The Iliad

with your own eyes you’ll see them break for Troy,

leaving your ships and shelters free and clear!”

A shattering cry, and he surged across the plain,

thundering loud as nine, ten thousand combat soldiers

shriek with Ares’ fury when massive armies clash—so huge

that voice the god of the earthquake let loose from his lungs,

planting enormous martial power in each Achaean’s heart

to urge the battle on, to fight and never flinch.

Now Hera poised on her golden throne looked down,

stationed high at her post aloft Olympus’ peak.

At once she saw the sea lord blustering strong

in the war where men win glory, her own brother

and husband’s brother too, and her heart raced with joy.

But then she saw great Zeus at rest on the ridge

and the craggy heights of Ida gushing cold springs

and her heart filled with loathing. What could she do?—

Queen Hera wondered, her eyes glowing wide ...

how could she outmaneuver Zeus the mastermind,

this Zeus with his battle-shield of storm and thunder?

At last one strategy struck her mind as best:

she would dress in all her glory and go to Ida—

perhaps the old desire would overwhelm the king

to lie by her naked body and make immortal love

and she might drift an oblivious, soft warm sleep

across his eyes and numb that seething brain.

So off she went to her room,

the chamber her loving son Hephaestus built her,

hanging the doors from doorposts snug and tight,

locked with a secret bolt no other god could draw.

She slipped in, closing the polished doors behind her.

The ambrosia first. Hera cleansed her enticing body

of any blemish, then she applied a deep olive rub,

the breath-taking, redolent oil she kept beside her ...

one stir of the scent in the bronze-floored halls of Zeus

and a perfumed cloud would drift from heaven down to earth.

Kneading her skin with this to a soft glow and combing her hair,

she twisted her braids with expert hands, and sleek, luxurious,

shining down from her deathless head they fell, cascading.

Then round her shoulders she swirled the wondrous robes

that Athena wove her, brushed out to a high gloss

and worked into the weft an elegant rose brocade.

She pinned them across her breasts with a golden brooch

then sashed her waist with a waistband

floating a hundred tassels, and into her earlobes,

neatly pierced, she quickly looped her earrings,

ripe mulberry-clusters dangling in triple drops

and the silver glints they cast could catch the heart.

Then back over her brow she draped her headdress,

fine fresh veils for Hera the queen of gods,

their pale, glimmering sheen like a rising sun,

and under her smooth feet she fastened supple sandals.

Now, dazzling in all her rich regalia, head to foot,

out of her rooms she strode and beckoned Aphrodite

away from the other gods and whispered, “Dear child,

would you do me a favor ... whatever I might ask?

Or would you refuse me, always fuming against me

because I defend the Argives, you the Trojans?”

Aphrodite the daughter of Zeus replied at once,

“Hera, queen of the skies, daughter of mighty Cronus,

tell me what’s on your mind. I am eager to do it—

whatever I can do ... whatever can be done.”

Quick with treachery noble Hera answered,

“Give me Love, give me Longing now, the powers

you use to overwhelm all gods and mortal men!

I am off to the ends of the fruitful, teeming earth

to visit Ocean, fountainhead of the gods, and Mother Tethys

who nourished me in their halls and reared me well.

They received me from Rhea, when thundering Zeus

drove Cronus under the earth and the barren salt sea.

I go to visit them and dissolve their endless feud—

how long they have held back from each other now,

from making love, since anger struck their hearts.

But if words of mine could lure them back to love,

back to bed, to lock in each other’s arms once more ...

they would call me their honored, loving friend forever.”

Aphrodite, smiling her everlasting smile, replied,

“Impossible—worse, it’s wrong to deny your warm request,

since you are the one who lies in the arms of mighty Zeus.”

With that she loosed from her breasts the breastband,

pierced and alluring, with every kind of enchantment

woven through it ... There is the heat of Love,

the pulsing rush of Longing, the lover’s whisper,

irresistible—magic to make the sanest man go mad.

And thrusting it into Hera’s outstretched hands

she breathed her name in a throbbing, rising voice:

“Here now, take this band, put it between your breasts—

ravishing openwork, and the world lies in its weaving!

You won’t return, I know, your mission unfulfilled,

whatever your eager heart desires to do.”

Hera broke into smiles now, her eyes wide—

with a smile she tucked the band between her breasts.

And Aphrodite the daughter of Zeus went home

but Hera sped in a flash from Mount Olympus’ peak

and crossing Pieria’s coast and lovely Emathia

rushed on, over the Thracian riders’ snowy ridges,

sweeping the highest summits, feet never touching the earth

and east of Athos skimmed the billowing, foaming sea

and touched down on Lemnos, imperial Thoas’ city.

There she fell in with Sleep, twin brother of Death,

clung to his hand and urged him, called his name:

“Sleep, master of all gods and all mortal men,

if you ever listened to me in the old days,

do what I ask you now—

and you shall have my everlasting thanks.

Put Zeus to sleep for me! Seal his shining eyes

as soon as I’ve gone to bed with him, locked in love,

and I will give you gifts—a magnificent throne,

never tarnished, always glittering, solid gold.

My own son Hephaestus, the burly crippled Smith

will forge it finely and under it slide a stool

where you can prop your glistening feet and rest,

stretching out at feasts.”

And the voice of Sleep

the soft and soothing drifted back ... “Hera, Hera,

queen of the gods and daughter of mighty Cronus—

any other immortal god who lives forever,

believe me, I would put to sleep in a wink,

even the rolling tides of the great Ocean River,