taken:  naked, because all true affection is simple and open:  he smiles, because merry and given to delights:  hath a quiver, to show his power, none can escape:  is blind, because he sees not where he strikes, whom he hits, &c.”  His power and sovereignty is expressed by the [4641]poets, in that he is held to be a god, and a great commanding god, above Jupiter himself; Magnus Daemon, as Plato calls him, the strongest and merriest of all the gods according to Alcinous and [4642]Athenaeus. Amor virorum rex, amor rex et deum, as Euripides, the god of gods and governor of men; for we must all do homage to him, keep a holiday for his deity, adore in his temples, worship his image, (numen enim hoc non est nudum nomen) and sacrifice to his altar, that conquers all, and rules all: 

[4643] “Mallem cum icone, cervo et apro Aeolico,
        Cum Anteo et Stymphalicis avibus luctari
        Quam cum amore”------

“I had rather contend with bulls, lions, bears, and giants, than with Love;” he is so powerful, enforceth [4644]all to pay tribute to him, domineers over all, and can make mad and sober whom he list; insomuch that Caecilius in Tully’s Tusculans, holds him to be no better than a fool or an idiot, that doth not acknowledge Love to be a great god.

[4645] “Cui in manu sit quem esse dementem velit,
        Quem sapere, quam in morbum injici,” &c.

That can make sick, and cure whom he list.  Homer and Stesichorus were both made blind, if you will believe [4646]Leon Hebreus, for speaking against his godhead:  and though Aristophanes degrade him, and say that he was [4647]scornfully rejected from the council of the gods, had his wings clipped besides, that he might come no more amongst them, and to his farther disgrace banished heaven for ever, and confined to dwell on earth, yet he is of that [4648]power, majesty, omnipotency, and dominion, that no creature can withstand him.

[4649] “Imperat Cupido etiam diis pro arbitrio,
        Et ipsum arcere ne armipotens potest Jupiter.”

He is more than quarter-master with the gods,

[4650]  ------“Tenet
Thetide aequor, umbras Aeaco, coelum Jove:” 

and hath not so much possession as dominion.  Jupiter himself was turned into a satyr, shepherd, a bull, a swan, a golden shower, and what not, for love; that as [4651]Lucian’s Juno right well objected to him, ludus amoris tu es, thou art Cupid’s whirligig:  how did he insult over all the other gods, Mars, Neptune, Pan, Mercury, Bacchus, and the rest? [4652] Lucian brings in Jupiter complaining of Cupid that he could not be quiet for him; and the moon lamenting that she was so impotently besotted on Endymion, even Venus herself confessing as much, how rudely and in what sort her own son Cupid had used her being his [4653]mother, “now drawing her to Mount Ida, for the love of that Trojan Anchises, now to Libanus for that Assyrian youth’s sake.  And although she threatened to break his bow and arrows, to clip his wings, [4654]and whipped him besides on the bare buttocks with her pantofle, yet all would not serve, he was too headstrong and unruly.”  That monster-conquering Hercules was tamed by him: