Chapter 11

Many ancient writers, with whom Ovid here agrees, affirm that Memnon was the son of Tithonus, the brother of Priam, and Aurora, or Eos, the Goddess of the morn. They also say that he came to assist the Trojans with ten thousand Persians, and as many Æthiopians. Diodorus Siculus asserts that Memnon was said to have been the son of Aurora, because he left Phrygia, and went to settle in the East. It is not clear in what country he fixed his residence. Some say that it was at Susa, in Persia; others that it was in Egypt, or in Æthiopia, which perhaps amounts to the same, as Æthiopia was not in general distinguished from the Higher or Upper Egypt. Marsham is of opinion that Memnon was the same with Amenophis, one of the kings of Egypt: while Le Clercconsidershim to have been the same person as Ham, the son of Noah; and Vossius identifies him with Boalcis, a God of the Syrians. It seems probable that he was an Egyptian, who had perhaps formed an alliance with the reigning family of Troy.xiii. 623-646.FABLES V.ANDVI.Afterthe taking of Troy, Æneas escapes with his father and his son, and goes to Delos. Anius, the priest of Apollo, recounts to him how his daughters have been transformed into doves, and at parting they exchange presents. The Poet here introduces the story of the daughters of Orion, who, having sacrificed their lives for the safety of Thebes, when ravaged by a plague, two young men arise out of their ashes.But yet the Fates do not allow the hope of Troy to be ruined even with its walls. The Cytherean hero bears on his shoulders the sacred relics and his father, another sacred relic, a venerable burden. In his affection, out of wealth so great, he selects that prize, and his own Ascanius, and with his flying fleet is borne through the seas from Antandros,57and leaves the accursed thresholds of the Thracians, and the earth streaming with the blood of Polydorus; and, with good winds and favouring tide, he enters the city of Apollo, his companions attending him.Anius, by whom, as king, men were,andby whom, as priest, Phœbus was duly provided for, received him both into his temple and his house, and showed him the city and the dedicated temples, and the two trunks of trees once grasped58by Latona in her labour. Frankincense being given to the flames, and wine poured forth on the frankincense, and the entrails of slain oxen59being duly burnt, they repair to the royal palace, and reclining on lofty couches, with flowing wine, they take the gifts of Ceres. Then the pious Anchisessays, “O chosen priest of Phœbus, am I deceived? or didst thou not have a son, also, when first I beheld these walls, and twice two daughters, so far as I remember?” To him Anius replies, shaking his temples wreathed with snow-white fillets, and says, “Thou art not mistaken, greatest hero; thou didst see me the parent of five children, whom now (so great a vicissitude of fortunexiii. 646-683.affects mankind) thou seest almost bereftof all. For what assistance is my absent son to me, whom Andros, a landsocalled after his name, possesses, holding that place and kingdom on behalf of his father?“The DelianGodgranted himthe art ofaugury; to my female progeny Liber gave other gifts, exceedingbothwishes and belief. For, at the touch of my daughters, all things were transformed into corn, and the stream of wine, and the berry of Minerva; and in these were there rich advantages. When the son of Atreus, the destroyer of Troy, learned this (that thou mayst not suppose that we, too, did not in some degree feel your storms) using the force of arms, he dragged them reluctantly from the bosom of their father, and commanded them to feed, with their heavenly gifts, the Argive fleet. Whither each of them could, they made their escape. Eubœa was sought by two; and by as many of my daughters, was Andros, their brother’sisland, sought. The forces came, and threatened war if they were not given up. Natural affection, subdued by fear, surrendered to punishment those kindred breasts; and, that thou mayst be able to forgive a timid brother, there was no Æneas, no Hector to defend Andros, through whom youTrojansheld out to the tenth year. And now chains were being provided for their captive arms. Lifting up towards heaven their arms still free, they said, ‘Father Bacchus, give us thy aid!’ and the author of their gift did give them aid; if destroying them, in a wondrous manner, be called giving aid. By what means they lost their shape, neither could I learn, nor can I now tell. The sum of their calamity is knownto me: they assumed wings, and were changed into birds of thy consort,60the snow-white doves.”With such and other discourse, after they have passed thetime offeasting, the table being removed, they seek sleep. And they rise with the day, and repair to the oracle of Phœbus, who bids them seek the ancient mother and the kindred shores. The king attends, and presents them with gifts when about to depart; a sceptre to Anchises, a scarf and a quiver to his grandson,anda goblet to Æneas, which formerly Therses, his Ismenian guest, had sent him from the Aonian shores; thisxiii. 683-712.Therses had sent to him,butthe Mylean Alcon had made it, and had carved it with this long device:There was a city, and you might point outitsseven gates: these were in place of61a name, and showed whatcityit was. Before the city was a funeral, and tombs, and fires, and funeral piles; and matrons, with hair dishevelled and naked breasts, expressed their grief; the Nymphs, too, seem to be weeping, and to mourn their springs dried up. Without foliage the bared tree runs straight up; the goats are gnawing the dried stones. Lo! he represents the daughters of Orion in the middle of Thebes; the one, as presenting her breast, more than woman’s, with her bared throat; the other, thrusting a sword in her valorous wounds, as dying for her people, and as being borne, with an honoured funeral, through the city, and as being burnt in a conspicuous partof it;andthen from the virgin embers, lest the race should fail, twin youths arising, whom Fame calls ‘Coronæ,’62and for their mothers’ ashes leading thefuneralprocession.Thus far for the figures that shine on the ancient brass; the summit of the goblet is rough with gilded acanthus. Nor do the Trojans return gifts of less value than those given; and to the priest they give an incense-box, to keep the frankincense; they give a bowl,too, and a crown, brilliant with gold and gems. Then recollecting that theTrojans,asTeucrians, derived their origin from the blood of Teucer, they make for Crete, and cannot long endure the air of that place;63and, having left behind the hundred cities, they desire to reach the Ausonian harbours. A storm rages, and tosses the men to and fro; and winged Aëllo frightens them, when received in the unsafe harbours of the Strophades.64And now, borne along,xiii. 712-718.they have passed the Dulichian harbours, and Ithaca, and Same,65and the Neritian abodes, the kingdom of the deceitful Ulysses; and they behold Ambracia,66contended for in a dispute of the Deities, which now is renowned for the Actian Apollo,67and the stone in the shape of the transformed judge, and the land of Dodona, vocal with its oaks; and the Chaonian bays, where the sons of the Molossian king escaped the unavailing flames, with wings attachedto them.EXPLANATION.Virgil describes Anius as the king of Delos, and the priest of Apollo at the same time. ‘Rex Anius, rex idem hominum Phœbique sacerdos.’ Æneid, Book III. He was descended from Cadmus, through his mother Rhea, the daughter of Staphilus. Having engaged in some intrigue, as Diodorus Siculus conjectures, her father exposed her on the sea in an open boat, which drove to Delos, and she was there delivered of Anius, who afterwards became the king of the island. By his wife Dorippe he had three daughters, who were extremely frugal, and by means of the offerings and presents that were brought to the temple of Apollo, amassed a large store of provisions. During the siege of Troy, the Greeks sent Palamedes to Delos, to demand food for the army; and, as a security for his compliance with these demands, they exacted the daughters of Anius as hostages. The damsels soon afterwards finding means to escape, it was said that Bacchus, who was their kinsman through Cadmus, had transformed them into doves. Probably the story of their transforming every thing they touched, into wine, corn, and oil, was founded solely on their thriftiness and parsimony. Bochart, however, explains the story from the circumstance of their names being, as he conjectures, Oëno, Spermo, and Elaï, which, in the old Phœnician dialect, signified wine, corn, and oil; and he thinks that the story was confirmed in general belief by the fact that large quantities of corn, wine, and oil were supplied from Delos to the Grecian army when before Troy.In the reign of Orion, Thebes being devastated by a plague, the oracles were consulted, and the Thebans were told that the contagion would cease as soon as the daughters of the king should be sacrificed to the wrath of heaven. The two maidens immediately presented themselves at the altar; and on their immolation, the Gods were appeased, and the plague ceased.This example of patriotism and fortitude filled the more youthful Thebans with so much emulation, that they shook off their former inactivity, and soon became conspicuous for their bravery: which sudden change gave occasion to the saying, that the ashes of these maidens had been transformed into men.The Poet follows Æneas on his voyage, to gain an opportunity of referring to several other current stories. Among other places, he passes the city of Ambracia, about which the Gods had contended, and sees the rock into which the umpire of their dispute, who had decided in favour of Hercules, was changed. Ambracia was on the coast of Epirus, and gave its name to an adjacent inlet of the sea, called the Ambracian Gulf. Antoninus Liberalis tells us, on the authority of Nicander, that Apollo, Diana, and Hercules disputed about this city, and left the decision to Cragaleus, who gave it in favour of Hercules; on which, Apollo transformed him into a rock. Very possibly the meaning of this may be, that when the people of Ambracia were considering to which of these Deities they should dedicate their city, Cragaleus preferred Hercules to the other two, or, in other words, the feats of war to the cultivation of the arts and sciences. Apollo was said to have turned him into a stone, either because he met with his death near the promontory where a temple of Apollo stood, or to show the stupidity of his decision. Antoninus Liberalis is the only writer besides Ovid that makes mention of the adventure of the sons of the Molossian king; he tells us that Munychus, king of the Molossi, had three sons, Alcander, Megaletor, and Philæus, and a daughter named Hyperippe. Some robbers setting fire to their father’s house, they were transformed by Jupiter into birds. This, in all probability, is a poetical way of saying that the youths escaped from the flames, contrary to universal expectation.The opinions of writers have been very conflicting as to the origin of the oracle of Dodona. Silius Italicus says that two pigeons flew from Thebes in Egypt, one of which went to Libya, and occasioned the founding of the oracle of Jupiter Ammon; while the other settled upon an oak in Chaonia, and signified thereby to the inhabitants, that it was the will of heaven that there should be an oracle in that place. Herodotus says that two priestesses of Egyptian Thebes being carried off by some Phœnician merchants, one of them was sold to the Greeks, after which she settled in the forest of Dodona, where a little chapel was founded by her in honour of Jupiter, in which she gave responses. He adds, that they called her ‘the dove,’ because being a foreigner they did not understand her language. At length, having learned the language of the Pelasgians, it was said that the dove had spoken. On that foundation grew the tradition that the oaks themselves uttered oracular responses.Notwithstanding this plausible account of Herodotus, it is not impossible that some equivocal expressions in the Hebrew and Arabian languages may have given rise to the story. ‘Himan,’ in the one language, signified ‘a priest;’ and ‘Heman,’ in the other, was the name for ‘a pigeon.’ Possibly those who found the former word in the history of ancient Greece, written in the dialect of the original Phœnician settlers, did not understand it, and by their mistake, caused it to be asserted that a dove had founded theoracle of Dodona. Bochart tells us that the same word, in the Phœnician tongue, signifies either ‘pigeons,’ or ‘women;’ but the Abbè Sallier has gone still further, and has shown that, in the language of the ancient inhabitants of Epirus, the same word had the two significations mentioned by Bochart.This oracle afterwards grew famous for its responses, and the priests used considerable ingenuity in the delivery of their answers. They cautiously kept all who came to consult them at a distance from the dark recess where the shrine was situated; and took care to deliver their responses in a manner so ambiguous, as to make people believe whatever they pleased. In this circumstance originates the variation in the descriptions of the oracle which the ancients have left us. According to some, it was the oaks that spoke; according to others, the beeches; while a third account was that pigeons gave the answers; and, lastly, it was said that the ringing of certain cauldrons there suspended, divulged the will of heaven. Stephanus Byzantinus has left a curious account of this contrivance of the cauldrons; he says that in that part of the forest of Dodona, where the oracle stood, there were two pillars erected, at a small distance from each other. On one there was placed a brazen vessel, about the size of an ordinary cauldron: and on the other a little boy, which was most probably a piece of mechanism, who held a brazen whip with several thongs which hung loose, and were easily moved. When the wind blew, the lashes struck against the vessel, and occasioned a noise while the wind continued. It was from them, he says, that the forest took the name of Dodona; ‘dodo,’ in the ancient language, signifying ‘a cauldron.’Strabo says that the responses were originally given by three priestesses: and he gives the reason why two priests were afterwards added to them. The Bœotians having been treacherously attacked by the people of Thrace during a truce which they had made, went to consult the oracle of Dodona; and the priestess answering them that if they would act impiously their design would succeed to their wish, the envoys suspected that this response had been suggested by the enemy, and burned her in revenge; after which they vindicated their cruelty by saying that if the priestess designed to deceive them, she well deserved her punishment; and that if she spoke with truthfulness, they had only followed the advice of the oracle. This argument not satisfying the people of the district, the Bœotian envoys were seized; but as they pleaded that it was unjust that two women already prejudiced against them should be their judges, two priests were added to decide the matter. These, in return for their being the occasion of putting them in an office so honourable and lucrative, acquitted the Bœotians; whose fellow countrymen were always in the habit from that time of addressing the priests when they consulted the oracle. These priests were called by the name of ‘Selli.’xiii. 719-747.FABLE VII.Polyphemus, one of the Cyclops, jealous of Acis, who is in love with Galatea, kills the youth with a rock which he hurls at him; on which, his blood is changed into a river which bears his name.They make for the neighbouring land of the Phæacians,68planted with beauteous fruit. After this, Epirus and Buthrotos,69ruled over by the Phrygian prophet, and a fictitious Troy, are reached. Thence, acquainted with the future, all which, Helenus, the son of Priam, in his faithful instructions has forewarned them of, they enter Sicania. With three points this projects into the sea. Of these, Pachynos is turned towards the showery South: Lilybæum is exposed to the soft Zephyrs: but Peloros looks towards the Bear, free from the sea, and towards Boreas. By thispartthe Trojans enter; and with oars and favouring tide, at nightfall the fleet makes the Zanclæan sands. Scylla infests the right hand side, the restless Charybdis the left. This swallows and vomits forth again ships taken down; the other, having the face of a maiden, has her swarthy stomach surrounded with fierce dogs; and (if the poets have not left the whole a fiction) once on a time, too,she wasa maiden. Many suitors courted her; who being repulsed, she, most beloved by the Nymphs of the ocean, went to the ocean Nymphs, and used to relate the eluded loves of the youths.While Galatea70was giving her hair be to combed, heaving sighs, she addressed her in such words as these: “Andyet, O maiden, no ungentle race of men does woo thee; and as thou dost, thou art able to deny them with impunity. But I, whose sire is Nereus, whom the azure Doris bore, who am guarded, too, by a crowd of sisters, was not able, but through the waves, to escape the passion of the Cyclop;” and as she spoke, the tears choked her utterance. When, with her fingers like marble, the maiden had wiped these away, and had comfortedxiii. 747-782.the Goddess, “Tell me, dearest,” said she, “and conceal notfrom me(forI am true to thee) the cause of thy grief.” In these words did the Nereid reply to the daughter of Cratæis:71“Acis was the son of Faunus and of the Nymph Symæthis, a great delight, indeed, to his father and his mother, yet a still greater to me. For the charmingyouthhad attached me to himself alone, and eight birth-days having a second time been passed, he hadnowmarked his tender cheeks with the dubious down. Him Ipursued; incessantly did the Cyclop me pursue. Nor can I, shouldst thou enquire, declare whether the hatred of theCyclop, or the love of Acis, was the stronger in me. They were equal. O genial Venus! how great is the power of thy sway. For that savage, and one to be dreaded by the very woods, and beheld with impunity by no stranger, the contemner of great Olympus with the Godsthemselves,nowfeels what love is; and, captivated with passion for me, he burns, forgetting his cattle and his caves.“And now, Polyphemus, thou hast a care for thy looks, and now forthe art ofpleasing; now thou combest out thy stiffened hair with rakes,andnow it pleases thee to cut thy shaggy beard with the sickle, and to look at thy fierce features in the water, andsoto compose them. Thy love for carnage, and thy fierceness, and thy insatiate thirst for blood,nowcease; and the ships both come and go in safety. Telemus, in the mean time arriving at the Sicilian Ætna, Telemus, the son of Eurymus, whom no omen hadeverdeceived, accosts the dreadful Polyphemus, and says, ‘The single eye that thou dost carry in the midst of thy forehead, Ulysses shall take away from thee.’ He laughed, and said, ‘O most silly of the prophets, thou art mistaken,foranother has already taken it away.’ Thus does he slight him, in vain warning him of the truth; and he either burdens the shore, stalking along with huge strides, or, wearied, he returns to his shaded cave.“A hill, in form of a wedge, runs out with a long projection into the sea:andthe waves of the ocean flow round either side. Hither the fierce Cyclop ascended, and sat down in the middle. His woolly flocks followed, there being no one to guide them. After the pine tree,72which afforded him thexiii. 782-816.service of a staff,but morefitted for sail-yards, was laid before his feet, and his pipe was taken up, formed of a hundred reeds; all the mountains were sensible of the piping of the shepherd: the waves,too, were sensible. I, lying hid within a rock, and reclining on the bosom of my own Acis, from afar caught such words as these with my ears, and marked themsoheard in my mind: ‘O Galatea, fairer than73the leaf of the snow-white privet,74more blooming than the meadows, more slender than the tall alder, brighter than glass, more wanton than the tender kid, smoother than the shells worn by continual floods, more pleasing than the winter’s sun,orthan the summer’s shade, more beauteous than the apples, more sightly than the lofty plane tree, clearer than ice, sweeter than the ripened grape, softer than both the down of the swan, and than curdled milk, and, didst thou not fly me, more beauteous than a watered garden.And yetthou, the same Galatea,artwilder than the untamed bullocks, harder than the aged oak, more unstable than the waters, tougher than both the twigs of osier and than the white vines, more immoveable than these rocks, more violent than the torrent, prouder than the bepraised peacock, fiercer than the fire, rougher than the thistles, more cruel than the pregnant she-bear, more deaf than the ocean waves, more savage than the trodden water-snake: and, what I could especially wish to deprive thee of, fleeter not only than the deer when pursued by the loud barkings, but even than the winds and the fleeting air.“‘But didst thoubutknow me well, thou wouldst repine at having fled, and thou thyself wouldst blame thy own hesitation, and wouldst strive to retain me. I have a part of the mountain for my cave, pendent with the native rock; in which the sun is not felt in the middle of the heat, nor is the winter felt: there are apples that load the boughs; there are grapes on the lengthening vines, resembling gold; and there are purple onesas well; both the one and the other do I reserve for thee. With thine own hands thou shalt thyself gather the soft strawberries growing beneath the woodlandxiii. 816-851.shade; thou thyselfshalt pluckthe cornels of autumn, and plums not only darkened with their black juice, but even of the choicest kinds, and resembling new wax. Nor, I being thy husband, will there be wanting to thee chesnuts, nor the fruit of the arbute tree:75every tree shall be at thy service. All this cattle is my own: many, too, are wandering in the valleys: many the wood conceals: manymoreare penned in my caves. Nor, shouldst thou ask me perchance, could I tell thee, how many there are; ’tis for the poor man to count his cattle. For the praises of these trust not me at all; in person thou thyself mayst see how they can hardly support with their legs their distended udders. Lambs, too, a smaller breed, are in the warm folds: there are kids, too, of equal ageto themin other folds. Snow-white milk I always have: a part of it is kept for drinking,anotherpart the liquified rennet hardens. Nor will common delights, and ordinary enjoyments alone fall to thy lot,such asdoes, and hares, and she-goats, or a pair of doves, or a nest taken from the tree top. I have found on the mountain summit the twin cubs of a shaggy she-bear, which can play with thee, so like each other that thou couldst scarce distinguish them.TheseI found, and I said, ‘These for my mistress will I keep.’“‘Do now but raise thy beauteous head from out of the azure sea; now, Galatea, come, and do not scorn my presents. Surely I know myself, and myself but lately I beheld in the reflection of the limpid water; and my figure76pleased me as I saw it. See how huge I am. Not Jove, in heaven, is greater than this body; for thou art wont to tell how one Jupiter reigns, who he is I know not. Plenty of hair hangs over my grisly features, and, like a grove, overshadows my shoulders; nor think it uncomely that my body is rough, thick set with stiff bristles. A tree without leaves is unseemly; a horse is unseemly, unless a mane covers his tawny neck. Feathers cover the birds; their wool is an ornament to the sheep; a beard and rough hair upon their body is becoming to men. I have but one eye in the middle of my forehead, but it is likexiii. 