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And the like distinction of words we ought to observe also in things more weighty and serious. To begin with the Gods, we should teach our youth that poets, when they use the names of Gods, sometimes mean properly the Divine Beings so called, but otherwhiles understand by those names certain powers of which the Gods are the donors and authors, they having first led us into the use of them by their own practice. As when Archilochus prays, King Vulcan, hear thy suppliant, and grant That which thou’rt wont to give and I to want, it is plain that he means the God himself whom he invokes. But when elsewhere he bewails the drowning of his sister’s husband, who had not obtained lawful burial, and says, Had Vulcan his fair limbs to ashes turned, I for his loss had with less passion mourned, he gives the name of Vulcan to the fire and not to the Deity. Again, Euripides, when he says, No; by great Jove I swear, enthroned on high, And bloody Mars, Eurip. Phoeniss. 1006. means the Gods themselves who bare those names. But when Sophocles saith, Blind Mars doth mortal men’s affairs confound, As the swine’s snout doth quite deface the ground, we are to understand the word Mars to denote not the God so called, but war. And by the same word we are to understand also weapons made of hardened brass, in those verses of Homer, These are the gallant men whose noble blood Keen Mars did shed near swift Scamander’s flood. Il. VII. 329. Wherefore, in conformity to the instances given, we must conceive and bear in mind that by the names of Jupiter also sometimes they mean the God himself, sometimes Fortune, and oftentimes also Fate. For when they say,— Great Jupiter, who from the lofty hill Of Ida govern’st all the world at will; Il. III. 276. That wrath which hurled to Pluto’s gloomy realm The souls of mighty chiefs:— Such was the sovereign doom, and such the will of Jove; Il. I. 3 and 5. For who (but who himself too fondly loves) Dares lay his wisdom in the scale with Jove’s?— they understand Jupiter himself. But when they ascribe the event of all things done to Jupiter as the cause, saying of him,— Many brave souls to hell Achilles sent, And Jove’s design accomplished in th’ event,— they mean by Jove no more but Fate. For the poet doth not conceive that God contrives mischief against mankind, but he soundly declares the mere necessity of the things themselves, to wit, that prosperity and victory are destined by Fate to cities and armies and commanders who govern themselves with sobriety, but if they give way to passions and commit errors, thereby dividing and crumbling themselves into factions, as those of whom the poet speaks did, they do unhandsome actions, and thereby create great disturbances, such as are attended with sad consequences. For to all unadvised acts, in fine, The Fates unhappy issues do assign. From Euripides. But when Hesiod brings in Prometheus thus counselling his brother Epimetheus, Brother, if Jove to thee a present make, Take heed that from his hands thou nothing take, Hesiod, Works and Days, 86. he useth the name of Jove to express Fortune; for he calls the good things which come by her (such as riches, and marriages, and empires, and indeed all external things the enjoyment whereof is unprofitable to them who know not how to use them well) the gifts of Jove. And therefore he adviseth Epimetheus (an ill man, and a fool withal) to stand in fear of and to guard himself from prosperity, as that which would be hurtful and destructive to him.
