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While it is also necessary not to pass over the words carelessly, yet one should eschew the puerility of Cleanthes; for there are times when he uses a mock seriousness in pretending to interpret the words, Father Zeus, enthroned on Ida,Homer, Il. iii. 320; vii. 202; xxiv. 208 and Zeus, lord of Dodona, bidding us in the latter case to read the last two words as one Ibid. xvi. 233. It is of inerest that this reading is attested also in scholia on the passage. (taking the word lord as the preposition up) as though the vapour exhaled from the earth were updonative because of its being rendered up! And Chrysippus also is often quite petty, although he does not indulge in jesting, but wrests the words ingeniously, yet without carrying conviction, as when he would force the phrase wide-seeing son of Cronos Ibid. i. 498. to signify clever in conversation, that is to say, with a widespread power of speech.
