Ζεῦ τέλειε. I see no reason in the connection of this passage to give the epithet of τέλειος a special allusion to Jove, as along with Juno, the patron of marriage. Blom., Peile, and among the translators, Med. and Ken. take this view. But Pot., Sym., Con., Fr., Voss., and Droys. content themselves with the more obvious and general meaning. It is not contended, I presume, by any one that the epithet τέλειος, when applied to Jove, necessarily refers to marriage, independently of the context, as for instance in Eumen. 28. The origin of the epithet may be seen in Homer, Il. IV. 160-168, etc.
“. . . unbidden and unhired.”
“Poor Louis! With them it is a hollow phantasmagoria, where, like mimes, they mope and mow, and utter false sounds for hire, but with thee it is frightful earnest.”—Carlyle’s French Revolution; the ancient and the modern, with equal felicity, alluding to the custom prevalent in ancient times of hiring women to mourn for the dead. We must also note, however, that there is an example here of that spontaneous prophecy of the heart by god-given presentiment, which is so often mentioned in Homer. The ancients, indeed, were the furthest possible removed from that narrow conception of a certain modern theology, which confines the higher influences of inspiration to a privileged sacerdotal order. In St. Paul’s writings, the whole Church prophesies; and so in Homer the fair Helen, who had no pretensions to the character of a professional soothsayer, prefaces her interpretation of an omen by saying,
“Hear my word; as in my heart the immortal gods suggest the thought,
I will read the omen rightly, as the sure event shall show.”
Odys. XV. 172.
The words used by Homer to express this action of the divine on the human mind are βάλλειν ὑποτίθεσθαι, and such like, to throw into, and to put under, or suggest.
“Unloosed their cables from the shore.”