Nonnus of Panopolis, Dionysiaca 8.122–177: Book 8: Hera borrows the girdle of Deceit

Then subtle-minded Hera began to coax wily Deceit with wily words, hoping to have revenge on her husband :

Good lady of wily mind and wily snares ! Not Hermes […] himself can outdo you with his plausible prittle-prattle. Lend me also that girdle of many […], which Rheia once bound about her flanks when she deceived her husband being no petrified shape for my Cronion, I do not trick my husband with a wily stone. No a woman of the earth compels me—whose bed makes furious Ares declare that he will house in heaven no more ! What do I profit by being a goddess immortal? A worthless mortal woman has taken my husband, whom Leto a goddess could not steal. Zeus and his rain did not sleep a second time with Danae ; after the seals of the ironbound prison the bride went a-sailing and had to blame her golden wedding for her lovegift of the brine—her chest sailing with her on the sea floated where the shifting winds did blow. After Crete the Olympian bull did not swim again, he did not see Europa after the bed but Io was soaked in the wet, and swam with horns on her head plagued by the gadfly !

Me Even […] did not have a smooth course for her wedding ; she also, Leto herself, carried the unborn babe by many a turn and twist, while she gazed at the shifting slopes of many a floating stand, and the flood of the inhospitable sea that never stood still. Hardly at last she espied the wild olive-tree which harboured her childbed. All that Leto suffered, and her mate could not help her ; but for the bed of one short-lived mortal woman he has renounced the couch of Hera his heavenly sister.

I am afraid Cronides, who is called my husband and brother, will banish me from heaven for a woman’s bed, afraid he may make Semele queen of his Olympos! If you favour Zeus Cronion more than Hera, if you will not give me your all-bewitching girdle to bring back again to Olympos my wandering son, I will leave heaven because of their earthly marriage, I will go to the uttermost bounds of Oceanos and share the hearth of primeval Tethys ; thence I will pass to the house of Harmonia and abide with Ophion. Come then, honour the mother of all, the bride of Zeus, and lend me the help of your girdle, that I may charm my runaway son furious Ares, to make heaven once more his home.”

When she had finished, the goddess replied with obedient words : Mother of Enyalios, bride first enthroned of Zeus! I will give my girdle and anything else you ask me; I obey, since you reign over the gods with Cronion. Receive this sash; bind it about your bosom, and you may bring back Ares to heaven. If you like, charm the mind of Zeus, and if it is necessary, charm Oceanos also from his anger. Zeus sovereign in the heights will leave his earthly loves and return self-bidden to heaven—he will change his mind by my guileful girdle. This one puts to shame the heart-bewitching girdle of my Paphian!

This said, the wily-minded deity was off under the wind, cleaving the air with flying shoe.