(Ibid. i. 223.)

for it was unlikely that speaking in such anger he should observe any
rules of decency.

And he passeth like censures on actions. As on Achilles's foul usage of
Hector's carcass,--

Gloomy he said, and (horrible to view)
Before the bier the bleeding Hector threw.
("Iliad," xxiii. 24.)

And in like manner he doth very decently shut up relations of things
said or done, by adding some sentence wherein he declares his judgment
of them. As when he personates some of the gods saying, on the occasion
of the adultery of Mars and Venus discovered by Vulcan's artifice,--

See the swift god o'ertaken by the lame!
Thus ill acts prosper not, but end in shame.
("Odyssey," viii. 329.)

And thus concerning Hector's insolent boasting he says,--

With such big words his mind proud Hector eased,
But venerable Juno he displeased.
("Iliad," viii. 198.)

And when he speaks of Pandarus's shooting, he adds,--

He heard, and madly at the motion pleased,
His polish'd bow with hasty rashness seized.
(Ibid. iv. 104.)

Now these verbal intimations of the minds and judgments of poets are not
difficult to be understood by any one that will heedfully observe them.
But besides these, they give us other hints from actions. As Euripides
is reported, when some blamed him for bringing such an impious and
flagitious villain as Ixion upon the stage, to have given this answer:
But yet I brought him not off till I had fastened him to a torturing
wheel. This same way of teaching by mute actions is to be found in Homer
also, affording us useful contemplations upon those very fables which
are usually most disliked in him. These some men offer force to, that
they may reduce them to allegories (which the ancients called [Greek
omitted]), and tell us that Venus committing adultery with Mars,
discovered by the Sun, is to be understood thus: that when the star
called Venus is in conjunction with that which hath the name of Mars,
bastardly births are produced, and by the Sun's rising and discovering
them they are not concealed. So will they have Juno's dressing herself
so accurately to tempt Jupiter, and her making use of the girdle of
Venus to inflame his love, to be nothing else but the purification of
that part of the air which draweth nearest to the nature of fire. As
if we were not told the meaning of those fables far better by the poet
himself. For he teacheth us in