Hērā’s wording here rationalizes her initiating a sexual encounter with Zeus. The idea of such an encounter is conventionally known as hieros gamos—in the sense of ‘sacred sexual intercourse’ (as in Theocritus 17.131). From the dramatic standpoint of the immediate narrative context, Hērā is making up what she is saying; in the comments that follow, however, it is argued that the wording of the goddess here derives from genuine theogonic traditions centering on the idea of sacred intercourse as an act of cosmogonic creation.