her heart had birth, and her word was first again:—

‘Let us hence to the Cyprian Queen; and when we be come, we twain

Will pray her to bid her son, if perchance he will do this deed,