sat in judgment;
Sceptre in hand in the market they sat, doing right
by the people,
Wise: while above watched Justice, and near,
far-seeing Apollo.
Round it she wove for a fringe all herbs of the earth
and the water,
Violet, asphodel, ivy, and vine-leaves, roses and
lilies,
Coral and sea-fan and tangle, the blooms and the palms
of the ocean:
Now from Olympus she bore it, a dower to the bride
of a hero.
Over the limbs of the damsel she wrapt it: the
maid still trembled,
Shading her face with her hands; for the eyes of the
goddess were awful.
Then, as a pine upon Ida when southwest
winds blow landward,
Stately she bent to the damsel, and breathed on her:
under her breathing
Taller and fairer she grew; and the goddess spoke
in her wisdom.
’Courage I give thee; the
heart of a queen, and the mind of Immortals;
Godlike to talk with the gods, and to look on their
eyes unshrinking;
Fearing the sun and the stars no more, and the blue
salt water;
Fearing us only, the lords of Olympus, friends of
the heroes;
Chastely and wisely to govern thyself and thy house
and thy people,
Bearing a godlike race to thy spouse, till dying I
set thee
High for a star in the heavens, a sign and a hope
to the seamen,
Spreading thy long white arms all night in the heights
of the aether,
Hard by thy sire and the hero thy spouse, while near
thee thy mother
Sits in her ivory chair, as she plaits ambrosial tresses.
All night long thou wilt shine; all day thou wilt
feast on Olympus,
Happy, the guest of the gods, by thy husband, the
god-begotten.’
Blissful, they turned them to go:
but the fair-tressed Pallas Athene
Rose, like a pillar of tall white cloud, toward silver
Olympus;
Far above ocean and shore, and the peaks of the isles
and the mainland;
Where no frost nor storm is, in clear blue windless
abysses,
High in the home of the summer, the seats of the happy
Immortals,
Shrouded in keen deep blaze, unapproachable; there
ever youthful
Hebe, Harmonie, and the daughter of Jove, Aphrodite,
Whirled in the white-linked dance with the gold-crowned
Hours and the Graces,
Hand within hand, while clear piped Phoebe, queen
of the woodlands.
All day long they rejoiced: but Athene still
in her chamber
Bent herself over her loom, as the stars rang loud
to her singing,
Chanting of order and right, and of foresight, warden
of nations;
Chanting of labour and craft, and of wealth in the
port and the garner;
Chanting of valour and fame, and the man who can fall
with the foremost,
Fighting for children and wife, and the field which
his father bequeathed
him.
Sweetly and solemnly sang she, and planned new lessons
for mortals:
Happy, who hearing obey her, the wise unsullied Athene.
Eversley, 1852,
