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 the glorious stars I swear,
And bloody Mars and Jupiter,
(Euripides, "Phoenissae," 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.
("Iliad," 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;
("Iliad," 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;
(Ibid. 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,—