Eyer, et al, the Necessity of Replacing God…

[Byron In Exile]

~~~

There is no God.

Amicus

Zeus is more real than you are.

More people know about him than know about you.

 

[Byron In Exile]

At the end of The Faerie Queene, Change (Mutabilitie) concludes her case against Jupiter (Jove, Zeus), before Nature, concerning which of them actually rules the Universe. Nature decides the case:


Then are ye mortal born, and thrall to me,
Unless the kingdom of the sky ye make
Immortal, and unchangeable to be;
Besides, that power and virtue which ye spake,
That ye here work, doth many changes take,
And your own natures change: for, each of you
That virtue have, or this, or that to make,
Is check'd and changéd from his nature true,
By others' opposition or obliquid view.

Besides, the sundry motion of your spheres,
So sundry ways and fashions as clerks fain,
Some short in space, and some in longer years;
What is the same but alteration plain?
Only the starry sky doth still remain:
Yet do the stars and signs therein still move,
And even itself is mov'd, as wizards sain.
But all that moveth doth mutation love:
Therefore both you and them to me I subject prove.

Then since within this wide great Universe
Nothing doth firm and permanent appear,
But all things tost and turnéd by transverse:
What then should let, but I aloft should rear
My Trophy, and from all, the triumph bear?
Now judge then (O thou greatest goddess true!)
According as thy self dost see and hear,
And unto me addoom that is my due:
That is the rule of all, all being rul'd by you.

So having ended, silence long ensued,
Ne Nature to or fro spake for a space,
But with firm eyes affixt, the ground still viewed.
Meanwhile, all creatures, looking in her face,
Expecting th'end of this so doubtful case,
Did hang in long suspence what would ensue,
To whether side would fall the sovreign place:
At length, she looking up with cheerful view,
The silence brake, and gave her doom in speeches few.

I well consider all that ye have said,
And find that all things steadfastness do hate
And changéd be: yet being rightly weighed
They are not changéd from their first estate;
But by their change their being do dilate:
And turning to themselves at length again,
Do work their own perfection so by fate:
Then over them Change doth not rule and reign;
But they reign over change, and do their states maintain.

Cease therefore daughter further to aspire,
And thee content thus to be rul'd by me:
For thy decay thou seekst by thy desire;
But time shall come that all shall changéd be,
And from thenceforth, none no more change shall see.
So was the Titanesse put down and whist,
And Jove confirm'd in his imperial see.
Then was that whole assembly quite dismiss'd,
And Nature's self did vanish, whither no man wist.