£30 ODYSSEY • BOOK VIII [289-

she had lately returned from a visit to her mighty Father, Zeus,
and had just sat down when Ares came in at the door, grasped
her hand and saluted her fondly.

' Come, my beloved,' he said, ^et us go to bed and lie in each
other's arms, for Hephaestus is no longer about. He has gone to
Lemnos, I think, to visit his Sintian friends and listen to their
barbarous talk/

Aphrodite desired nothing better than to sleep with him; so
the two went to the bed and lay down. Whereupon the netting
which Hephaestus* ingenuity had contrived fell around them
in such a way that they could not move or lift a limb. They
found too late that there was no escape. And now they were
faced by the great lame god himself. For the Sun, acting as his
spy, had given him word; and he had turned back before reach-
ing the island of Lemnos and hurried home in anguish. Standing
there in the entrance he was seized by a spasm of rage and
raised his voice in a terrible shout, so that all the gods might
hear him:

(Father Zeus and you other happy gods who live for ever,
come here and see a comic and cruel thing. Zeus' Daughter
Aphrodite has always despised me for my lameness, and now
she has given her heart to this butcher, Ares, just because he is
good-looking and sound of limb, while I was bom a cripple.
And whom have I to blame for that, if not my father and my
mother? I wish they had never begotten me! But you shall see
how these two have crept into my bed and are sleeping in each
other's loving arms. The sight cuts me to the quick. Yet I have
an idea that they won't be eager to prolong that embrace, no,
not for a moment, not for all their love. Theirs is a sleep that
both will soon be tired of. But my cunning meshes are going
to keep them just where they are, till her Father hands me back
every one of the gifts I made him to win this brazen-faced
hussy, who may be his Daughter and a lovely creature but is
the slave other passions/

His shouts brought the gods trooping to the house with the

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