propped it against a pillar
and dressed the War-god down in all his fury:
“Maniac, out of your senses! You, you’re ruined!
What are your ears for, Ares, can’t you hear the truth?
Your wits are gone—where’s your respect for others?
Can’t you grasp what the white-armed goddess tells us?—
and she’s just returned from Olympian Zeus, just now.
What’s your pleasure? To fill your own cup of pain
then slink back to Olympus, whipped and fuming—forced?
You’re planting the seeds of endless trouble for us all!
He will leave those men in a flash, Achaeans, Trojans,
overweening Trojans, and back great Zeus will come
to batter us on Olympus, seize one after another—
gods guilty and innocent routed all together.
So now, I tell you, drop this anger for your son.
By now some fighter better than he, a stronger hand
has gone down in his own blood, or soon will go.
It is no small labor to rescue all mankind,
every mother’s son.”
With that sharp warning
Athena seated headlong Ares on his throne.
But Queen Hera summoned Apollo from the halls
and Iris too, the messenger of the immortals,
and gave them both their winged marching orders:
“Zeus directs you to Ida with all good speed!
But once you arrive and meet great Zeus’s glance,
do whatever the Father drives you on to do.”
And with that command Queen Hera strode home
and regained her throne. But the two launched out in flight
and reaching Ida with all her springs, mother of flocks,
they found the thundering son of Cronus seated high
on Gargaron peak, crowned with a fragrant cloud.
Coming before the lord of storm and lightning
the two just stood there, waiting ...
Nor was his heart displeased to see them both—
how fast they’d obeyed his loving wife’s commands—
and first he issued Iris winging orders: “Away, Iris!
Quick as you can to the grand sea lord Poseidon.
Go, give him my message, start to finish—
and see that every word of it rings exactly so.
Command Poseidon to quit the war and slaughter now,
go back to the tribes of gods or down to his bright sea.
But if he will not obey my orders, if he spurns them,
let him beware, heart and soul—for all his power
he can never muster the will to stand my onslaught.
I claim I am far greater than he in striking force,
I am the first-bom too. Yet the spirit inside him
never shrinks from claiming to be my equal, never,
though other gods will cringe from me in terror.”
And Iris riding the wind obeyed his orders,
swooping down from Ida’s peaks to sacred Troy.
Like the snow or freezing hail that pelts from clouds
when the North Wind born in the clear heaven blasts it on—
so in an eager rush of speed the wind-swift Iris flew
and stopped beside the famous god of earthquakes,
calling out to him, “Here is a message for you,
god of the sea-blue mane who grips the earth.
I speed this word to you from storming Zeus.
He commands you to quit the war and slaughter now,
go back to the tribes of gods or down to your bright sea!
But if you will not obey his orders, if you spurn them,
he threatens to come here in person, fight you down,
power against power. Avoid his grasp, he warns.
He claims he is far greater than you in striking force,
he is the first-born too! Yet the spirit inside you
never shrinks from claiming to be his equal, never—
though other gods will cringe from him in terror.”
But the glorious god of earthquakes shook in anger:
“What outrage! Great as he is, what overweening arrogance!
So, force me, will he, to wrench my will to his?
I with the same high honors?
Three brothers we are, all sprung from Cronus,
all of us brought to birth by Rhea—Zeus and I,
Hades the third, lord of the dead beneath the earth.
The world was split three ways. Each received his realm.
When we shook the lots I drew the sea, my foaming eternal home,
and Hades drew the land of the dead engulfed in haze and night
and Zeus drew the heavens, the clouds and the high clear sky,
but the earth and Olympus heights are common to us all.
So I will never live at the beck and call of Zeus!
No, at his royal ease, and powerful as he is,
let him rest content with his third of the world.
Don’t let him try to frighten me with his mighty hands—
what does he take me for, some coward out-and-out?
He’d better aim his terrible salvos at his own,
all his sons and daughters. He’s their father—
they have to obey his orders. It’s their fate.”
Iris quick as the breezes tried to soothe him:
“Wait, god of the sea-blue mane who grips the earth—
you really want me to take that harsh, unbending answer
back to Zeus? No change of heart, not even a little?
The hearts of the great, you know, can always change ...
you know how the Furies always stand by older brothers.”
The lord of the earthquake yielded ground in answer:
“True, Iris, immortal friend, how right you are—
it’s a fine thing when a messenger knows what’s proper.
Ah but how it galls me, it wounds me to the quick
when the Father tries to revile me with brute abuse,
his equal in rank, our fated shares of the world the same!
Still, this time I will yield, for all my outrage ...
but I tell you this, and there’s anger in my threat:
if ever—against my will and Athena queen of armies,
Hera and Hermes, and the god of fire Hephaestus—
if Zeus ever spares the towering heights of Troy,
if he ever refuses to take her walls by force
and give the Argive troops resounding triumph,
let Zeus know this full well-
the breach between us both will never heal!”
A sharp tremor
and the massive god of earthquakes left Achaea’s lines,
into the surf he dove and heroes missed him sorely.
That very instant storming Zeus dispatched Apollo:
“Go, my friend, to the side of Hector armed in bronze.
The god of the quakes who grips and pounds the earth
has just this moment plunged in his own bright sea,
diving away from all my mounting anger. Just think
what the gods would have heard if we had come to blows,