PREFACE. ill 



rence in the very structure of them, and propriety of 

 names wherewith the persons or actors in them are 

 ascribed and intituled, that no man can constantly 

 deny but this sense was in the author s intent and 

 meaning, when they first invented them, and that 

 they purposely shadowed it in this sort : for who can 

 be so stupid and blind in the open light, as (when he 

 hears how fame, after the giants were destroyed, 

 sprang up as their youngest sister), not to refer it to 

 the murmurs and seditious reports of both sides, 

 which are wont to fly abroad for a time after the 

 suppressing of insurrections ? Or when he hears how 

 the giant Typhon having cut out and brought away 

 Jupiter s nerves, which Mercury stole from him, and 

 restored again to Jupiter ; doth not presently per 

 ceive how fitly it may be applied to powerful rebel 

 lions, which take from princes their sinews of money 

 and authority ; but so, that by affability of speech 

 and wise edicts (the minds of their subjects being in 

 time privily, and as it were by stealth reconciled) 

 they recover their strength again ? Or when he hears 

 how, in that memorable expedition of the gods 

 against the giants, the braying of Silenus s ass, 

 conduced much to the profligation of the giants, 

 doth not confidently imagine that it was invented to 

 shew how the greatest enterprises of rebels are often 

 times dispersed with vain rumours and fears. 



Moreover, to what judgment can the conformity 

 and signification of names seem obscure ? Seeing 

 Metis, the wife of Jupiter, doth plainly signify coun 

 sel ; Typhon, insurrection ; Pan, universality ; Ne- 



