do so. Minerva is an angry termagant--mean, mischief-making, and
vindictive. She begins by pulling Achilles' hair, and later on she
knocks the helmet from off the head of Mars. She hates Venus, and
tells the Grecian hero Diomede that he had better not wound any of
the other gods, but that he is to hit Venus if he can, which he
presently does 'because he sees that she is feeble and not like
Minerva or Bellona.' Neptune is a bitter hater.

Apollo, Mars, Venus, Diana, and Jove, so far as his wife will let
him, are on the Trojan side. These, as I have said, meet with
better, though still somewhat contemptuous, treatment at the poet's
hand. Jove, however, is being mocked and laughed at from first to
last, and if one moral can be drawn from the Iliad more clearly than
another, it is that he is only to be trusted to a very limited
extent. Homer's position, in fact, as regards divine interference
is the very opposite of David's. David writes, "Put not your trust
in princes nor in any child of man; there is no sure help but from
the Lord." With Homer it is, "Put not your trust in Jove neither in
any omen from heaven; there is but one good omen--to fight for one's
country. Fortune favours the brave; heaven helps those who help
themselves."

The god who comes off best is Vulcan, the lame, hobbling, old
blacksmith, who is the laughing-stock of all the others, and whose
exquisitely graceful skilful workmanship forms such an effective
contrast to the uncouth exterior of the workman. Him, as a man of
genius and an artist, and furthermore as a somewhat despised artist,
Homer treats, if with playfulness, still with respect, in spite of
the fact that circumstances have thrown him more on the side of the
Greeks than of the Trojans, with whom I understand Homer's