Village books

The chief gods on the Grecian side are Juno, Minerva, and Neptune.
Juno, as you will shortly see, is a scolding wife, who in spite of
all Jove's bluster wears the breeches, or tries exceedingly hard to
do so. Minerva is an angry termagant--mean, mischief-making, and
vindictive. She begins by pulling Achilles' hair, and later on she
knocks the helmet from off the head of Mars. She hates Venus, and
tells the Grecian hero Diomede that he had better not wound any of
the other gods, but that he is to hit Venus if he can, which he
presently does 'because he sees that she is feeble and not like
Minerva or Bellona.' Neptune is a bitter hater.
Apollo, Mars, Venus, Diana, and Jove, so far as his wife will let
him, are on the Trojan side. These, as I have said, meet with
better, though still somewhat contemptuous, treatment at the poet's
hand. Jove, however, is being mocked and laughed at from first to
last, and if one moral can be drawn from the Iliad more clearly than
another, it is that he is only to be trusted to a very limited
extent.


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