Thus the poets: but others, that he laboured with his hands, as hired in this work; and that he also laboured at the building of the Labyrinth in Greece, all the Megarians witness, saith Pausanias 3.

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In these days also of Ehud, or (as some find it) in the days of Deborah, lived Perseus the son of Jupiter and Danae, by whose soldiers, (as they sailed out of Peloponnesus to seek their adventure on Africa side,) Medusa the daughter and successor of Phorcus, being weakly accompanied as she hunted near the lake Triton, was surprised and slain; whose beauty, when Perseus beheld, he caused her head to be imbalmed, and carried into Greece: the beauty whereof was such, and so much admired, and the beholders so astonished which beheld it, as thereof grew the fiction, that all that looked on Medusa's head were turned into stones.

10

Cecrops, the second of that name, and seventh king of Athens, and Acrisius the thirteenth, or, after Eusebius, the fourteenth king of the Argives, began also their reigns, as it is said, in the time of this judge; of which the first ruled forty years, and the second thirty-one years. Also Bellerophon lived in this age, being the son of Glaucus, the son of Sisyphus; who, enticed by Antea or Sthenobia the wife of Prætus of the Argives, to accompany her, but refusing it, she accused him to her husband that he offered to force her; whereupon Prætus sent Bellerophon into Lycia, about some affairs of weight between him and his son-in-law Jobates, giving secret order to Jobates to dispatch him; but Jobates thinking it dishonourable to lay violent hands on him, employed him against Chimæra, a monster vomiting or breathing fire. Now the gods (as the report is) pitying his innocency, sent him the winged horse Pegasus, sprung up of the blood of Medusa, formerly slain by the soldiers of Perseus in Africa, to transport him; a horse that

8 Paus. in Att. Didym. in pereg. hist.

9 Triton a lake of Africa, which Pliny calleth Pallantias. 10 Euseb. in Chron.

none other could master or bridle but Minerva; upon which beast Bellerophon overcame Chimæra, and performed the other services given him in charge; which done, as he returned toward Lycia, the Lycians lay in ambush to have slain him; but being victorious also over all those, he arrived to Jobates in safety; whom Jobates for his eminent virtues honoured, first, with one of his daughters, and afterward with his kingdom. After which he grew so insolent, as he attempted to fly up to heaven upon his Pegasus; whose pride Jupiter disdaining, caused one of his stinging flies so to vex Pegasus, as he cast off Bellerophon from his back, into the valley of Cilicia, where he died blind; of which burthen Pegasus being discharged, (as the fable goeth,) he flew back to heaven; and being fed in Jupiter's own stable, Aurora begged him of Jupiter to ride on before the sun. This tale is diversly expounded; as first, by some, that it pleaseth God to relieve men in their innocent, and undeserved adversity, and to cast down those which are too high-minded; according to that which is said of Bellerophon, that when he was exposed to extreme hazard, or rather certain death, he found both deliverance and honour; but waxing over-proud and presumptuous in his glorious fortunes, he was again thrown down into the extremity of sorrow and ever-during misery. Secondly, By others, that under the name of Chimara", was meant a cruel pirate of the Lycians, whose ship had in her prow a lion, a goat in the mid-ship, and a dragon in the stern; of which three beasts this monster Chimæra was said to be compounded; whom Bellerophon pursued with a kind of galley, of such swiftness, that it was called the flying horse; to whom the invention of sails (the wings of a ship,) are also attributed. Many other expositions are made of this tale by other authors; but it is not unlikely, that Chimara was

11 Plutarch, in claris mulier.

the name of a ship, for so Virgil calleth one of the greatest ships of Æneas1.

Ion also, from whom the Athenians, (being ignorant of the antiquity of their parent Javan,) derive their name of Iones, is said to have been about Ehud's time; Homer calls them Iaones13, which hath a near resemblance to the word Javan. Perhaps it might be so, that Ion himself took name from Javan; it being a custom observable in the histories of all times, to revive the ancient name of a forefather, in some of the principal of his issue.

The invasion of India by Liber Pater, is by some reported as done in this age; but St. Augustine makes him far more ancient; placing him between the coming out of Egypt, and the death of Joshua.