852-890.a large buckler. Well! and does not the Sun from the heavens behold all these things? and yet the Sun has but one eye. And, besides, in your seas does my father reign. Him do I offer thee for a father-in-law; only do take pity on a suppliant, and hear his prayer, for to thee alone do I give way. And I, who despise Jove, and the heavens, and the piercing lightnings, dread thee, daughter of Nereus; than the lightnings is thy wrath more dreadful to me. But I should be more patient under these slights, if thou didst avoid all men. For why, rejecting the Cyclop, dost thou love Acis? And why prefer Acis to my embraces? Yet, let him please himself, and let him please thee, too, Galatea,thoughI wish he could not; if only the opportunity is given, he shall find that I have strength proportioned to a body so vast. I will pull out his palpitating entrails; and I will scatter his torn limbs about the fields, and throughout thy waves,andthus let him be united to thee. For I burn: and my passion,thusslighted, rages with the greater fury; and I seem to be carrying in my breast Ætna, transferred there withallits flames; and yet, Galatea, thou art unmoved.’“Having in vain uttered such complaints (for all this I saw), he rises; and like an enraged bull, when the heifer is taken away from him, he could not stand still, and he wandered in the wood, and the well known forests. When the savagemonsterespied me, and Acis unsuspecting and apprehensive of no such thing; and he exclaimed:— ‘I see you, and I shall cause this to be the last union for your affection.’ And that voice was as loud as an enraged Cyclop ought,for his size, to have. Ætna trembled at the noise; but I, struck with horror, plunged into the adjoining sea. The hero, son of Symæthis, turned his back and fled, and cried,— ‘Help me, Galatea, I entreat thee; help me, ye parentsof hers; and admit me,nowon the point of destruction, within your realms.’ The Cyclop pursued, and hurled a fragment, torn from the mountain; and though the extreme angle only of the rock reached him, yet it entirely crushed Acis. But I did the only thing that was allowed by the Fates to be done, that Acis might assume the properties of his grandsire. The purple blood flowed from beneath the rock, and in a little time the redness began to vanish; and at first it became the colour of a stream muddied by a shower; and, in time, it became clear. Then the rock, that had been thrown, opened,xiii. 890-897.and through the chinks, a reed vigorous and stately arose, and the hollow mouth of the rock resounded with the waters gushing forth. And, wondrous event! a youth suddenly emerged, as far as the midriff, having his new-made horns encircled with twining reeds. And he, but that he was of larger stature, and azure in all his features, was Acisstill. But, even then, still it was Acis, changed into a river; and the stream has since retained that ancient name.”EXPLANATION.Homer, who, in the ninth Book of the Odyssey, has entered fully into the subject of Polyphemus and the other Cyclops, does not recount this adventure, which Ovid has borrowed from Theocritus, the Sicilian poet. Some writers have suggested that Acis was a Sicilian youth, who, having met with a repulse from Galatea, threw himself into the river, which was afterwards called by his name. It is, however, more probable that this river was so called from the rapidity of its course. Indeed, the scholiast on Theocritus and Eustathius distinctly say that the stream was called Acis, because the swiftness of its course resembled that of an arrow, which was calledἀκὶς, in the Greek language.Homer, in describing the Cyclops, informs us that they were a lawless race, who, neglecting husbandry, lived on the spontaneous produce of a rich soil, and dwelling in mountain caves, devoted themselves entirely to the pleasures of a pastoral life. He says that they were men of monstrous stature, and had but one eye, in the middle of their forehead. Thucydides supposes them to have been the original inhabitants of Sicily. As their origin was unknown, it was said that they were the offspring of Neptune, or, in other words, that they had come by sea, to settle in Sicily. According to Justin, they retained possession of the island till the time of Cocalus; but in that point he disagrees with Homer, who represents them as being in the island after the time of Cocalus, who was a contemporary of Minos, and lived long before the Trojan war.They inhabited the western parts of Sicily, near the promontories of Lilybæum and Drepanum; and from that circumstance, according to Bochart, they received their name. He supposes that the Cyclopes were so called from the Phœnician compound word Chek-lub, contracted for Chek-le-lub, which, according to him, was the name of the Gulf of Lilybæum. Because, in the Greek languageκυκλὸςsignified ‘a circle,’ andὤπς, ‘an eye,’ it was given out that the name of Cyclops was given to them, because they had but one round eye in the middle of the forehead. It is possible that they may have acquired their character of being cannibals on true grounds, or, perhaps, only because they were noted for their extreme cruelty. Living near the volcanic mountain of Ætna, they were called the workmen of Vulcan; and Virgil describes them as forging the thunderbolts of Jupiter. Some writers represent them as having armed the three Deities, who divided the empire of the world: Jupiter with thunder; Pluto with his helmet; and Neptune with his trident. Statius represents them as the builders of the walls of Argos and Virgil as thexiii. 898-917.founders of the gates of the Elysian fields. Aristotle supposes that they were the first builders of towers.Diodorus Siculus and Tzetzes say that Polyphemus was king of a part of Sicily, when Ulysses landed there; who, falling in love with Elpe, the daughter of the king, carried her off.The Læstrygons, the neighbours of Polyphemus, pursued him, and obliged him to give up the damsel, who was brought back to her father. Ulysses, in relating the story to the Phæacians, artfully concealed circumstances so little to his credit, and with impunity invented the absurdities which he related concerning a country to which his audience were utter strangers.FABLE VIII.Glaucushaving observed some fishes which he has laid upon the grass revive and leap again into the water, is desirous to try the influence of the grass on himself. Putting some of it into his mouth, he immediately becomes mad, and leaping into the sea, is transformed into a sea God.Galatea ceases77speaking, and the company breaking up, they depart; and the Nereids swim in the becalmed waves. Scylla returns, (for, in truth, she does not trust herself in the midst of the ocean) and either wanders about without garments on the thirsty sand, or, when she is tired, having lighted upon some lonely recess of the sea, cools her limbs in the enclosed waves.When, lo! cleaving the deep, Glaucus comes, a new-made inhabitant of the deep sea, his limbs having been lately transformed at Anthedon,78near Eubœa; and he lingers from passion for the maidennowseen, and utters whatever words he thinks may detain her as she flies. Yet still she flies, and, swift through fear, she arrives at the top of a mountain, situate near the shore.In front of the sea, there is a huge ridge, terminating in one summit, bending for a long distance over the waves,andwithout trees. Here she stands, and secured by the place, ignorant whether he is a monster or a God, she both admires his colour, and his flowing hair that covers his shoulders and his back, and how a wreathed fish closes the extremity of his groin.Thishe perceives; and leaning upon a rock that stands hard by, he says, “Maiden, I am no monster, no savagexiii. 917-956.beast; I am a God of the waters: nor have Proteus, and Triton, and Palæmon, the son of Athamas, a more uncontrolled reign over the deep. Yet formerly I was a mortal; but, still, devoted to the deep sea, even then was I employed in it. For, at one time, I used to drag the nets that swept up the fish; at another time, seated on a rock, I managed the line with the rod. The shore was adjacent to a verdant meadow, one part of which was surrounded with water, the other with grass, which, neither the horned heifers had hurt with their browsing, nor had you, ye harmless sheep, noryou, ye shaggy goats,evercropped it. No industrious bee tookthencethe collected blossoms, no festive garlands were gathered thence for the head; and no mower’s hands had ever cut it. I was the first to be seated on that turf, while I was drying the dripping nets. And that I might count in their order the fish that I had taken; I laid out those upon it which either chance had driven to my nets, or their own credulity to my barbed hooks.“The thing is like a fiction (but of what use is it to me to coin fictions?); on touching the grass my prey began to move, and to shift their sides, and to skip about on the land, as though in the sea. And while I both paused and wondered, the whole batch flew off to the waves, and left behind their new master and the shore. I was amazed, and, in doubt for a long time, I considered what could be the cause; whether some Divinity had done this, or whether the juice ofsomeherb. ‘And yet,’ said I, ‘what herb has these properties?’ and with my hand I plucked the grass, and I chewed it,soplucked, with my teeth. Hardly had my throat well swallowed the unknown juices, when I suddenly felt my entrails inwardly throb, and my mind taken possession of by the passions of another nature. Nor could I stay inthatplace; and I exclaimed, ‘Farewell, land, never more to be revisited;’ and plunged my body beneath the deep. The Gods of the sea vouchsafed me, on being received by them, kindred honours, and they entreated Oceanus and Tethys to take away from me whatever mortality I bore. By them was I purified; and a charm being repeated over me nine times, that washes awayallguilt, I was commanded to put my breast beneath a hundred streams.“There was no delay; rivers issuing from different springs, and whole seas, were poured over my head. Thus far I canxiii. 956-968.relate to thee what happened worthy to be related, and thus far do I remember; but my understanding was not conscious of the rest. When it returnedto me, I found myself different throughout all my body from what I was before, and not the same in mind. Then, for the first time, did I behold this beard, green with its deep colour, and my flowing hair, which I sweep along the spacious seas, and my huge shoulders, and my azurecoloured arms, and the extremities of my legs tapering inthe form ofa finny fish. But still, what does this form avail me, what to have pleased the ocean Deities,andwhat to be a God, if thou art not moved by these things?”As he was saying such things as these, and about to say still more, Scylla left the God. He was enraged, and, provoked at the repulse, he repaired to the marvellous court of Circe, the daughter of Titan.EXPLANATION.The ancient writers mention three persons of the name of Glaucus: one was the son of Minos, the second of Hippolochus, and the third is the one here mentioned. Strabo calls him the son of Polybus, while other writers make him to have been the son of Phorbas, and others of Neptune. Being drowned, perhaps by accident, to do honour to his memory, it was promulgated that he had become a sea God, and the city of Anthedon, of which he was a native, worshipped him as such.Athenæus says that he carried off Ariadne from the isle of Naxos, where Theseus had left her; on which Bacchus punished him by binding him to a vine. According to Diodorus Siculus, he appeared to the Argonauts, when overtaken by a storm. From Apollonius Rhodius we learn that he foretold to them that Hercules, and Castor and Pollux, would be received into the number of the Gods. It was also said, that in the battle which took place between Jason and the Tyrrhenians, he was the only person that escaped unwounded. Euripides, who is followed by Pausanias, says that he was the interpreter of Nereus, and was skilled in prophecy; and Nicander even says that it was from him that Apollo learned the art of prediction. Strabo and Philostratus say that he was metamorphosed into a Triton, which is a-kin to the description of his appearance here given by Ovid.The place where he leaped into the sea was long remembered; and in the days of Pausanias ‘Glaucus’ Leap’ was still pointed out by the people of Anthedon. It is not improbable that he drowned himself for some reason which tradition failed to hand down to posterity.1.We are pleading.]