The beautiful, tender goddess of love, who was a stranger to wounds and
pain, was found by Iris wandering about the battlefield in a distracted
state, with livid face and shaking limbs. Iris took her by the hand,
and brought her to the place where Ares was sitting, outside the roar
and tumult of battle. When she saw her brother, Aphrodite fell on her
knees before him, and begged him to lend her his car, and Ares having
readily consented, she mounted the golden chariot with Iris, and was
driven through the air till she came to Olympus. There she sought her
mother Dione, who received her with sweet words of comfort, and asked
who had handled her so roughly? "It was that unmannerly Greek, the son
of Tydeus," answered Aphrodite pettishly, "for the Greeks have left off
butchering the Trojans, and are making war on the gods."
"Take heart, my child," said Dione, "and be not overmuch dismayed, for
many of us, the children of heaven, have suffered at the hands of
mortals, for whose sake we afflict one another. Ares was bound and
held captive by the giant sons of Aloeus, and would have perished in
his bonds, had not Hermes stolen him away. Hera was wounded in the
breast with an arrow by Hercules; and Hades came groaning to Olympus,
hurt in the shoulder by the same presumptuous hand. And thou hast
suffered through the spite of Athene, who set on the son of Tydeus to
assail thee. Rash fool! He knows not that he who fights with gods is
doomed to an early grave. Let him take heed lest the young wife whom
he left at home in Argos be made a widow untimely, and rouse her
household at dead of night, weeping and wailing for her fallen lord."
Then she laid a healing finger on her daughter's wound, and the hand
was made whole, and the bitter pangs were stilled. Athene had been
watching the scene, and now she said mockingly to her father: "Be not
wroth, dread sire, at what I shall say! Surely Aphrodite hath been
seeking to beguile some Grecian dame on behalf of her darling Trojans,
and amidst her soft caresses has scratched her slender hand on the pin
of the lady's brooch."
Zeus smiled at his daughter's words, and calling Aphrodite to him he
took her in his fatherly arms and said: "Not for thee, my child, are
wars and fightings; leave these to Ares and Athene, and keep to thine
own province of love and marriage."