“Her, searching through the crowd, at length he found,
And springing forward, with his pointed spear
A wound inflicted on her tender hand.
Piercing th’ ambrosial veil, the Graces’ work,
The sharp spear grazed her palm below the wrist.
Forth from the wound th’ immortal current flowed,
Pure ichor, life-stream of the blessed Gods;
They eat no bread, they drink no ruddy wine,
And bloodless thence and deathless they become.
The goddess shrieked aloud, and dropped her son;
But in his arms Apollo bore him off
In a thick cloud enveloped, lest some Greek
Might pierce his breast, and rob him of his life.
Loud shouted brave Tydides, as she fled:
‘Daughter of Jove, from battle-fields retire;
Enough for thee weak women to delude;
If war thou seek’st, the lesson thou shalt learn
Shall cause thee shudder but to hear it named.’
Thus he; but ill at ease, and sorely pained,
The Goddess fled: her, Iris, swift as wind,
Caught up, and from the tumult bore away,
Weeping with pain, her fair skin soiled with blood.”
It is the original of the grand passage in the ‘Paradise Lost,’ in which the English poet has adopted almost literally the Homeric idea of suffering inflicted on an immortal essence, while carefully avoiding the ludicrous element in the scene. In the battle of the Angels, Michael cleaves Satan down the right side:—
“The griding sword with discontinuous wound
Passed through him; but th’ ethereal substance closed,
Not long divisible; and from the gash
A stream of nectar’ous humour issuing flowed,
Sanguine, such as celestial spirits may bleed.”
—Par. Lost, vi. 329.
In sore plight the goddess mounts to Olympus, and there, throwing herself into the arms of her mother Dione, bewails the wrong she has suffered at the hands of a presumptuous mortal. Dione comforts her as best she may, reminding her how in times past other of the Olympian deities have had to endure woes from men: Mars, when the giants Otus and Ephialtes bound him for thirteen months in brazen fetters; Juno herself, the queen of Heaven, and Pluto, the king of the Shades, had been wounded by the daring Hercules. She foretells, however, an untimely death for the presumptuous hero who has raised his hand against a goddess:—
“Fool and blind!
Unknowing he how short his term of life,
Who fights against the gods! for him no child
Upon his knees shall lisp a father’s name,
Safe from the war and battle-field returned.
Brave as he is, let Diomed beware
He meet not with a mightier than himself:
Then fair Ægiale, Adrastus’ child,
The noble wife of valiant Diomed,
Shall long, with lamentations loud, disturb
The slumbers of her house, and vainly mourn
Her youthful lord, the bravest of the Greeks.” (D.)
But Dione is no prophet. Diomed returned home (if the later legends are to be believed) to find that his wife Ægiale had been anything but inconsolable during his absence.
Venus’ wound is healed, and her tears are soon dried. But Minerva—whose province in the celestial government seems to be not only wisdom but satire—cannot resist a jest upon the unfortunate plight of the Queen of Love. She points her out to Jupiter, and suggests as a probable explanation of the wound, that she has been trying to lead astray some other fair Greek, like Helen,—
“And as her hand the gentle dame caressed,
A golden clasp has scratched her slender arm.”
Jupiter smiles, and calling his pouting daughter-goddess to his side, recommends her in future to leave to Mars and Minerva the dangers of the battle-field, and confine her own prowess to campaigns in which she is likely to be more victorious.
Diomed is still rushing in pursuit of Æneas. He knows that Apollo is shielding him; but not even this knowledge checks the impetuous Greek.