Thus he spoke: but she departed, distracted [with pain], for she was
grievously exhausted. But swift-footed Iris having taken her, led her
outside the crowd, oppressed with griefs; but she began to turn livid as
to her beauteous skin. Then she found impetuous Mars sitting at the left
of the battle; and his spear and swift horses had been enveloped in
darkness. But she, falling on her knees, with many entreaties besought
from her dear brother his golden-frontleted steeds:

"Dear brother, render me a service, and give me thy steeds, that I may
go to Olympus, where is the seat of the immortals. I am grievously
oppressed with a wound which a mortal man, the son of Tydeus, inflicted
on me, who now would fight even with father Jove."

Thus she spoke: but Mars gave her the golden-frontleted steeds. But she
mounted the chariot, grieving in her heart; and Iris mounted beside her,
and took the reins in her hands, and scourged them to go on, and they
flew not unwillingly. And immediately then they reached the seat of the
gods, the lofty Olympus. There nimble, swift-footed Iris stayed the
steeds, having loosed them from the chariot, and set before them
ambrosial fodder. But the goddess Venus fell at the knees of her mother
Dione; and she embraced her daughter in her arms, and soothed her with
her hand, and addressed her, and said:

"Which of the heavenly gods, beloved daughter, has wantonly done such
things to thee, as if thou hadst openly wrought some evil?"

But her laughter-loving Venus answered: "The son of Tydeus, haughty
Diomede, has wounded me, because I was withdrawing from battle my
beloved son AEneas, who is by far most dear to me of all. For it is no
longer the destructive contest of Trojans and of Greeks; but now the
Greeks fight even with the immortals."

But her Dione, divine one of goddesses, answered: "Endure, my daughter,
and bear up, although grieved; for many of us, possessing Olympian
habitations, have in times past endured pains at the hand of men,[213]
imposing heavy griefs on one another. Mars, in the first place, endured
it, when Otus and valiant Ephialtes, the sons of Aloeus, bound him in a
strong chain. He was chained in a brazen prison for thirteen months: and
perhaps Mars, insatiate of war, had perished there, had not his
stepmother, all-fair Eeribaea, told it to Mercury; but he stole Mars
away, already exhausted, for the cruel chain subdued him. Juno also
suffered, when the brave son of Amphitry