On whose account I’ll curse that flood of light,
Whate’er it is above that shines so bright.
Our augurs also mean the same, when, for the “thundering and lightning heaven,” they say the “thundering and lightning Jove.” Euripides, among many excellent things, has this:
The vast, expanded, boundless sky behold,
See it with soft embrace the earth enfold;
This own the chief of Deities above,
And this acknowledge by the name of Jove.
XXVI. The air, according to the Stoics, which is between the sea and the heaven, is consecrated by the name of Juno, and is called the sister and wife of Jove, because 280it resembles the sky, and is in close conjunction with it. They have made it feminine, because there is nothing softer. But I believe it is called Juno, a juvando (from helping).
To make three separate kingdoms, by fable, there remained yet the water and the earth. The dominion of the sea is given, therefore, to Neptune, a brother, as he is called, of Jove; whose name, Neptunus—as Portunus, a portu, from a port—is derived a nando (from swimming), the first letters being a little changed. The sovereignty and power over the earth is the portion of a God, to whom we, as well as the Greeks, have given a name that denotes riches (in Latin, Dis; in Greek, Πλούτων), because all things arise from the earth and return to it. He forced away Proserpine (in Greek called Περσεφόνη), by which the poets mean the “seed of corn,” from whence comes their fiction of Ceres, the mother of Proserpine, seeking for her daughter, who was hidden from her. She is called Ceres, which is the same as Geres—a gerendis frugibus[145]—“from bearing fruit,” the first letter of the word being altered after the manner of the Greeks, for by them she is called Δημήτηρ, the same as Γημήτηρ.[146] Again, he (qui magna vorteret) “who brings about mighty changes” is called Mavors; and Minerva is so called because (minueret, or minaretur) she diminishes or menaces.
XXVII. And as the beginnings and endings of all things are of the greatest importance, therefore they would have their sacrifices to begin with Janus.[147] His name is derived ab eundo, from passing; from whence thorough passages are called jani, and the outward doors of common houses are called januæ. The name of Vesta is, from the Greeks, the same with their Ἑστία. Her province is over altars and hearths; and in the name of this Goddess, who is the keeper of all things within, prayers and sacrifices are concluded. The Dii Penates, “household Gods,” have some affinity with this power, and are so called either from penus, 281“all kind of human provisions,” or because penitus insident (they reside within), from which, by the poets, they are called penetrales also. Apollo, a Greek name, is called Sol, the sun; and Diana, Luna, the moon. The sun (sol) is so named either because he is solus (alone), so eminent above all the stars; or because he obscures all the stars, and appears alone as soon as he rises. Luna, the moon, is so called a lucendo (from shining); she bears the name also of Lucina: and as in Greece the women in labor invoke Diana Lucifera, so here they invoke Juno Lucina. She is likewise called Diana omnivaga, not a venando (from hunting), but because she is reckoned one of the seven stars that seem to wander.[148] She is called Diana because she makes a kind of day of the night;[149] and presides over births, because the delivery is effected sometimes in seven, or at most in nine, courses of the moon; which, because they make mensa spatia (measured spaces), are called menses (months). This occasioned a pleasant observation of Timæus (as he has many). Having said in his history that “the same night in which Alexander was born, the temple of Diana at Ephesus was burned down,” he adds, “It is not in the least to be wondered at, because Diana, being willing to assist at the labor of Olympias,[150] was absent from home.” But to this Goddess, because ad res omnes veniret—“she has an influence upon all things”—we have given the appellation of Venus,[151] from whom the word venustas (beauty) is rather derived than Venus from venustas.