and he was called Vulcan as though 'flying brightness' (volans candor), or as though volicanus, because he flies through the air. For fire is born from the clouds. Whence Homer too says that he was hurled down from the air to the earth, because every thunderbolt falls from the air. And for this reason Vulcan is feigned to have been born from the thigh of Juno, because thunderbolts are born from the lower air. Vulcan is called lame (claudus) because by its nature fire is never straight, but has, as it were lame, a kind of appearance and motion of that sort. And they say that this same Vulcan is the author in the smiths' furnace, because without fire no kind of metal can be melted and wrought. Pluto in Greek is Diespiter or Ditis pater (father of wealth) in Latin, whom others call Orcus, as though 'the receiver of deaths' (receptor mortium). Whence a vessel that receives waters is also called an orca.
He himself in Greek is also Charon. They will have Liber named from 'liberation' (liberamentum), because, as it were, males in intercourse are freed (liberentur) by his favor when the seed is emitted; which same Liber is depicted with a womanly and delicate body. For they say that women were assigned to him, and wine, for the sake of arousing lust. Hence his brow too is girded with vine-shoots. But he has a crown of vine and a horn for this reason: because when wine is drunk with gratitude and moderation, it affords gladness; when beyond measure, it stirs up strifes — that is, it gives, as it were, horns. The same is also Lyaeus, APO TOU LUEIN (from loosing), because the limbs are loosed by much wine. He too in Greek is DIONYSOS, from Nysa, a mountain of India, where he is said to have been reared. Besides, there is also a city Nysa, in which this same Liber is worshiped, whence he was called Nysaeus.
他在希臘文中也是卡戎（Charon）。他們要利柏爾（Liber）得名於「解脫」（liberamentum），因為彷彿男子在交合中射精時，藉他的恩惠得以釋放（liberentur）；這同一位利柏爾被畫成女性化而柔弱的身軀。因為他們說女子與酒都歸於他，為要挑動情慾。因此他的額頭也纏繞著葡萄藤蔓。但他之所以有葡萄冠與角，緣由是：當人以感恩與節制飲酒時，酒帶來歡樂；當過量時，便挑起爭鬧——即彷彿長出了角。他同時也是呂埃俄斯（Lyaeus），源於希臘文 APO TOU LUEIN（鬆解），因為肢體被大量的酒所鬆解。他在希臘文中也是狄俄尼索斯（Dionysos），源於印度的倪撒山（Nysa），據說他在那裡被養育。此外還有一座倪撒城，這同一位利柏爾在那裡受敬拜，因此他被稱為倪撒烏斯（Nysaeus）。
Mercury they interpret as 'speech' (sermo). For Mercury is said to be named as though 'running in the middle' (medius currens), because speech runs in the middle among men. For this reason too he is ERMES in Greek, because speech, or interpretation — which certainly pertains to speech — is called ERMENEIA. For this reason too he presides over merchandise, because between sellers and buyers speech is made in the middle. He is feigned to have wings for this reason: because words run about the more swiftly. Whence he is brought in as swift and wandering; his wings on his head and on his feet signify that speech is made a winged thing through the air. He is called a messenger (nuntius) because through speech all thoughts are announced. And they call him the master of theft, because speech deceives the minds of hearers. He holds a rod, with which he divides serpents, that is, poisons.
For those at war and in discord are calmed by the speech of interpreters; whence, according to Livy, the ambassadors of peace are called heralds (caduceatores). For just as wars were declared through the fetials, so peace was made through the heralds. Hermes, moreover, in Greek is called APO TES ERMENEIAS, in Latin 'interpreter' (interpres); who, on account of his virtue and his knowledge of many arts, was named Trismegistus, that is, 'thrice greatest.' But as to why they feign him with a dog's head, this reason is given: because among all animals the dog is held to be a most sagacious and keen-sighted kind. They say that Mars is the god of war, and that Mars is so named because it is by men (viri) that battle is waged, so that Mars is mas (male); though there are also three kinds of custom — as of the Scythians, where both women and men go into battle; of the Amazons, where women alone go;
因為交戰不和的人被翻譯者的言語所平息；因此據李維所載，議和的使節稱為傳令使（caduceatores）。因為正如戰爭是藉祭司團（fetiales）宣告，照樣和平是藉傳令使達成的。此外，赫爾墨斯（Hermes）在希臘文中稱為 APO TES ERMENEIAS，拉丁文意為「翻譯者」（interpres）；他因其德行與對眾多技藝的知識，被稱為特里斯墨吉斯圖斯（Trismegistus），即「三重至大者」。至於他們為何把他虛構成狗頭，所給的緣由是：因為在一切動物中，狗被視為最機敏、最有洞察力的一類。他們說瑪爾斯（Mars）是戰神，Mars 之名是因戰爭是由男子（viri）發動的，故 Mars 即 mas（男性）；不過也有三種習俗——如斯基泰人的，那裡女子與男子都上陣作戰；亞馬遜人的，那裡惟有女子出戰；
This is the custom of the Romans and other nations, where only males are present. Likewise Mars is understood as if he were the author of deaths (mortium), for from Mars death (mors) takes its name. They also call him an adulterer, because to those making war he is uncertain. And because he stands with bared breast, it signifies that each man should hurl himself into battle without dread of heart. Among the Thracians Mars is called Gradivus, either because those who fight advance a step (gradum) in war, or because they march briskly (inpigre gradiantur). As for Apollo, although they wished him to be a diviner and a physician, they nevertheless also called him the Sun, as it were 'alone' (solum). They called him Titan, as though one of the Titans who did not rise against Jupiter. They called him Phoebus, as if ephebus, that is, a youth. Hence the sun too is depicted as a boy, because it rises daily and is born with new light.
They say that the same Apollo is also called Pythius, from Python, a serpent of enormous bulk, whose venom terrified no more than its size. When Apollo laid it low with the blows of his arrows, he bore off the spoils of its name as well, so that he was called Pythius. Hence, as a mark of his victory, he appointed the Pythian rites to be celebrated. Likewise they say that Diana, his sister, is the moon and the guardian of ways. Hence too they hold her to be a virgin, because a way brings forth nothing. And therefore both are imagined to carry arrows, because those two heavenly bodies cast their rays from the sky all the way down to the earth. Diana was named as if Duana, because the moon appears both by day (die) and by night. They also assert her to be Lucina, because she gives light (luceat). They call the same one Trivia, because she is endowed with three forms.
Concerning her Virgil says (Aeneid 4,511): 'The three faces of the maiden Diana,' because the same one is called Luna, the same Diana, the same Proserpina. But when she is figured as the Moon, Prudentius (Against Symmachus 1,363) says: 'She shines in a faintly gleaming mantle.' When girt up she casts her reeds, she is the Latonian maiden; when she sits enthroned below, she is the Plutonian consort. She is called Latonia Diana because she was the daughter of Latona. Ceres, that is, the earth, they assert is named from the creating (creandis) of crops, calling her by very many names. They also call her Ops, because by cultivation (opere) the earth becomes better; Proserpina, because from her the crops creep forth (proserpiant); Vesta, because she is clothed (vestita) with herbs and various things, or from standing by her own force. They likewise imagine her as Tellus and the Great Mother, turreted, with a tambourine and a cock and the clamor of cymbals.
She is called Mother (Mater) because she brings forth very many things; Great (Magna) because she produces food; Nourishing (Alma) because she feeds all living creatures with her fruits. For the earth is the nurse of all nourishment. That her image is fashioned with a key signifies that the earth is closed in winter and opened in spring, so that the crops may come forth. That she has a tambourine, they wish to signify the orb of the earth. That she is said to ride in a chariot means that she herself is the earth which hangs in the air. That she is supported by wheels means that the world revolves and is ever-turning. That they place tame lions beneath her is to show that no kind of thing is so wild that it cannot be tamed or overcome by her. That she wears a turreted crown upon her head shows that the cities set upon the earth stand out, as it were marked out by their towers.