About the end of the eighty years, ascribed to Ehud and Samgar, Pelops flourished; who gave name to Peloponnesus in Greece, now called Morea.

SECT. IV.

Of Deborah, and her contemporaries.

AFTER Israel had lived in peace and plenty to the end of these eighty years, they again began to forget the Giver of all goodness, and many of those being worn out, which were witnesses of the former misery, and of God's deliverance by Ehud, and after him by Samgar, the rest began to return to their former neglect of God's commandments. For as plenty and peace are the parents of idle security; so is security as fruitful in begetting and bringing forth both danger and subversion; of which all estates in the world have tasted by interchange of times. Therefore, when their sins were again ripe for punishment, Jabin king of Hazor, after the death of Ehud, invaded the territory of Israel; and having in his service nine hundred iron chariots, besides the rest

12 L. v. Æneid. Dei. 1. xviii. c. xv. VOL. III.

13 Homer in hymno ad Apoll. Lib. xviii. c. xii, de Civ.

B

of his forces, he held them in subjection twenty years, till it pleased God to raise up Deboral, the prophetess, who encouraged Barak to levy a force out of Nephtalim, and Zabulon, to encounter the Canaanites. That the men of Nephtalim were more forward than the rest in this action, it may seem to have proceeded, partly from the authority that Barak had among them, being of the same tribe; and partly from their feeling of the common grievances, which in them was more sensible than in others, because Hazor and Haroseth, the chief holds of Jabin, were in Nephtalim. So, in the days of Jephtha, the Gileadites took the greatest care, because the Ammonites, with whom the war was, pressed most upon them, as being their borderers. Now, as it pleased God, by the left hand of Ehud, to deliver Israel from the Moabites; and by the counsel and courage of a woman, to free them from the yoke of Canaan, and to kill the valiant Sisera by Jael the Kenite's wife; so was it his will, at other times, to work the like

great things by the weakest means. For the mighty Assyrian Nabuchodonosor, who was a king of kings, and resistless, he overthrew by his own imaginations, the causers of his brutish melancholy; and changed his matchless pride into the base humility of a beast. And to prove that he is the Lord of all power, he sometimes punished by invisible strength, as when he slaughtered the army of Senacherib by his angel; or as he did the Egyptians in Moses's time; sometimes by dead bodies, as when he drowned Pharaoh by the waves of the sea, and the Canaanites by hailstones in the time of Joshua; sometimes by the ministry of men, as when he overthrew the four kings of the east, Chedorlaomer and his companions, by the household servants of Abraham. He caused the Moabites and Ammonites to set upon their own confederates, the army of the Edomites'; and having slain them, to kill one another in the sight of Jeho

1 Chron. Xx

shaphat; and of the like to these, a volume of examples may be gathered. And to this effect did Deborah the prophetess speak unto Barak in these words: But this journey that thou takest shall 'not be for thine honour, for the Lord shall sell 'Sisera into the hand of a woman'.' In which victory all the strength of the Canaanite Jabin fell to the ground, even to the last man; in the end of which war, it seemeth that Jabin himself also perished, as appeareth by Judges iv. 24.

After all which Deborah giveth thanks to God, and after the acknowledment of all his powerfulness, and great mercies, she sheweth the weak estate whereunto Israel was brought for their idolatry, by the Canaanites, and other bordering nations in these words: Was there a shield or spear seen among 'forty thousand of Israel 3 ?" She also sheweth how ?' the Israelites were severed and amazed, some of them confined over Jordan, and durst not join themselves with the rest, as those of Reuben and Gilead; that the Asherites kept the sea coast, and forsook their habitations towards the land; and the children of Dan, who neighboured the sea, crept into their ships for safety, shewing thereby that all were dispersed, and all in effect lost. She then cursed the inhabitants of Meroz, who dwelling near the place of the battle, belike fearing the success, came not out to assist Israel; and then blessed Jael the wife of He ber the Kenite, who nailed Sisera in her tent; shewing the ancient affection of that race to the Israelites. For though the family of Heber were enforced in that miserable time of subjection, to hold correspondence with Jabin the Canaanite; yet, when occasion offered them means, they witnessed their love and faith to their ancient friends. Lastly, she derided the mother of Sisera, who promised her son the victory in her own hopes; and fancied to herself, and described the spoils, both of garments