Νῆ’ ὀλίγην αἰνεῖν, μεγάλῃ δ’ ἐνὶ φορτία θέσθαι. For here αἰνεῖν signifies _to praise_ (instead of ἐπαινεῖν), and _to praise_ is used for _to refuse_. So in conversation it is common with us to say, καλῶς ἔχει, _it is well_ (i.e., _No, I thank you_), and to bid any thing _fare well_ (χαίρειν); by which forms of speech we refuse a thing which we do not want, or receive it not, but still with a civil compliment. So also some say that Proserpina is called ἐπαινή in the notion of παραιτητή, _to be deprecated_, because death is by all men shunned. And the like distinction of words we ought to observe also in things more weighty and serious. To begin with the Gods, we should teach our youth that poets, when they use the names of Gods, sometimes mean properly the Divine Beings so called, but otherwhiles understand by those names certain powers of which the Gods are the donors and authors, they having first led us into the use of them by their own practice. As when Archilochus prays, King Vulcan, hear thy suppliant, and grant That which thou’rt wont to give and I to want, it is plain that he means the God himself whom he invokes. But when elsewhere he bewails the drowning of his sister’s husband, who had not obtained lawful burial, and says, 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 great Jove I swear, enthroned on high, And bloody Mars,[44] 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.[45] 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;[46] 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;[47] 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,— Many brave souls to hell Achilles sent, And Jove’s design accomplished in th’ event,—