So saying he breathed great might into the shepherd of the host, and he strode amid the foremost fighters, harnessed in flaming bronze. Nor was the son of Anchises unseen of white-armed Hera, as he went forth to face the son of Peleus amid the throng of men, but she gathered the gods together, and spake among them, saying: Consider within your hearts, ye twain, O Poseidon and Athene, how these things are to be. Lo, here is Aeneas, gone forth, harnessed in flaming bronze, to face the son of Peleus, and it is Phoebus Apollo that hath set him on.Come ye then, let us turn him back forthwith; or else thereafter let one of us stand likewise by Achilles' side, and give him great might, and suffer not the heart in his breast anywise to fail; to the end that he may know that they that love him are the best of the immortals, and those are worthless as wind, that hitherto have warded from the Trojans war and battle.All we are come down from Olympus to mingle in this battle, that Achilles take no hurt among the Trojans for this days' space; but thereafter shall he suffer whatever Fate spun for him with her thread at his birth, when his mother bare him. But if Achilles learn not this from some voice of the gods,he shall have dread hereafter when some god shall come against him in battle; for hard are the gods to look upon when they appear in manifest presence. Then Poseidon, the Shaker of Earth, answered her: Hera, be not thou wroth beyond what is wise; thou needest not at all. I verily were not fain to make gods clashwith gods in strife. Nay, for our part let us rather go apart from the track unto some place of outlook, and sit us there, and war shall be for men. But if so be Ares or Phoebus Apollo shall make beginning of fight, or shall keep Achilles in check and suffer him not to do battle,then forthwith from us likewise shall the strife of war arise; and right soon, methinks, shall they separate them from the battle and hie them back to Olympus, to the gathering of the other gods, vanquished beneath our hands perforce.
110
