“Jove’s decided will.”
I adopt Heath’s emendation Βούλιος for δούλιος. Well., with superstitious reverence for the most corrupt text extant, retaining the δούλίος, is forced to explain δούλιος φρην, “dictum videtur de hominibus qui Jovis auxilium imploraverunt;” but this will never do. The reader is requested to observe what a pious interpretation is, in this passage, given to the connection of Jove and Io—how different from that given by Prometheus, [p. 202] above. We may be assured that the orthodox Heathen view of this and other such matters lies in the present beautifully-toned hymn, and not in the hostile taunts which the poet, for purely dramatic purposes, puts into the mouth of the enemy of Jove.
“Holy Hecate’s aid avail thee.”
Hecate is an epithet of Artemis, as Hecatos of Apollo, meaning far or distant (ἕκας). According to the prevalent opinion among mythologists, both ancient and modern, this goddess is merely an impersonation of the Moon, as Phoebus of the Sun. The term “far-darting” applies to both equally; the rays of the great luminaries being fitly represented as arrows of a far-shooting deity. In the Strophe which follows, Phoebus, under the name of Λυκειος, is called upon to be gracious to the youth of Argos.
ἐυμενὴς δ᾽ (ο) Λύκειος
ἔστω πάσᾳ νεολαίᾳ,
and in the translation I have taken the liberty, pro hac vice, as the lawyers say, to suppose that this epithet, as some modern scholars suggest, has nothing to do etymologically with λύκος, a wolf, but rather with the root λυκ, which we find in the substantive λυκάβας, and in the Latin luceo. Æschylus, however, in the Seven against Thebes ([p. 266] above), adopts the derivation from λύκος, as will be seen from my version. I have only to add that, if Artemis be the Moon, her function as the patroness of parturition, alluded to in the present passage, is the most natural thing in the world. On this whole subject, Keightley, c. viii. is very sensible.