3
APHRODITE What you say is all to the good and in my favour, that our judge is just. Is he unmarried, or does some woman live with him?
3
HERMES Not quite unmarried, Aphrodite.
3
APHRODITE What do you mean by that?
3
HERMES Apparently someone is living with him, a woman from Mount Ida, well enough, but countrified and terribly unsophisticated; however, he does not seem . to think much of her.The reference is to Oenone. But why do you ask? APHRODITE It was just a casual question.
4
ATHENA I say, you are betraying your trust in talking to her privately all this while.
4
HERMES It was nothing alarming, Athena, or against you and Hera; she asked me whether Paris is unmarried. ATHENA Why was she inquisitive about that?
4
HERMES I don’t know; she says, however, that she asked because it came into her head casually, and not because she had anything definite in view.
4
ATHENA Well, what about it? Is he unmarried?
4
HERMES Apparently not.
4
ATHENA Tell me, does he covet success in war and is he fond of glory, or nothing but a herdsman?.
4
HERMES I can’t say for certain, but it is fair to suppose that, being young, he yearns to acquire all that too, and would like to be first in war.
4
APHRODITE You see, I am not making any complaint or reproaching you with talking confidentially to her; that is the way of fault-finders, not of Aphrodite! HERMES She herself asked me _ractically the same questions; so do not be ill-tempered or think you are getting the worst of it if I answered her as I did you, in a straightforward way.
5
But in the course of our conversation we have already left the stars far behind as we pressed on, and we are almost over Phrygia. Indeed I can see Ida and the whole of Gargaron plainly, and unless I am mistaken, even Paris himself, your judge.
5
HERA Where is he? I do not see him.
5
HERMES Look in this direction, Hera, to the left; not near the mountain-top, but on the side, where the cavern is, near which you see the herd.
5
HERA But I do not see the herd.
