e man to whom he gives the bitter cup unmixed--

'He walks
The blessed earth unbless'd, go where he will.'

And if any one asserts that the violation of oaths and treaties by the
act of Pandarus was brought about by Athene and Zeus (Iliad, ii. 60), we
should refuse our approbation. Nor can we allow it to be said that the
strife and trial of strength between tween the gods (Iliad, xx.) was
instigated by Themis and Zeus.... Such language can not be used without
irreverence; it is both injurious to us, and contradictory in
itself.[146]

Inasmuch as God is perfect to the utmost in beauty and goodness, _he
abides ever the same_, and without any variation in his form. Then let
no poet tell us that (Odyss. xvii. 582)

'In similitude of strangers oft
The Gods, who can with ease all shapes assume,
Repair to populous cities.'

And let no one slander Proteus and Thetis, or introduce in tragedies, or
any other poems, Hera transformed into the guise of a princess
collecting

'Alms for the life-giving children of Inachus, river of Argos,'

not to mention many other falsehoods which we must interdict.[147]

"When a poet holds such language concerning the gods, we shall be angry
with him, and refuse him a chorus. Neither shall we allow our teachers
to use his writings for the instruction of the young, if we would have
our guards grow up to be as god-like and god-fearing as it is possible
for men to be."[148]

We are thus constrained by the statements of the heathens themselves, as
well as by the dictates of common sense, to look beyond the external
drapery and the material forms of Polytheism for some deeper and truer
meaning that shall be more in harmony with the facts of the universal
religious consciousness of our race. The religion of ancient Greece
consisted in something more than the fables of Jupiter and Juno, of
Apollo and Minerva, of Venus and Bacchus. "Through the rank and
poisonous vegetation of mythic phraseology, we may always catch a
glimpse of an original stem round which it creeps and winds itself, and
without which it can not enjoy that parasitical existence which has been
mistaken for independent vitality."[149]

[Footnote 146: "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xix.]

[Footnote 147: "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xx. Much more to the same effect
may be seen in ch. ii.]

[Footnote 148: "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xxi.]

[Footnote 149: Max Muell