The horses that will take me over land and sea are stationed on the lowermost spurs of many-fountained Ida, and I have come here from Olympus on purpose to consult you.

I was afraid you might be angry with me later on, if I went to the house of Oceanus without letting you know." And Jove said, "Juno, you can choose some other time for paying your visit to Oceanus--for the present let us devote ourselves to love and to the enjoyment of one another.

Never yet have I been so overpowered by passion neither for goddess nor mortal woman as I am at this moment for yourself--not even when I was in love with the wife of Ixion who bore me Pirithous, peer of gods in counsel, nor yet with Danae the daintily-ancled daughter of Acrisius, who bore me the famed hero Perseus.

Then there was the daughter of Phoenix, who bore me Minos and Rhadamanthus: there was Semele, and Alcmena in Thebes by whom I begot my lion-hearted son Hercules, while Semele became mother to Bacchus the comforter of mankind.

There was queen Ceres again, and lovely Leto, and yourself--but with none of these was I ever so much enamoured as I now am with you." Juno again answered him with a lying tale.