Iliad

And Zeus said, "Hera, you can choose some other time for paying your visit to Okeanos - for the present let us devote ourselves to love and to the enjoyment of one another. Never yet have I been so overpowered by passion neither for goddess nor mortal woman as I am at this moment for yourself - not even when I was in love with the wife of Ixion who bore me Peirithoos, peer of gods in counsel, nor yet with Danae the daintily-ankled daughter of Acrisius, who bore me the famed hero Perseus. Then there was the daughter of Phoenix, who bore me Minos and Rhadamanthus: there was Semele, and Alkmene in Thebes by whom I begot my lion-hearted son Herakles, while Semele became mother to Bacchus the comforter of humankind. There was queen Demeter again, and lovely Leto, and yourself - but with none of these was I ever so much enamored as I now am with you."

IliadBook 14, Line 312Samuel ButlerEnglishVerse permalinkRead in Book 14

HomerProseID iliad-iliad-butler-en-prose-14-312