—Ver. 5. The skill of the Poet is perceptible in the abrupt commencement of the speech of the impetuous Ajax.2.Nor his.]—Ver. 11. Ajax often uses the pronoun ‘iste’ as a term of reproach.3.Night alone.]—Ver. 15. By this he means that the alleged exploits of Ulysses were altogether fictitious; or that they were done in the dark to conceal his fear.4.Took the city.]—Ver. 23. Telamon, was the companion of Hercules when he sacked Troy, as a punishment for the perfidy of Laomedon.5.Sisyphus.]—Ver. 26. This is intended as a reproachful hint against Ulysses, whose mother, Anticlea, was said to have been seduced by Sisyphus before her marriage to Laërtes.6.Ajax is the third.]—Ver. 28. That is the third, exclusive of Jupiter; for Ajax was the grandson of Æacus, and the great grandson of Jupiter.7.My cousin.]—Ver. 31. ‘Frater’ here means, not ‘brother,’ but ‘cousin,’ as Peleus and Telamon, the fathers of Achilles and Ajax, were brothers.8.No informer.]—Ver. 34. He alludes to the means which Ulysses adopted to avoid going to the Trojan war. Pretending to be seized with madness, he ploughed the sea-shore, and sowed it with salt. To ascertain the truth, Palamedes placed his infant son, Telemachus, before the plough; on which Ulysses turned on one side, to avoid hurting the child, which was considered a proof that his madness was not real.9.Son of Nauplius.]—Ver. 39. Palamedes was the son of Nauplius, the king of Eubœa, and a son of Neptune.10.The contrivance.]—Ver. 38. Ulysses forged a letter from Priam, in which the king thanked Palamedes for his intended assistance to the Trojan cause, and begged to present him a sum of money. By bribing the servants of Palamedes, he caused a large quantity of gold to be buried in the ground, under his tent. He then caused the letter to be intercepted, and to be carried to Agamemnon. On the appearance of Palamedes to answer the charge, Ulysses appeared seemingly as his friend, and suggested, that if no gold should be found in his possession, he must be innocent. The gold, however, being found, Palamedes was stoned to death.11.Son of Pœas.]—Ver. 45. Philoctetes was the possessor of the arrows of Hercules, without the presence of which Troy could not be taken. Accompanying the Greeks to the Trojan war, he was wounded in the foot by one of the arrows; and the smell arising from the wound was so offensive, that, by the advice of Ulysses, he was left behind, in the island of Lemnos, one of the Cyclades.12.Is being clothed.]—Ver. 53. The Poet Attius, as quoted by Cicero, says that Philoctetes, while in Lemnos, made himself clothing out of the feathers of birds.13.Or by death.]—Ver. 61. Exile in the case of Philoctetes; death, in that of Palamedes.14.Forsaking of Nestor.]—Ver. 64. Nestor having been wounded by Paris, and being overtaken by Hector, was on the point of perishing, when Diomedes came to his rescue, Ulysses having taken to flight. See the Iliad, Book iii.15.And upbraided.]—Ver. 69. He alludes to the words in the Iliad, which Homer puts in the mouth of Diomedes.16.And covered him.]—Ver. 75. Ajax, at the request of Menelaüs, protected Ulysses with his shield, when he was wounded.17.Fall to my lot.]—Ver. 85. He alludes to the occasion when some of the bravest of the Greeks drew lots which should accept the challenge of Hector: the Greeks wishing, according to Homer, that the lot might fall to Ajax Telamon, Ajax Oïleus, or Agamemnon.18.Rhesus.]—Ver. 98. He was slain by Ulysses and Diomedes on the night on which he arrived, Iliad, Book x.19.Dolon.]—Ver. 98. Being sent out by Hector to spy, he was intercepted by Ulysses and Diomedes, and slain at Troy. Iliad, Book x.20.Helenus.]—Ver. 99. Being skilled in prophesy, after he was taken prisoner by Diomedes and Ulysses, his life was saved; and marrying Andromache, after the death of Pyrrhus, he succeeded to the throne of part of the kingdom of Chaonia.21.Dulichian.]—Ver. 107. Dulichium was an island of the Ionian Sea, near Ithaca, and part of the realms of Ulysses.22.The spear.]—Ver. 109. The spear of Achilles had been cut from the wood on Mount Pelion, and given by the Centaur Chiron to his father Peleus.23.He through whom.]—Ver. 134. Through whom Achilles had been discovered, concealed among the daughters of Lycomedes, king of Seyros.24.Ever condemned.]—Ver. 145. He alludes to the joint crime of Peleus the uncle, and Telamon, the father of Ajax, who were banished for the murder of their brother Phocus.25.Through the mother.]—Ver. 146. Anticlea, the mother of Ulysses, was the daughter of Autolycus, of whom Mercury was the father by Chione, the daughter of Dædalion.26.Phthia.]—Ver. 156. Phthia was the city of Thessaly, where Peleus, the father of Achilles, was residing; while Pyrrhus, his son, was living with his mother Deidamia, in the isle of Scyros, one of the Cyclades.27.Teucer.]—Ver. 157. Teucer was the cousin of Achilles, being the son of Telamon, and the half-brother of Ajax; Hesione being the mother of Teucer, while Ajax was the son of Eubœa.28.Chrysa.]—Ver. 174. Chrysa and Cylla were cities in the vicinity of Troy. This Scyros was, probably, not the island of that name, but some place near Troy.29.Lyrnessian.]—Ver. 176. This was a city of the Troad, on the taking of which by Achilles, Hippodamia, or Briseïs, the daughter of Bryses, was made captive by Achilles.30.Grief of one.]—Ver. 181. He alludes to the misfortune of Menelaüs in losing his wife, if, indeed, it could be deemed a misfortune.31.Antenor.]—Ver. 201. Antenor, who was related to Priam, always advocated peace with the Greeks; for which reason, according to Livy, the Greeks did not treat him as an enemy.32.Surround the trenches.]—Ver. 212. He probably alludes to the trenches thrown up before the ships of the Greeks, and defended by embankments, which were afterwards destroyed by Neptune.33.I am sent.]—Ver. 215. As on the occasion when he was sent to restore Chryseis to her father Chryses, the priest of Apollo, that the pestilence might be stayed, which had been sent by the offended God.34.Thersites.]—Ver. 233. He was the most deformed, cowardly, and impudent of the Greeks, who, always abusing his betters, was beaten by Ulysses, and was at last killed by Achilles with a blow of his fist.35.Compelled him.]—Ver. 245. When he was taken prisoner by them, Ulysses and Diomedes compelled Dolon to disclose what was going on in the Trojan camp, and learned from him the recent arrival of Rhesus, the son of either Mars or Strymon, and the king of Thrace.36.Sarpedon.]—Ver. 255. He was the son of Jupiter and Europa, and was king of Lycia. Aiding the Trojans, he was slain by Patroclus.37.In their place.]—Ver. 263. That is, inflicted on the breast, and not on the back.38.A single wound.]—Ver. 267. He alludes to his being invulnerable, from having been wrapped in the lion’s skin of Hercules.39.Dared to engage.]—Ver. 275. Hector and Ajax Telamon meeting in single combat, neither was the conqueror; but on parting they exchanged gifts, which were fatal to them both. Hector was dragged round the walls of Troy by the belt which he received from Ajax; while the latter committed suicide with the sword which was given to him by Hector.40.Dardanian prophet.]—Ver. 335. Helenus,the son of Priam.41.The hidden statue.]—Ver. 337. This was the Palladium, or statue of Minerva, which was destined to be the guardian of the safety of Troy, so long as it was in the possession of the Trojans.42.By thy looks.]—Ver. 350. We are to suppose, that here Ajax is nodding at, or pointing towards Diomedes, as having helped Ulysses on all the occasions which he names, he having been his constant companion in his exploits.43.Eurypilus.]—Ver. 357. He was the son of Evæmon, and came with forty ships to aid the Greeks. He was from Ormenius, a city of Thessaly.44.Andremon.]—Ver. 357. Thoas, the son of Andremon, was the leader of the Ætolians; he came with forty ships to the Trojan war.45.Idomeneus.]—Ver. 358. He was the son of Deucalion, king of Crete. After the siege of Troy, he settled at Salentinum, a promontory of Calabria, in Italy.46.Meriones.]—Ver. 359. He was the nephew and charioteer of Idomeneus.47.To the name.]—Ver. 398. See note to Book x., line 207.48.Country of Hypsipyle.]—Ver. 399. The island of Lemnos is here called the country of Hypsipyle, who saved the life of her father Thoas, when the other women of the island slew the males.49.A foreign air.]—Ver. 406. Namely, Thrace, which was far away from her native country.50.Priestess of Apollo.]—Ver. 410. Cassandra was the priestess of Apollo. Being ravished by Ajax Oïleus, she became the captive of Agamemnon, and was slain by Clytemnestra.51.Astyanax.]—Ver. 415. He was the only child of Hector and Andromache. Ulysses threw him from the top of a high tower, that none of the royal blood might survive.52.Forsooth.]—460. Clarke translates ‘scilicet,’ ‘I warrant ye.’53.And children.]—Ver. 509. Hyginus names fifty-four children of Priam, of whom seventeen were by Hecuba.54.She beheld.]—Ver. 536. Euripides represents, in his tragedy of Hecuba, that a female servant, sent by Hecuba to bring water from the sea shore for the purpose of washing the body of Polyxena, was the first to see the corpse of Polydorus.55.Derives its name.]—Ver. 569. Strabo places it near Sestos, in the Thracian Chersonesus, and calls itκυνὸς σῆμα, ‘The bitches’ tomb.’56.Of their parent.]—Ver. 619. He perhaps alludes to the fights of the Gladiators, on the occasion of the funerals of the Roman patricians. ‘Parentali perituræ Marte,’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘to fall in the fight of parentation.’57.Antandros.]—Ver. 628. This was a city of Phrygia, at the foot of Mount Ida, where the fleet of Æneas was built.58.Trees once grasped.]—Ver. 635. These were a palm and an olive tree, which were pointed out by the people of Delos, as having been held by Latona, when in the pangs of labour.59.Of slain oxen.]—Ver. 637. This, however, was contrary to the usual practice; for if we credit Macrobius, no victim was slain on the altars of Apollo, in the island of Delos.60.Of thy consort.]—Ver. 673. It must be remembered, that he is addressing Anchises, who was said to have enjoyed the favour of Venus; to which Goddess the dove was consecrated.61.In place of.]—Ver. 686. For the seven gates, would at once lead to the conclusion that it represented the city of Thebes, in Bœotia. Myla, before referred to, was a town of Sicily.62.Calls ‘Coronæ’.]—Ver. 698. The word ‘Coronas’ is here employed as the plural of a female name ‘Corona;’ in GreekΚώρωνις.63.Of that place.]