many as Fate at his birth wove in his thread [of destiny],[1] to him, what time his mother brought him forth. But if Achilles shall not learn these things from the voice of a god, he will afterward be afraid when any god comes against him in battle; for the gods, when made manifest, are terrible to be seen manifestly."[2]
But her then earth-shaking Neptune answered:
"Juno, be not beyond reason enraged; nor is it at all necessary. I, indeed, would not desire that we should engage the other gods in a battle, since we are much more powerful.[3] Rather let us, going out of the way, sit down upon a place of observation,[4] but the war shall be a care to mortals. But if Mars shall begin the combat, or Apollo, or shall restrain Achilles, and not suffer him to fight, then immediately shall the strife of contention there arise to us; and I think that they, having very speedily decided it, will return to Olympus, and mix with the assembly of other gods, violently subdued by necessity under our hands."
Thus then having spoken, the azure-haired [god] led the way to the lofty mound-raised wall of divine Hercules, which the Trojans and Pallas Minerva had made, that, flying, he might escape from the sea-monster, when pursued from the shore to the plain. There then Neptune sat down, and the other gods, and drew an indissoluble cloud around their shoulders; while on the other side they sat upon the tops of Callicolone, around thee, O archer Apollo, and Mars, the sacker of cities. Thus they sat on both sides, planning designs, yet both were unwilling to commence grievous war; but Jove, sitting aloft, cheered them on. All the plain, however, was
- ↑ See Duport, p. 114. On the web woven by the Fates for man's life, see Virg. Ecl. iv. 46; Catullus, lxiv. 328. But this passage of Homer seems to imply the ancient notion, that the Fates might be delayed, but never set aside. Cf. Nemes. de Nat. Hom. i. 36; Censorin. de die Nat. xiv.; Serv. on Æn. vii. 398.
- ↑ "Deos manifesto in lumine vidi."—Virg. Æn. iv. 358. On the belief that the sight of a god was attended with danger, cf. Liv. i. xvi., where Proculus beseeches the apparition of Romulus "ut contra intueri fas esset." See intpp. on Exod. xxxiii. 20; Judges xiii. 22.
- ↑ I am half inclined to condemn this verse as spurious, with Ernesti. It is wanting in MS. Lips. and ed. Rom., and does not appear to have been read by Eustathius.
- ↑ Compare the "Contemplantes" of Lucan, sub init., where the gods seek a similar place of observation.
