The color of god’s blood

The flatterers of Alexander the great made him believe that he was the son of Jupiter. But being one day sore hurt, and seeing the blood gush out of his wounds: ‘And what think you of this? (said he unto them), Is not this blood of a lively red hew, and merely humane? Methinks it is not of that temper which Homer faineth to trill from the gods wounds.’ Hermodorus the Poet made certain verses in honor of Antigonus, in which he called him the son of Phoebus. To whom he replied, ‘My friend, he that emptieth my close-stools knoweth well there is no such matter.’ He is but a man at all assays: And if of himself he be a man ill-borne, the Empire of the whole world cannot restore him.

Montaigne