• Phaeton, having heard from Epaphus that he was not the son of Apollo, ran in great eagerness and anxiety to his mother, Clymene, to ascertain the truth. Ovid, Metamorphoses , I , Dryden’s Tr. :⁠— “Mother, said he, this infamy was thrown By Epaphus on you, and me your son. He spoke in public, told it to my face; Nor durst I vindicate the dire disgrace: Even I, the bold, the sensible of wrong, Restrained by shame, was forced to hold my tongue. To hear an open slander, is a curse: But not to find an answer, is a worse. If I am heaven-begot, assert your son By some sure sign; and make my father known, To right my honor, and redeem your own. He said, and, saying, cast his arms about Her neck, and begged her to resolve the doubt.” ↩
• The disaster that befell Phaeton while driving the steeds of Apollo, makes fathers chary of granting all the wishes of children. ↩
• Who seest in God all possible contingencies as clearly as the human mind perceives the commonest geometrical problem. ↩
• God, “whose centre is everywhere, whose circumference nowhere.” ↩