les were praysed and
honored._

The gods of the Gentiles were honoured by their Poetes in hymnes, which is
an extraordinarie and diuine praise, extolling and magnifying them for
their great powers and excellencie of nature in the highest degree of
laude, and yet therein their Poets were after a sort restrained: so as
they could not with their credit vntruly praise their owne gods, or vse in
their lauds any maner of grosse adulation or vnueritable report. For in
any writer vntruth and flatterie are counted most great reproches.
Wherfore to praise the gods of the Gentiles, for that by authoritie of
their owne fabulous records, they had fathers and mothers, and kinred and
allies, and wiues and concubines: the Poets first commended them by their
genealogies or pedegrees, their mariages and aliances, their notable
exploits in the world for the behoofe of mankind, and yet as I sayd
before, none otherwise then the truth of their owne memorials might beare,
and in such sort as it might be well auouched by their old written
reports, though in very deede they were not from the beginning all
historically true, and many of them verie fictions, and such of them as
were true, were grounded vpon some part of an historie or matter of
veritie, the rest altogether figuratiue & misticall, couertly applied to
some morall or natural sense, as _Cicero_ setteth it foorth in his bookes
_de natura deorum_. For to say that _Iupiter_ was sonne to _Saturne_, and
that he maried his owne sister _Iuno_, might be true, for such was the
guise of all great Princes in the Orientall part of the world both at
those dayes and now is. Againe that he loued _Danae, Europa, Leda,
Calisto_ & other faire Ladies daughters to kings, besides many meaner
women, it is likely enough, because he was reported to be a very
incontinent person, and giuen ouer to his lustes, as are for the most part
all the greatest Princes, but that he should be the highest god in heauen,
or that he should thunder and lighten, and do manie other things very
vnnaturally and absurdly: also that _Saturnus_ should geld his father
_Celius_, to th'intent to make him vnable to get any moe children, and
other such matters as are reported by them, it seemeth to be some wittie
deuise and fiction made for a purpose, or a very noble and impudent lye,
which could not be reasonably suspected by the Poets, who were otherwise
discreete and graue men, and teachers of wisedome to others. Therefore
either t