—Ver. 707. Æneas and his followers founded in Crete the city of Pergamea; but the pestilence which raged there, and a continued drought, combined with the density of the atmosphere, obliged them to leave the island.64.The Strophades.]—Ver. 709. These were two islands in the Ionian Sea, on the western side of Peloponnesus. They received their name from the Greekwordστροφὴ, ‘a return,’ because Calais and Zethes pursued the Harpies, which persecuted Phineus so far, and then returned home by the command of Jupiter.65.Same.]—Ver. 711. This island was also called Cephalenia. It was in the Ionian Sea, and formed part of the kingdom of Ulysses.66.Ambracia.]—Ver. 714. This was a famous city of Epirus, which gave its name to the gulf of Ambracia.67.Actian Apollo.]—Ver. 715. Augustus built a temple to Apollo, at Actium, in Epirus, near which he had defeated the fleet of Antony and Cleopatra. He also instituted games, to be celebrated there every fifth year in honour of his victory.68.The Phæacians.]—Ver. 719. The Phæacians were the people of the Island of Corcyra (now Corfu), who were so called from Phæax, the son of Neptune. This island was famous for the gardens of Alcinoüs, which are mentioned in the Odyssey. The Corcyrans were the originators of the disastrous Peloponnesian war.69.Buthrotos.]—Ver. 721. This was a city of Epirus, not far from Corcyra. It received its name from its founder.70.Galatea.]—Ver. 738. She was a sea Nymph, the daughter of Nereus and Doris.71.Daughter of Cratæis.]—Ver. 749. Cratæis was a river of Calabria, in Italy. Symæthis was a stream of Sicily, opposite to Calabria.72.The pine tree.]—Ver. 782. By way of corroborating this assertion, Boccaccio tells us, that the body of Polyphemus was found in Sicily, his left hand grasping a walking-stick longer than the mast of a ship.73.Fairer than.]—Ver. 789. This song of Polyphemus is, in some measure, imitated from that of the Cyclop, in the Eleventh Idyll of Theocritus.74.Snow-white privet.]—Ver. 789. Hesiod says, that Galatea had her name from her extreme fairness;γάλαbeing the Greek word for milk. To this the Poet here alludes.75.Arbute tree.]—Ver. 820. The fruit of the arbutus, or strawberry tree, were so extremely sour, that they were called, as Pliny the Elder tells us, ‘unedones;’ because people could not eat more than one. The tree itself was valued for the beauty and pleasing shade of its foliage.76.My figure.]—Ver. 841. Virgil and Theocritus also represent Polyphemus as boasting of his good looks.77.Ceases.]—Ver. 898. ‘Desierat Galatea loqui,’ is translated by Clarke, ‘Galatea gave over talking.’78.Anthedon.]—Ver. 905. Anthedon was a maritime city of Bœotia, only separated from the Island of Eubœa, by the narrow strait of the Euripus.BOOK THE FOURTEENTH.FABLE I.Circebecomes enamoured of Glaucus, who complains to her of his repulse by Scylla. She endeavours, without success, to make him desert Scylla for herself. In revenge, she poisons the fountain where the Nymph is wont to bathe, and communicates to her a hideous form; which is so insupportable to Scylla, that she throws herself into the sea, and is transformed into a rock.And nowGlaucus, the Eubœan plougher of the swelling waves, had left behind Ætna, placed upon the jaws of the Giant, and the fields of the Cyclops, that had never experienced the harrow or the use of the plough, and that were never indebted to the yoked oxen; he had left Zancle, too, behind, and the opposite walls of Rhegium,1and the sea, abundant cause of shipwreck, which, confined by the two shores, bounds the Ausonian and the Sicilian lands. Thence, swimming with his huge hands through the Etrurian seas, Glaucus arrived at the grass-clad hills, and the halls of Circe, the daughter of the Sun, filled with various wild beasts. Soon as he beheld her, after salutations were given and received, he said, “Do thou, a Goddess, have compassion on me a God; for thou alone (should I only seem deserving of it,) art able to relieve this passionof mine. Daughter of Titan, by none is it better known how great is the power of herbs, than by me, who have been transformed by their agency; and, that the cause of my passion may not be unknown to thee, Scylla has been beheld by me on the Italian shores, opposite the Messenian walls. I am ashamed to recount my promises, my entreaties, my caresses, and my rejected suit. But, do thou, if there is any power in incantations, utter the incantation with thy holy lips;xiv. 21-50.or, ifanyherb is more efficacious, make use of the proved virtues of powerful herbs. But I do not request thee to cure me, and to heal these wounds; and there is no necessity for an endto them; butlet her share in the flame.” But Circe, (for no one has a temper more susceptible of such a passion, whether it is that the cause of it originates in herself, or whether it is that Venus, offended2by her father’s discovery, causes this,) utters such words as these:—“Thou wilt more successfully court her who is willing, and who entertains similar desires, and who is captivated with an equal passion. Thou art worthy of it, and assuredly thou oughtst to be courted spontaneously; and, if thou givest any hopes, believe me, thou shalt be courted3spontaneously. That thou mayst entertain no doubts, or lest confidence in thy own beauty may not exist, behold! I who am both a Goddess, and the daughter of the radiant Sun, and am so potent with my charms, and so potent with my herbs, wish to be thine. Despise her who despises thee; her, who is attached to thee, repay by like attachment, and, by one act, take vengeance on two individuals.”Glaucus answered her, making such attempts as these,— “Sooner shall foliage grow in the ocean, andsoonershall sea-weed spring up on the tops of the mountains, than my affections shall change, while Scylla is alive.” The Goddess is indignant; and since she is not able to injure him, and as she loves him she does not wishto do so, she is enraged against her, who has been preferred to herself; and, offended with these crosses in love, she immediately bruises herbs, infamous for their horrid juices, and, when bruised, she mingles with them the incantations of Hecate. She puts on azure vestments too, and through the troop of fawning wild beasts she issues from the midst of her hall; and making for Rhegium, opposite to the rocks of Zancle, she enters the waves boiling with the tides; on these, as though on the firm shore, she impresses her footsteps, and with dry feet she skims along the surface of the waves.xiv. 51-74.There was a little bay, curving inthe shape ofa bent bow, a favourite retreat of Scylla, whither she used to retire from the influence both of the sea and of the weather, when the sun was at its height in his mid career, and made the smallest shadow from the headdownwards. This the Goddess infects beforehand, and pollutes it with monster-breeding drugs; on it she sprinkles the juices distilled from the noxious root, and thrice nine times, with her magic lips, she mutters over the mysterious charm,enwraptin the dubious language of strange words.4Scylla comes; and she hasnowgone in up to the middle of her stomach, when she beholds her loins grow hideous with barking monsters; and, at first believing that they are no part of her own body, she flies from them and drives them off, and is in dread of the annoying mouths of the dogs; but those that she flies from, she carries along withherself; and as she examines the substance of her thighs, her legs, and her feet, she meets with Cerberean jaws in place of those parts. The fury of the dogsstillcontinues, and the backs of savagemonsterslying beneath her groin, cut short, and her prominent stomach,stilladhere to them.Glaucus,stillin love, bewailedher, and fled from an alliance with Circe, who hadthustoo hostilely employed the potency of herbs. Scylla remained on that spot; and, at the first moment that an opportunity was given, in her hatred of Circe, she deprived Ulysses of his companions. Soon after, the sameScyllawould have overwhelmed the Trojan ships, had she not been first transformed into a rock, which even now is prominent with its crags;thisrock the sailor, too, avoids.EXPLANATION.According to Hesiod, Circe was the daughter of the Sun and of the Nymph Perse, and the sister of Pasiphaë, the wife of Minos. Homer makes her the sister of Æetes, the king of Colchis, while other authors represent her as the daughter of that monarch, and the sister of Medea. Being acquainted with the properties of simples, and having used her art in mixing poisonous draughts, she was generally looked upon as a sorceress. Apollonius Rhodius says that she poisoned her husband, the king of the Sarmatians, and that her father Apollo rescued her from the rage of her subjects, by transporting her in his chariot into Italy. Virgil and Ovid say that she inhabited one of the promontories of Italy, which afterwards bore her name, and which at the present day is known by the name of Monte Circello.xiv. 75-76.It is not improbable that the person who went by the name of Circe was never in Colchis or Thrace, and that she was styled the sister of Medea, merely on account of the similarity of their characters; that they both were called daughters of the Sun, because they understood the properties of simples; and that their pretended enchantments were only a poetical mode of describing the effect of their beauty, which drew many suitors after them, who lost themselves in the dissipation of a voluptuous life. Indeed, Strabo says, and very judiciously, as it would seem, that Homer having heard persons mention the expedition of Jason to Colchis, and hearing the stories of Medea and Circe, he took occasion to say, from the resemblance of their characters, that they were sisters.According to some authors, Scylla was the daughter of Phorcys and Hecate; but as other writers say, of Typhon. Homer describes her in the following terms:— ‘She had a voice like that of a young whelp; no man, not even a God, could behold her without horror. She had twelve feet, six long necks, and at the end of each a monstrous head, whose mouth was provided with a triple row of teeth.’ Another ancient writer says, that these heads were those of an insect, a dog, a lion, a whale, a Gorgon, and a human being. Virgil has in a great measure followed the description given by Homer. Between Messina and Reggio there is a narrow strait, where high crags project into the sea on each side. The part on the Sicilian side was called Charybdis, and that on the Italian shore was named Scylla. This spot has ever been famous for its dangerous whirlpools, and the extreme difficulty of its navigation. Several rapid currents meeting there, and the tide running through the strait with great impetuosity, the sea sends forth a dismal noise, not unlike that of the howling or barking of dogs, as Virgil has expressed it, in the words, ‘Multis circum latrantibus undis.’Palæphatus and Fusebius, not satisfied with the story being based on such simple facts, assert that Scylla was a ship that belonged to certain Etrurian pirates, who used to infest the coasts of Sicily, and that it had the figure of a woman carved on its head, whose lower parts were surrounded with dogs. According to these writers, Ulysses escaped them; and then, using the privileges of a traveller, told the story to the credulous Phæacians in the marvellous terms in which Homer has related it. Bochart, however, says that the two names were derived from the Phœnician language, in which ‘Scol,’ the root of Scylla, signified ‘a ruin,’ and Charybdis, ‘a gulf.’FABLE II.Didoentertains Æneas in her palace, and falls in love with him. He afterwards abandons her, on which she stabs herself in despair. Jupiter transforms the Cercopes into apes; and the islands which they inhabit are afterwards called ‘Pithecusæ,’ from the Greek word signifying ‘an ape.’

