l\ /SDOM Or THE ANC/ENTS. 445 



But the most excellent remedy, in every temptation, U that of 

 Orpheus, who, by loudly chanting and resounding the praises of the 

 gods, confounded the voices, and kept himself from hearing the music 

 of the Sirens ; for divine contemplations exceed the pleasures of i&amp;gt;cn:&amp;gt;c, 

 rot only in power, but also in sweetness. 



XVIII. Till-: FAKLK OF DIOMKD. 



E\I I.\INKI) OF I F.PSKC JTION, OR /EAL FOR RELIGION. 



L lOMEO acquired great glory and honour at the Trojan war, and 

 was highly favoured by Pallas, who encouraged and excited him by no 

 means to spare Venus, if he should casually meet her in fight. He 

 followed the advice with too much eagerness and intrepidity, and 

 accordingly wounded that goddess in her hand. This presumptuous 

 action remained unpunished for a time, and when the war was ended 

 be returned with great glory and renown to his own country, where, 

 finding himself embroiled with domestic affairs, he retired into Italy. 

 Here also at first he was well received and nobly entertained by King 

 Daunus, who, besides other gifts and honours, erected statues for 

 him over all his dominions. But upon the first calamity that aftlicted 

 the people after the stranger s arrival, Daunus immediately reflected 

 that he entertained a devoted person in his palace, an enemy to 

 the gods, and one who had sacrilegiously wounded a goddess with 

 his sword, whom it was impious but to touch. To expiate, therefore, 

 his country s guilt, he, without regard to the laws of hospitality, which 

 v.cre lc;.s regarded by him than the laws of religion, directly slew his 

 guest, and commanded all his statues and all his honours to be razed 

 and abolished. Nor was it safe for others to commiserate or bewail 

 so cruel a destiny; but even his companions in arms, whilst they 

 lamented the death of their leader, and filled all places with their 

 complaints, were turned into a kind of swans, which arc said, at the 

 approach of their own death, to chant sweet melancholy dirges. 



EXPLANATION*. This f.iblc intimates an extraordinary and almost 

 singular thing, for no hero besides Diomcd is recorded to have wounded 

 any of the gods. Doubtless we have here described the nature and 

 fate of a man who professedly makes any divine worship or sect of 

 religion, though in itself vain and light, the only sco|&amp;gt;e of his actions, 

 and resolves to propagate it by fire and sword. For although the 

 bloody dissensions and differences about religion were unknown to the 

 ancients, yet so copious and diffusive was their knowledge, that what 

 they knew not by experience they comprehended in thought and repre 

 sentation. Those, therefore, who endeavour to reform or establish any 

 sect of religion, though vain, rorrupt, and infamous (which is here 

 denoted under the person of Venus), not by the force of reason, learn- 



