Diomedes shouted that Aphrodite should leave war and battle alone; could she not be content with beguiling silly women? If she meddled with fighting she would get what would make her shudder at the very name of war. Iris, fleet as the wind, led the wounded goddess from the throng, her fair skin besmirched, and found fierce Ares waiting on the left of the battle with his spear and his two horses. Aphrodite fell at her brother’s knees and begged for his gold-bedizened horses so she might go to Olympus; Diomedes had wounded her as she carried her dear son Aeneas from the fight. Ares gave them. She mounted sick at heart; Iris took the reins and lashed the horses, and they reached high Olympus. There Aphrodite flung herself into the lap of her mother Dione, who threw her arms about her and asked which of the heavenly beings had treated her so, as though she had been doing something wrong in the face of day.
Aphrodite answered that proud Diomedes, son of Tydeus, had wounded her because she was bearing Aeneas, whom she loved best of all mankind, out of the fight; the war was no longer only between Trojans and Achaeans. Dione wiped the ichor from her daughter’s wrist with both hands, and the pain left her, and her hand was healed. Then Dione comforted her: bear it, my child, and endure. We who dwell on Olympus have to put up with much at the hands of men, and we lay much suffering on one another. Ares had to suffer when Otus and Ephialtes, children of Aloeus, bound him in cruel bonds, so that he lay thirteen months imprisoned in a vessel of bronze. Ares would have perished then had not fair Eeriboea, stepmother to the sons of Aloeus, told Hermes, who stole him away when he was already worn out by the severity of his bondage. Hera again suffered when the mighty son of Amphitryon — Heracles — wounded her on the right breast with a three-barbed arrow, and nothing could assuage her pain. So also did huge Hades, when this same man, the son of aegis-bearing Zeus, hit him with an arrow even at the gates of the dead and hurt him badly. Hades went to the house of Zeus on great Olympus, angry and full of pain; the arrow in his brawny shoulder caused him great anguish till Paieon healed him by spreading soothing herbs on the wound, for Hades was not of mortal mold. That daring, headstrong wrongdoer did not reckon of his sin in shooting the gods that dwell on Olympus. And now Athena has egged this son of Tydeus on against you — fool that he is for not reflecting that no man who fights with gods will live long or hear his children prattling about his knees when he returns from battle. Let the son of Tydeus take care he does not have to fight one stronger than you. Then shall his brave wife Aegialeia, daughter of Adrestus, raise the whole house from sleep, wailing for the loss of her wedded lord, Diomedes the bravest of the Achaeans.
Athena and Hera, looking on, began to tease Zeus with mocking talk about Aphrodite’s scratch. Zeus smiled and called golden Aphrodite to his side: my child, the works of war have not been given you. Attend henceforth to your own delightful duties of marriage, and leave all this fighting to Ares the swift and to Athena. Meanwhile Diomedes rushed at Aeneas though Apollo held him. Three times he charged, eager to kill Aeneas and strip his armor, and three times Apollo beat back his shining shield. On the fourth charge, like a god, Apollo shouted in a terrible voice for Diomedes to draw back and not try to equal the gods: the race of deathless gods and the race of men who walk the earth are not the same. Diomedes gave way a little, avoiding the anger of the god.
Apollo carried Aeneas to his temple in sacred Pergamus, where Leto and Artemis healed and glorified him. Apollo set a phantom in Aeneas’s armor amid the fighting, and Trojans and Achaeans kept striking about it. Then he urged Ares to pull Diomedes from battle. Ares entered the Trojan ranks in the likeness of Acamas and called Priam’s sons to save their people — a man was among them who did not even hold back from immortals. Sarpedon rebuked Hector for letting allies bear the labor while Trojans crouched. Hector’s heart was stung; he leapt down, went through the host, and roused them.