Many ancient writers, with whom Ovid here agrees, affirm that Memnon was the son of Tithonus, the brother of Priam, and Aurora, or Eos, the Goddess of the morn. They also say that he came to assist the Trojans with ten thousand Persians, and as many Æthiopians. Diodorus Siculus asserts that Memnon was said to have been the son of Aurora, because he left Phrygia, and went to settle in the East. It is not clear in what country he fixed his residence. Some say that it was at Susa, in Persia; others that it was in Egypt, or in Æthiopia, which perhaps amounts to the same, as Æthiopia was not in general distinguished from the Higher or Upper Egypt. Marsham is of opinion that Memnon was the same with Amenophis, one of the kings of Egypt: while Le Clercconsidershim to have been the same person as Ham, the son of Noah; and Vossius identifies him with Boalcis, a God of the Syrians. It seems probable that he was an Egyptian, who had perhaps formed an alliance with the reigning family of Troy.

Afterthe taking of Troy, Æneas escapes with his father and his son, and goes to Delos. Anius, the priest of Apollo, recounts to him how his daughters have been transformed into doves, and at parting they exchange presents. The Poet here introduces the story of the daughters of Orion, who, having sacrificed their lives for the safety of Thebes, when ravaged by a plague, two young men arise out of their ashes.

But yet the Fates do not allow the hope of Troy to be ruined even with its walls. The Cytherean hero bears on his shoulders the sacred relics and his father, another sacred relic, a venerable burden. In his affection, out of wealth so great, he selects that prize, and his own Ascanius, and with his flying fleet is borne through the seas from Antandros,57and leaves the accursed thresholds of the Thracians, and the earth streaming with the blood of Polydorus; and, with good winds and favouring tide, he enters the city of Apollo, his companions attending him.

