But why are we to add many more Gods? What a multitude of them there is! At least, it seems so to me; for every constellation, according to you, is a Deity: to some you give the name of beasts, as the goat, the scorpion, the bull, the lion; to others the names of inanimate things, as the ship, the altar, the crown.
But supposing these were to be allowed, how can the rest be granted, or even so much as understood? When we call corn Ceres, and wine Bacchus, we make use of the common manner of speaking; but do you think any one so mad as to believe that his food is a Deity? With regard to those who, you say, from having been men became Gods, I should be very willing to learn of you, either how it was possible formerly, or, if it had ever been, why is it not so now? I do not conceive, as things are at present, how Hercules,
Burn'd with fiery torches on Mount Œta,
as Accius says, should rise, with the flames,
To the eternal mansions of his father.
Besides, Homer also says that Ulysses[1] met him in the shades below, among the other dead.
But yet I should be glad to know which Hercules we should chiefly worship; for they who have searched into those histories, which are but little known, tell us of several. The most ancient is he who fought with Apollo about the Tripos of Delphi, and is son of Jupiter and Lisyto; and of the most ancient Jupiters too, for we find many Jupiters also in the Grecian chronicles. The second is the Egyptian Hercules, and is believed to be the son of Nilus, and to be the author of the Phrygian characters. The third, to whom they offered sacrifices, is one of the
- ↑ Our great author is under a mistake here. Homer does not say he met Hercules himself, but his Εῖδωλον, his "visionary likeness;" and adds that he himself
μετ’ ἀθανάτοισι θεοῖσι
τέρπεται ἐν θαλίῃς, καὶ ἔχει καλλίσφυρου Ἥβην,
παῖδα Διὸς μεγάλοιο καὶ Ἥρης χρυσοπεδίλου.which Pope translates—
A shadowy form, for high in heaven's abodes
Himself resides, a God among the Gods;
There, in the bright assemblies of the skies,
He nectar quaffs, and Hebe crowns his joys.
