Page 90 - the-iliad

cattle, been quick to mark, and thrown her two white arms
about the body of her dear son. She protected him by cov-
ering him with a fold of her own fair garment, lest some
Danaan should drive a spear into his breast and kill him.
Thus, then, did she bear her dear son out of the fight. But
the son of Capaneus was not unmindful of the orders that
Diomed had given him. He made his own horses fast, away
from the hurly-burly, by binding the reins to the rim of the
chariot. Then he sprang upon Aeneas’s horses and drove
them from the Trojan to the Achaean ranks. When he had
so done he gave them over to his chosen comrade Deipylus,
whom he valued above all others as the one who was most
like-minded with himself, to take them on to the ships. He
then remounted his own chariot, seized the reins, and drove
with all speed in search of the son of Tydeus.
Now the son of Tydeus was in pursuit of the Cyprian
goddess, spear in hand, for he knew her to be feeble and not
one of those goddesses that can lord it among men in battle
like Minerva or Enyo the waster of cities, and when at last
after a long chase he caught her up, he flew at her and thrust
his spear into the flesh of her delicate hand. The point tore
through the ambrosial robe which the Graces had woven
for her, and pierced the skin between her wrist and the
palm of her hand, so that the immortal blood, or ichor, that
flows in the veins of the blessed gods, came pouring from
the wound; for the gods do not eat bread nor drink wine,
hence they have no blood such as ours, and are immortal.
Venus screamed aloud, and let her son fall, but Phoebus
Apollo caught him in his arms, and hid him in a cloud of