That seats are imagined around her means that, although all things are moved, she herself is not moved. That her ministers the Corybantes are imagined to be with drawn swords is to signify that all men ought to fight for their own land. That they made the galli serve this goddess signifies that those who lack seed ought to follow the earth; for in her indeed they find all things. That they leap about before her is a precept, they say, that those who till the earth should not sit idle, for there is always something to be done. And the sound of the cymbals is the clashing of iron implements in cultivating the field; but they are of bronze because the ancients tilled the earth with bronze before iron was discovered.
They hold that the same Vesta is also fire, because it is not doubtful that the earth contains fire, as may be understood from Aetna and Vulcan. And therefore they think her a virgin, because fire is an inviolable element, and nothing can be born from it, since it consumes whatever it seizes. Ovid in the Fasti (6,291): 'Understand Vesta as nothing other than the living flame; and you see that no bodies are born from flame.' For this reason, too, virgins are said to serve her, because just as nothing is born from a virgin, so nothing is born from fire. They say Juno is, as it were, Janus, that is, a door (ianua), because of the purifications of women, since she opens, as it were, the gates of mothers to their offspring, and of brides to their husbands. But this is the philosophers' view. The poets, however, assert that Juno is the sister and consort of Jupiter:
for they interpret fire and air as Jupiter, water and earth as Juno; and by the mingling of these two all things are generated. And they call her sister because she is a part of the world; consort, because being mingled she is in concord. Hence Virgil says (Georgics 2,325): 'Then the almighty father Aether descends in fecund showers into the lap of his consort.' Minerva among the Greeks is called Athene, that is, 'woman.' But among the Latins she is called Minerva, as it were a goddess and the gift (munus) of the various arts. For they hold her to be the inventor of many talents, and hence they interpret her as art and reason, because without reason nothing can be held together.
Since this reason is born from the mind alone, and they think the mind resides in the head and brain, they therefore say that she was born from the head of Jupiter, because the sense of the wise man, which discovers all things, is in the head. On her breast the head of the Gorgon is figured, because there resides all prudence, which confounds others and proves them unlearned and stone-like; this we also see in the ancient statues of emperors, in the middle of the breastplate on the breast, in order to insinuate wisdom and valor. This Minerva is also called Tritonia. For Triton is a marsh of Africa, near which she is said to have appeared at a maiden's age, on account of which she was named Tritonia. And thus she was the more readily believed a goddess, the less her origin was known.
She is called Pallas either from the island Pallene in Thrace, where she was reared; or from apo tou pallein to doru, that is, from the brandishing of the spear; or because she slew the giant Pallas. They say Venus is so named because a woman does not cease to be a virgin without force (sine vi). The Greeks call her Aphrodite, on account of the foam that generates blood; for aphros in Greek means foam. And as for their fancy that Saturn cut off the genitals of his father Caelus, and that blood flowed into the sea, and from it, when the foam of the sea had congealed, Venus was born, they say this because through intercourse there is a substance of salty moisture; and hence Venus is called Aphrodite, because intercourse is the foam of blood, which consists of the liquid and salty juice of the inner organs.
她被稱為帕拉斯（Pallas），或是得名於色雷斯的帕勒涅（Pallene）島，她在那裡被養育；或是源自 apo tou pallein to doru，即揮動長矛之意；或是因為她殺死了巨人帕拉斯。他們說維納斯（Venus）如此得名，是因為女子非藉暴力（sine vi）便不會不再是處女。希臘人稱她為阿佛洛狄忒（Aphrodite），是因為那生血的泡沫；因為 aphros 在希臘語中意為泡沫。至於他們的想像——薩圖爾努斯（Saturn）割去其父凱路斯（Caelus）的生殖器，血流入海，海的泡沫凝結後，維納斯由此而生——他們如此說，是因為藉交合而有鹹濕之物質；因此維納斯被稱為阿佛洛狄忒，因為交合是血的泡沫，它由臟腑液狀而鹹的汁液所構成。
For this reason they call Venus the wife of Vulcan, because the office of Venus consists only in heat, whence comes the saying (Virgil, Georgics 3,97): 'An old man is cold toward Venus.' For as to Saturn being said to have cut off the private parts of his father Caelus, which falling into the sea created Venus, this is imagined because unless moisture descends from heaven upon the earth, nothing is created. They say Cupid is so called on account of love (cupido). For he is the demon of fornication. He is depicted winged, because nothing is lighter, nothing more changeable than lovers. He is depicted as a boy, because love is foolish and irrational. He is imagined to hold an arrow and a torch: an arrow, because love wounds the heart; a torch, because it inflames.
