At times we find a more or less fatalistic view of life, Fate being conceived as a destiny fixed at birth, for the notion that the thread of life was spun already existed. So Hecuba, wailing for her son, cries that mighty Fate spun Hector’s doom at the hour she gave him birth;[13] and Alcinous declares that under Phaeacian escort Odysseus shall reach his home, but that there he will suffer all that Fate and the cruel spinsters spun for him when his mother bore him.[14] This fatalism is most clearly expressed in passages such as that where Odysseus on Circe’s isle cheers his companions by reminding them that they shall not enter the house of Hades until their fated day shall come,[15] and especially in those lines in which Hector comforts his wife Andromache who would have restrained his impetuous desire for battle:[16] “My good wife, grieve not overmuch for me in thy heart, for no man shall send me to Hades contrary to my fate; and I say that none, be he a coward or brave, has ever escaped his doom, when once it comes.” Still the Homeric bard had not arrived at any consistent view of destiny; he gave utterance to that feeling which men had vaguely then as now, that beyond all lies something fixed and invariable to which all things and beings are ultimately subject. As we have seen, the divinities may work at cross purposes; there is nothing in the Homeric poems like monotheism or pantheism in any true sense. When the Homeric man said that a thing happened “with god’s help,” he was simply recognizing the agency of the gods in everything. Not knowing the special divinity concerned, he left him nameless; least of all had he any concept of a complete divine polity. There is, therefore, no such thing in the epics as a divine providence in the way of a definite purpose or plan such as we shall later find in the fifth century. Like mortals the Homeric gods discuss their plans, without being able to see the end from the beginning; they are moved by caprice, so that Zeus changes sides twice on the second day of the great battle between the Achaeans and Trojans.[17] The vacillating and capricious character of the gods is not offset by the protection that a divinity may give a favorite, such as Athena gave to Odysseus in his long wanderings and on his return to Ithaca. Throughout both poems we find the assumption constantly held that every blessing comes from the gods, that they give every distinction. In like fashion men believed that all misfortunes were due to divine anger or hostility. So Odysseus was kept from home for nearly ten years by Poseidon’s hate; the favor of Athena toward the Achaeans turned to wrath because of the violence done her shrine in the sack of Troy so that she caused an evil return for her former favorites. Indeed in misfortune the Homeric hero’s first question was as to what god he had offended. The problem of evil therefore was a simple one—all depended on the will or whim of some divinity.