shall our promise to our people fail? How vain the word to Menelaus given By Jove's great daughter and the queen of heaven, Beneath his arms that Priam's towers should fall, If warring gods for ever guard the wall! Mars, red with slaughter, aids our hated foes: Haste, let us arm, and force with force oppose!" She spoke; Minerva burns to meet the war: And now heaven's empress calls her blazing car. At her command rush forth the steeds divine; Rich with immortal gold their trappings shine. Bright Hebe waits; by Hebe, ever young, The whirling wheels are to the chariot hung. On the bright axle turns the bidden wheel Of sounding brass; the polished axle steel. Eight brazen spokes in radiant order flame; The circles gold, of uncorrupted frame, Such as the heavens produce: and round the gold Two brazen rings of work divine were roll'd. The bossy naves of sold silver shone; Braces of gold suspend the moving throne: The car, behind, an arching figure bore; The bending concave form'd an arch before. Silver the beam, the extended yoke was gold, And golden reins the immortal coursers hold. Herself, impatient, to the ready car, The coursers joins, and breathes revenge and war. Pallas disrobes; her radiant veil untied, With flowers adorn'd, with art diversified, (The laboured veil her heavenly fingers wove,) Flows on the pavement of the court of Jove. Now heaven's dread arms her mighty limbs invest, Jove's cuirass blazes on her ample breast; Deck'd in sad triumph for the mournful field, O'er her broad shoulders hangs his horrid shield, Dire, black, tremendous! Round the margin roll'd, A fringe of serpents hissing guards the gold: Here all the terrors of grim War appear, Here rages Force, here tremble Flight and Fear, Here storm'd Contention, and here Fury frown'd, And the dire orb portentous Gorgon crown'd. The massy golden helm she next assumes, That dreadful nods with four o'ershading plumes;