to him, keep a holiday for his deity, adore in his temples,
worship his image, (_numen enim hoc non est nudum nomen_) and sacrifice to
his altar, that conquers all, and rules all:

[4643] "Mallem cum icone, cervo et apro Aeolico,
Cum Anteo et Stymphalicis avibus luctari
Quam cum amore"------

"I had rather contend with bulls, lions, bears, and giants, than with
Love;" he is so powerful, enforceth [4644]all to pay tribute to him,
domineers over all, and can make mad and sober whom he list; insomuch that
Caecilius in Tully's Tusculans, holds him to be no better than a fool or an
idiot, that doth not acknowledge Love to be a great god.

[4645] "Cui in manu sit quem esse dementem velit,
Quem sapere, quam in morbum injici," &c.

That can make sick, and cure whom he list. Homer and Stesichorus were both
made blind, if you will believe [4646]Leon Hebreus, for speaking against
his godhead: and though Aristophanes degrade him, and say that he was
[4647]scornfully rejected from the council of the gods, had his wings
clipped besides, that he might come no more amongst them, and to his
farther disgrace banished heaven for ever, and confined to dwell on earth,
yet he is of that [4648]power, majesty, omnipotency, and dominion, that no
creature can withstand him.

[4649] "Imperat Cupido etiam diis pro arbitrio,
Et ipsum arcere ne armipotens potest Jupiter."

He is more than quarter-master with the gods,

[4650] ------"Tenet
Thetide aequor, umbras Aeaco, coelum Jove:"

and hath not so much possession as dominion. Jupiter himself was turned
into a satyr, shepherd, a bull, a swan, a golden shower, and what not, for
love; that as [4651]Lucian's Juno right well objected to him, _ludus amoris
tu es_, thou art Cupid's whirligig: how did he insult over all the other
gods, Mars, Neptune, Pan, Mercury, Bacchus, and the rest? [4652] Lucian
brings in Jupiter complaining of Cupid that he could not be quiet for him;
and the moon lamenting that she was so impotently besotted on Endymion,
even Venus herself confessing as much, how rudely and in what sort her own
son Cupid had used her being his [4653]mother, "now drawing her to Mount
Ida, for the love of that Trojan Anchises, now to Libanus for that Assyrian
youth's sake. And although she threatened to break his bow and arrows, to
clip his wings, [4654]and whipped him besides on the bare buttocks with her
pantofle, yet all would not serve, he was too