Anius, by whom, as king, men were,andby whom, as priest, Phœbus was duly provided for, received him both into his temple and his house, and showed him the city and the dedicated temples, and the two trunks of trees once grasped58by Latona in her labour. Frankincense being given to the flames, and wine poured forth on the frankincense, and the entrails of slain oxen59being duly burnt, they repair to the royal palace, and reclining on lofty couches, with flowing wine, they take the gifts of Ceres. Then the pious Anchisessays, “O chosen priest of Phœbus, am I deceived? or didst thou not have a son, also, when first I beheld these walls, and twice two daughters, so far as I remember?” To him Anius replies, shaking his temples wreathed with snow-white fillets, and says, “Thou art not mistaken, greatest hero; thou didst see me the parent of five children, whom now (so great a vicissitude of fortunexiii. 646-683.affects mankind) thou seest almost bereftof all. For what assistance is my absent son to me, whom Andros, a landsocalled after his name, possesses, holding that place and kingdom on behalf of his father?

“The DelianGodgranted himthe art ofaugury; to my female progeny Liber gave other gifts, exceedingbothwishes and belief. For, at the touch of my daughters, all things were transformed into corn, and the stream of wine, and the berry of Minerva; and in these were there rich advantages. When the son of Atreus, the destroyer of Troy, learned this (that thou mayst not suppose that we, too, did not in some degree feel your storms) using the force of arms, he dragged them reluctantly from the bosom of their father, and commanded them to feed, with their heavenly gifts, the Argive fleet. Whither each of them could, they made their escape. Eubœa was sought by two; and by as many of my daughters, was Andros, their brother’sisland, sought. The forces came, and threatened war if they were not given up. Natural affection, subdued by fear, surrendered to punishment those kindred breasts; and, that thou mayst be able to forgive a timid brother, there was no Æneas, no Hector to defend Andros, through whom youTrojansheld out to the tenth year. And now chains were being provided for their captive arms. Lifting up towards heaven their arms still free, they said, ‘Father Bacchus, give us thy aid!’ and the author of their gift did give them aid; if destroying them, in a wondrous manner, be called giving aid. By what means they lost their shape, neither could I learn, nor can I now tell. The sum of their calamity is knownto me: they assumed wings, and were changed into birds of thy consort,60the snow-white doves.”

With such and other discourse, after they have passed thetime offeasting, the table being removed, they seek sleep. And they rise with the day, and repair to the oracle of Phœbus, who bids them seek the ancient mother and the kindred shores. The king attends, and presents them with gifts when about to depart; a sceptre to Anchises, a scarf and a quiver to his grandson,anda goblet to Æneas, which formerly Therses, his Ismenian guest, had sent him from the Aonian shores; thisxiii. 683-712.Therses had sent to him,butthe Mylean Alcon had made it, and had carved it with this long device:

There was a city, and you might point outitsseven gates: these were in place of61a name, and showed whatcityit was. Before the city was a funeral, and tombs, and fires, and funeral piles; and matrons, with hair dishevelled and naked breasts, expressed their grief; the Nymphs, too, seem to be weeping, and to mourn their springs dried up. Without foliage the bared tree runs straight up; the goats are gnawing the dried stones. Lo! he represents the daughters of Orion in the middle of Thebes; the one, as presenting her breast, more than woman’s, with her bared throat; the other, thrusting a sword in her valorous wounds, as dying for her people, and as being borne, with an honoured funeral, through the city, and as being burnt in a conspicuous partof it;andthen from the virgin embers, lest the race should fail, twin youths arising, whom Fame calls ‘Coronæ,’62and for their mothers’ ashes leading thefuneralprocession.

Thus far for the figures that shine on the ancient brass; the summit of the goblet is rough with gilded acanthus. Nor do the Trojans return gifts of less value than those given; and to the priest they give an incense-box, to keep the frankincense; they give a bowl,too, and a crown, brilliant with gold and gems. Then recollecting that theTrojans,asTeucrians, derived their origin from the blood of Teucer, they make for Crete, and cannot long endure the air of that place;63and, having left behind the hundred cities, they desire to reach the Ausonian harbours. A storm rages, and tosses the men to and fro; and winged Aëllo frightens them, when received in the unsafe harbours of the Strophades.64And now, borne along,xiii. 712-718.they have passed the Dulichian harbours, and Ithaca, and Same,65and the Neritian abodes, the kingdom of the deceitful Ulysses; and they behold Ambracia,66contended for in a dispute of the Deities, which now is renowned for the Actian Apollo,67and the stone in the shape of the transformed judge, and the land of Dodona, vocal with its oaks; and the Chaonian bays, where the sons of the Molossian king escaped the unavailing flames, with wings attachedto them.

Virgil describes Anius as the king of Delos, and the priest of Apollo at the same time. ‘Rex Anius, rex idem hominum Phœbique sacerdos.’ Æneid, Book III. He was descended from Cadmus, through his mother Rhea, the daughter of Staphilus. Having engaged in some intrigue, as Diodorus Siculus conjectures, her father exposed her on the sea in an open boat, which drove to Delos, and she was there delivered of Anius, who afterwards became the king of the island. By his wife Dorippe he had three daughters, who were extremely frugal, and by means of the offerings and presents that were brought to the temple of Apollo, amassed a large store of provisions. During the siege of Troy, the Greeks sent Palamedes to Delos, to demand food for the army; and, as a security for his compliance with these demands, they exacted the daughters of Anius as hostages. The damsels soon afterwards finding means to escape, it was said that Bacchus, who was their kinsman through Cadmus, had transformed them into doves. Probably the story of their transforming every thing they touched, into wine, corn, and oil, was founded solely on their thriftiness and parsimony. Bochart, however, explains the story from the circumstance of their names being, as he conjectures, Oëno, Spermo, and Elaï, which, in the old Phœnician dialect, signified wine, corn, and oil; and he thinks that the story was confirmed in general belief by the fact that large quantities of corn, wine, and oil were supplied from Delos to the Grecian army when before Troy.

In the reign of Orion, Thebes being devastated by a plague, the oracles were consulted, and the Thebans were told that the contagion would cease as soon as the daughters of the king should be sacrificed to the wrath of heaven. The two maidens immediately presented themselves at the altar; and on their immolation, the Gods were appeased, and the plague ceased.This example of patriotism and fortitude filled the more youthful Thebans with so much emulation, that they shook off their former inactivity, and soon became conspicuous for their bravery: which sudden change gave occasion to the saying, that the ashes of these maidens had been transformed into men.

The Poet follows Æneas on his voyage, to gain an opportunity of referring to several other current stories. Among other places, he passes the city of Ambracia, about which the Gods had contended, and sees the rock into which the umpire of their dispute, who had decided in favour of Hercules, was changed. Ambracia was on the coast of Epirus, and gave its name to an adjacent inlet of the sea, called the Ambracian Gulf. Antoninus Liberalis tells us, on the authority of Nicander, that Apollo, Diana, and Hercules disputed about this city, and left the decision to Cragaleus, who gave it in favour of Hercules; on which, Apollo transformed him into a rock. Very possibly the meaning of this may be, that when the people of Ambracia were considering to which of these Deities they should dedicate their city, Cragaleus preferred Hercules to the other two, or, in other words, the feats of war to the cultivation of the arts and sciences. Apollo was said to have turned him into a stone, either because he met with his death near the promontory where a temple of Apollo stood, or to show the stupidity of his decision. Antoninus Liberalis is the only writer besides Ovid that makes mention of the adventure of the sons of the Molossian king; he tells us that Munychus, king of the Molossi, had three sons, Alcander, Megaletor, and Philæus, and a daughter named Hyperippe. Some robbers setting fire to their father’s house, they were transformed by Jupiter into birds. This, in all probability, is a poetical way of saying that the youths escaped from the flames, contrary to universal expectation.