The Greeks call him Pan, the Latins Silvanus, the god of country folk, whom they fashioned in the likeness of nature; whence he is called Pan, that is, 'all.' For they imagine him from the universal appearance of the elements. For he has horns in the likeness of the rays of the sun and moon. He has a skin spotted with markings, on account of the stars of the sky. His face is ruddy in the likeness of the aether. He carries a pipe of seven reeds, on account of the harmony of the heavens, in which there are seven sounds and seven distinctions of tones. He is shaggy, because the earth is clothed with things that are stirred by the winds. His lower part is foul, on account of the trees and wild beasts and cattle. He has goat's hooves, to show the solidity of the earth; they hold him to be the god of things and of all nature;
whence they call him Pan, as it were 'all things.' Isis, in the language of the Egyptians, means the earth, which they wish to be Isis. Now Isis was a queen of the Egyptians, daughter of King Inachus, who coming from Greece taught the Egyptians letters and instituted the cultivation of the land; on account of which they even called the land by her name. Serapis is the greatest of all the gods of the Egyptians. He is Apis, king of the Argives, who was carried by ships into Egypt, and having died there, was called Serapis; because the chest in which the dead man is placed, which they call a sarcophagus, is in Greek called soros, and there they began to venerate him buried, before his temple was built. So from soros and Apis he was first called Sorapis, then, one letter being changed, Serapis.
Apis was among the Egyptians a bull consecrated to Serapis, and so named after him, which Egypt worshipped as though it were a deity, because it gave certain manifest signs concerning the future. For it used to appear at Memphis. A hundred priests followed it, and suddenly, as if frenzied, they would prophesy. The Jews made for themselves an image of its head in the desert. The Fauns are named from speaking (fando), or apo tes phones, because they seemed to reveal the future by voice, not by signs. For they were consulted by the pagans in groves, and gave responses not by signs but by voices. They call it Genius because it has, as it were, the power (vim) of generating all things, or from the begetting (gignendis) of children; whence the marriage beds were called 'genial' by the gentiles, which were spread for a new husband.
阿匹斯在埃及人中是一頭獻給塞拉庇斯的公牛，並因他而得此名，埃及人如同敬奉神明般崇拜牠，因為牠給出關於未來的某些明顯徵兆。因為牠常在孟斐斯顯現。有一百名祭司隨侍牠，並會突然如癲狂般預言。猶太人在曠野為自己造了牠頭部的像。法烏尼（Fauni，牧神）得名於「言說」（fando），或源自 apo tes phones，因為他們似乎以聲音而非徵兆來揭示未來。因為異教徒在樹林中向他們求問，而他們並非以徵兆而是以聲音給出答覆。他們稱之為蓋尼烏斯（Genius，守護靈），因為它彷彿具有生育萬物之力（vim），或源自生養（gignendis）子女；因此外邦人把為新郎鋪設的婚床稱為「genial」（生育之床）。
These and others are the fabulous fictions of the gentiles, which, though thus interpreted, are held in such a way that, without understanding them, they nonetheless damnably worship them. They say that Fate (fatum) is whatever the gods speak (fantur), whatever Jupiter utters (fatur). Therefore they say fate is from speaking (fando), that is, from uttering. And unless this word were already accustomed to be understood in another matter, toward which we do not wish to incline the hearts of men, we could reasonably call fate from 'speaking.' For we cannot deny that it is written in the sacred letters (Psalm 61,12): 'God has spoken once: these two things I have heard,' and the rest. For what is said, 'he has spoken once,' is understood as immovably, that is, unchangeably he has spoken;
just as he knows unchangeably all things that are to come, and all that he himself will do. They imagine three Fates at the distaff and spindle, and with fingers twisting the thread from wool, on account of the three times: the past, which is already spun and wound upon the spindle; the present, which is drawn between the fingers of the one spinning; the future, in the wool that is wrapped about the distaff, and which is still, through the fingers of the one spinning, to be drawn onto the spindle, as the present is drawn into the past. The Parcae are so called by antiphrasis, because they by no means spare (parcant). They wished them to be three: one who begins the life of a human being; another who weaves it; a third who breaks it off. For we begin when we are born, we exist when we live, we cease when we perish.
