Hactenus indulsisse vacat. Sin altior istis
Sub precibus venia ulla latet, totumque moveri
Mutarive putas bellum, spes pascis inanis."
But that he could not alter those decrees the king of gods himself
confesses in the book above cited, when he comforts Hercules for the
death of Pallas, who had invoked his aid before he threw his lance
at Turnus:-
"Trojae sub maenibus altis
Tot nati cecidere deum; quin occidit una
Sarpedon, mea progenies; etiam sua Turnum
Fata vocant, metasque dati pervenit ad aevi."
Where he plainly acknowledges that he could not save his own son, or
prevent the death which he foresaw. Of his power to defer the blow,
I once occasionally discoursed with that excellent person Sir Robert
Howard, who is better conversant than any man that I know in the
doctrine of the Stoics, and he set me right, from the concurrent
testimony of philosophers and poets, that Jupiter could not retard
the effects of fate, even for a moment; for when I cited Virgil as
favouring the contrary opinion in that verse -
"Tolle fuga Turnum, atque instantibus eripe fatis" -
he replied, and I think with exact judgment, that when Jupiter gave
Juno leave to withdraw Turnus from the present danger, it was
because he certainly foreknew that his fatal hour was not come, that
it was in destiny for Juno at that time to save him, and that
himself obeyed destiny in giving her that leave.
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