friends of yours, you must not try to stop me; you will have to
let me do it, for I am giving in to you sorely against my will.
Of all inhabited cities under the sun and stars of heaven, there
was none that I so much respected as Ilius with Priam and his
whole people. Equitable feasts were never wanting about my altar,
nor the savour of burning fat, which is honour due to ourselves."

"My own three favourite cities," answered Juno, "are Argos,
Sparta, and Mycenae. Sack them whenever you may be displeased
with them. I shall not defend them and I shall not care. Even if
I did, and tried to stay you, I should take nothing by it, for
you are much stronger than I am, but I will not have my own work
wasted. I too am a god and of the same race with yourself. I am
Saturn's eldest daughter, and am honourable not on this ground
only, but also because I am your wife, and you are king over the
gods. Let it be a case, then, of give-and-take between us, and
the rest of the gods will follow our lead. Tell Minerva to go and
take part in the fight at once, and let her contrive that the
Trojans shall be the first to break their oaths and set upon the
Achaeans."

The sire of gods and men heeded her words, and said to Minerva,
"Go at once into the Trojan and Achaean hosts, and contrive that
the Trojans shall be the first to break their oaths and set upon
the Achaeans."

This was what Minerva was already eager to do, so down she darted
from the topmost summits of Olympus. She shot through the sky as
some brilliant meteor which the son of scheming Saturn has sent
as a sign to mariners or to some great army, and a fiery train of