They say Fortune takes her name from chance events (fortuitis), as though a certain goddess mocking human affairs with various accidents and chance happenings; whence they also call her blind, because she runs at random upon whomever she meets, without any examination of merits, and comes both to the good and to the wicked. But they separate Fate from Fortune: Fortune is, as it were, in those things that come by chance, with no cause apparent; but Fate, they say, is assigned to individuals and fixed. They also speak of three Furies, women with hair of serpents, on account of three passions which engender many disturbances in the minds of men, and sometimes drive them so to offend that they permit no regard for reputation or for their own danger: Anger, which craves vengeance; Cupidity, which desires wealth;
and Lust, which seeks pleasures. They are called Furies because with their goads they strike the mind and do not allow it to be at rest. They think the Nymphs are goddesses of the waters, named from clouds (nubibus). For from clouds come waters, whence the name is derived. The Nymphs are goddesses of the waters, as it were the deities of the streams (lymphas). They say that these same ones are also the Muses whom they call Nymphs, and not without reason; for the motion of water produces music. Among the gentiles the names of the Nymphs are various. For they call the Nymphs of the mountains Oreads, of the woods Dryads, of the springs Hamadryads, of the fields Naiads, of the sea Nereids. They say the Heroes drew their name from Juno. For in Greek Juno is called Hera. And therefore some son of hers, according to the Greek fable, was named Eros;
the fable evidently signifying this as something mystical, namely that the air is assigned to Juno, where they wish the Heroes to dwell. By this name they call the souls of the dead who possessed some merit, as it were aeroae, that is, aerial men, worthy of heaven on account of their wisdom and fortitude. The gentiles called Penates all the gods whom they worshipped at home. And they were called Penates because they were in the inner rooms (penetralibus), that is, in secret places. How these gods were invoked, or what names they had, is unknown. They call the Manes the gods of the dead, whose power they assert to be between the moon and the earth; and from them they think 'morning' (mane) was named;
these they think are called Manes from the air, which is manos, that is, rare; or because they spread (manant) widely through the breezes; or because they are mild (mites), the opposite of the savage (inmanibus), they are called by this name. But Apuleius says they are called Manes by antiphrasis, that is, mild and modest, whereas they are in fact terrible and savage, like the Parcae, like the Eumenides. They say Larvae are demons made out of men who have deserved to be wicked. Their nature is said to be to terrify little children and to chatter in dark corners. Lamiae, whom the fables relate are wont to seize and tear infants, are specifically named from tearing (laniando). The Pilosi, who in Greek are called Panitae, in Latin are called Incubi, or Inui, from entering (ineundo) at will with animals. Hence too they are called Incubi from lying upon (incumbendo), that is, from ravishing.
For often these shameless ones arise even against women, and accomplish intercourse with them; these demons the Gauls call Dusii, because they constantly perpetrate this uncleanness. And the one whom the common people call Incubo, the Romans call the fig-loving Faun. To him Horace says (Odes 3,18,1): 'Faun, lover of the fleeing Nymphs, may you pass gently through my borders and sunny fields.'