I have mentioned this passage in my preface to the Æneïs, to prove that fate was superior to the gods, and that Jove could neither defer nor alter its decrees. Sir Robert Howard has since been pleased to send me the concurrent testimony of Ovid: it is in the last book of his Metamorphoses, where Venus complains that her descendant, Julius Cæsar, was in danger of being murdered by Brutus and Cassius, at the head of the commonwealth-faction, and desires [_the gods_] to prevent that barbarous assassination. They are moved to compassion; they are concerned for Cæsar; but the poet plainly tells us, that it was not in their power to change destiny. All they could do, was to testify their sorrow for his approaching death, by fore-shewing it with signs and prodigies, as appears by the following lines:-- _Talia necquidquam toto Venus anxia cælo Verba jacit; superosque movet: qui rumpere quanquam Ferrea non possunt veterum decreta sororum, Signa tamen luctús dant haud incerta futuri._ Then she addresses to her father Jupiter, hoping aid from him, because he was thought omnipotent. But he, it seems, could do as little as the rest; for he answers thus: ----_sola insuperabile Fatum, Nata, movere paras? Intres licet ipsa sororum Tecta trium; cernes illic, molimine vasto, Ex ære et solido rerum tabularia ferro_, _Quæ neque concursum cœli, neque fulminis iram, Nec metuunt ullas, tuta atque æterna, ruinas. Invenies illic, incisa adamante perenni, Fata tui generis. Legi ipse, animoque notavi; Et referam, ne sis etiamnum ignara futuri. Hic sua complevit (pro quo, Cytherea, laboras) Tempora, perfectis, quos terræ debuit, annis, &c._ Jupiter, you see, is only library-keeper, or _custos rotulorum_, to the Fates: for he offers his daughter a cast of his office, to give her a sight of their decrees, which the inferior gods were not permitted to read without his leave. This agrees with what I have said already in the preface; that they, not having seen the records, might believe they were his own hand-writing, and consequently at his disposing, either to blot out or alter as he saw convenient. And of this opinion was Juno in those words, _tua, qui potes, orsa reflectas_. Now the abode of those Destinies being in hell, we cannot wonder why the swearing by Styx was an inviolable oath amongst the gods of heaven, and that Jupiter himself should fear to be accused of forgery by the Fates, if he altered any thing in their decrees; Chaos, Night, and Erebus, being the most ancient of the deities, and instituting those fundamental laws, by which he was afterwards to govern. Hesiod gives us the genealogy of the gods; and I think I may safely infer the rest. I will only add, that Homer was more a fatalist than Virgil: for it has been observed, that the word Τυχη, or _Fortune_, is not to be found in his two poems; but, instead of it, always Μοιρα. ÆNEÏS, BOOK XI. ARGUMENT.