The opinions of writers have been very conflicting as to the origin of the oracle of Dodona. Silius Italicus says that two pigeons flew from Thebes in Egypt, one of which went to Libya, and occasioned the founding of the oracle of Jupiter Ammon; while the other settled upon an oak in Chaonia, and signified thereby to the inhabitants, that it was the will of heaven that there should be an oracle in that place. Herodotus says that two priestesses of Egyptian Thebes being carried off by some Phœnician merchants, one of them was sold to the Greeks, after which she settled in the forest of Dodona, where a little chapel was founded by her in honour of Jupiter, in which she gave responses. He adds, that they called her ‘the dove,’ because being a foreigner they did not understand her language. At length, having learned the language of the Pelasgians, it was said that the dove had spoken. On that foundation grew the tradition that the oaks themselves uttered oracular responses.

Notwithstanding this plausible account of Herodotus, it is not impossible that some equivocal expressions in the Hebrew and Arabian languages may have given rise to the story. ‘Himan,’ in the one language, signified ‘a priest;’ and ‘Heman,’ in the other, was the name for ‘a pigeon.’ Possibly those who found the former word in the history of ancient Greece, written in the dialect of the original Phœnician settlers, did not understand it, and by their mistake, caused it to be asserted that a dove had founded theoracle of Dodona. Bochart tells us that the same word, in the Phœnician tongue, signifies either ‘pigeons,’ or ‘women;’ but the Abbè Sallier has gone still further, and has shown that, in the language of the ancient inhabitants of Epirus, the same word had the two significations mentioned by Bochart.

This oracle afterwards grew famous for its responses, and the priests used considerable ingenuity in the delivery of their answers. They cautiously kept all who came to consult them at a distance from the dark recess where the shrine was situated; and took care to deliver their responses in a manner so ambiguous, as to make people believe whatever they pleased. In this circumstance originates the variation in the descriptions of the oracle which the ancients have left us. According to some, it was the oaks that spoke; according to others, the beeches; while a third account was that pigeons gave the answers; and, lastly, it was said that the ringing of certain cauldrons there suspended, divulged the will of heaven. Stephanus Byzantinus has left a curious account of this contrivance of the cauldrons; he says that in that part of the forest of Dodona, where the oracle stood, there were two pillars erected, at a small distance from each other. On one there was placed a brazen vessel, about the size of an ordinary cauldron: and on the other a little boy, which was most probably a piece of mechanism, who held a brazen whip with several thongs which hung loose, and were easily moved. When the wind blew, the lashes struck against the vessel, and occasioned a noise while the wind continued. It was from them, he says, that the forest took the name of Dodona; ‘dodo,’ in the ancient language, signifying ‘a cauldron.’

Strabo says that the responses were originally given by three priestesses: and he gives the reason why two priests were afterwards added to them. The Bœotians having been treacherously attacked by the people of Thrace during a truce which they had made, went to consult the oracle of Dodona; and the priestess answering them that if they would act impiously their design would succeed to their wish, the envoys suspected that this response had been suggested by the enemy, and burned her in revenge; after which they vindicated their cruelty by saying that if the priestess designed to deceive them, she well deserved her punishment; and that if she spoke with truthfulness, they had only followed the advice of the oracle. This argument not satisfying the people of the district, the Bœotian envoys were seized; but as they pleaded that it was unjust that two women already prejudiced against them should be their judges, two priests were added to decide the matter. These, in return for their being the occasion of putting them in an office so honourable and lucrative, acquitted the Bœotians; whose fellow countrymen were always in the habit from that time of addressing the priests when they consulted the oracle. These priests were called by the name of ‘Selli.’

Polyphemus, one of the Cyclops, jealous of Acis, who is in love with Galatea, kills the youth with a rock which he hurls at him; on which, his blood is changed into a river which bears his name.

They make for the neighbouring land of the Phæacians,68planted with beauteous fruit. After this, Epirus and Buthrotos,69ruled over by the Phrygian prophet, and a fictitious Troy, are reached. Thence, acquainted with the future, all which, Helenus, the son of Priam, in his faithful instructions has forewarned them of, they enter Sicania. With three points this projects into the sea. Of these, Pachynos is turned towards the showery South: Lilybæum is exposed to the soft Zephyrs: but Peloros looks towards the Bear, free from the sea, and towards Boreas. By thispartthe Trojans enter; and with oars and favouring tide, at nightfall the fleet makes the Zanclæan sands. Scylla infests the right hand side, the restless Charybdis the left. This swallows and vomits forth again ships taken down; the other, having the face of a maiden, has her swarthy stomach surrounded with fierce dogs; and (if the poets have not left the whole a fiction) once on a time, too,she wasa maiden. Many suitors courted her; who being repulsed, she, most beloved by the Nymphs of the ocean, went to the ocean Nymphs, and used to relate the eluded loves of the youths.

While Galatea70was giving her hair be to combed, heaving sighs, she addressed her in such words as these: “Andyet, O maiden, no ungentle race of men does woo thee; and as thou dost, thou art able to deny them with impunity. But I, whose sire is Nereus, whom the azure Doris bore, who am guarded, too, by a crowd of sisters, was not able, but through the waves, to escape the passion of the Cyclop;” and as she spoke, the tears choked her utterance. When, with her fingers like marble, the maiden had wiped these away, and had comfortedxiii. 747-782.the Goddess, “Tell me, dearest,” said she, “and conceal notfrom me(forI am true to thee) the cause of thy grief.” In these words did the Nereid reply to the daughter of Cratæis:71“Acis was the son of Faunus and of the Nymph Symæthis, a great delight, indeed, to his father and his mother, yet a still greater to me. For the charmingyouthhad attached me to himself alone, and eight birth-days having a second time been passed, he hadnowmarked his tender cheeks with the dubious down. Him Ipursued; incessantly did the Cyclop me pursue. Nor can I, shouldst thou enquire, declare whether the hatred of theCyclop, or the love of Acis, was the stronger in me. They were equal. O genial Venus! how great is the power of thy sway. For that savage, and one to be dreaded by the very woods, and beheld with impunity by no stranger, the contemner of great Olympus with the Godsthemselves,nowfeels what love is; and, captivated with passion for me, he burns, forgetting his cattle and his caves.

“And now, Polyphemus, thou hast a care for thy looks, and now forthe art ofpleasing; now thou combest out thy stiffened hair with rakes,andnow it pleases thee to cut thy shaggy beard with the sickle, and to look at thy fierce features in the water, andsoto compose them. Thy love for carnage, and thy fierceness, and thy insatiate thirst for blood,nowcease; and the ships both come and go in safety. Telemus, in the mean time arriving at the Sicilian Ætna, Telemus, the son of Eurymus, whom no omen hadeverdeceived, accosts the dreadful Polyphemus, and says, ‘The single eye that thou dost carry in the midst of thy forehead, Ulysses shall take away from thee.’ He laughed, and said, ‘O most silly of the prophets, thou art mistaken,foranother has already taken it away.’ Thus does he slight him, in vain warning him of the truth; and he either burdens the shore, stalking along with huge strides, or, wearied, he returns to his shaded cave.

“A hill, in form of a wedge, runs out with a long projection into the sea:andthe waves of the ocean flow round either side. Hither the fierce Cyclop ascended, and sat down in the middle. His woolly flocks followed, there being no one to guide them. After the pine tree,72which afforded him thexiii. 782-816.service of a staff,but morefitted for sail-yards, was laid before his feet, and his pipe was taken up, formed of a hundred reeds; all the mountains were sensible of the piping of the shepherd: the waves,too, were sensible. I, lying hid within a rock, and reclining on the bosom of my own Acis, from afar caught such words as these with my ears, and marked themsoheard in my mind: ‘O Galatea, fairer than73the leaf of the snow-white privet,74more blooming than the meadows, more slender than the tall alder, brighter than glass, more wanton than the tender kid, smoother than the shells worn by continual floods, more pleasing than the winter’s sun,orthan the summer’s shade, more beauteous than the apples, more sightly than the lofty plane tree, clearer than ice, sweeter than the ripened grape, softer than both the down of the swan, and than curdled milk, and, didst thou not fly me, more beauteous than a watered garden.And yetthou, the same Galatea,artwilder than the untamed bullocks, harder than the aged oak, more unstable than the waters, tougher than both the twigs of osier and than the white vines, more immoveable than these rocks, more violent than the torrent, prouder than the bepraised peacock, fiercer than the fire, rougher than the thistles, more cruel than the pregnant she-bear, more deaf than the ocean waves, more savage than the trodden water-snake: and, what I could especially wish to deprive thee of, fleeter not only than the deer when pursued by the loud barkings, but even than the winds and the fleeting air.

“‘But didst thoubutknow me well, thou wouldst repine at having fled, and thou thyself wouldst blame thy own hesitation, and wouldst strive to retain me. I have a part of the mountain for my cave, pendent with the native rock; in which the sun is not felt in the middle of the heat, nor is the winter felt: there are apples that load the boughs; there are grapes on the lengthening vines, resembling gold; and there are purple onesas well; both the one and the other do I reserve for thee. With thine own hands thou shalt thyself gather the soft strawberries growing beneath the woodlandxiii. 816-851.shade; thou thyselfshalt pluckthe cornels of autumn, and plums not only darkened with their black juice, but even of the choicest kinds, and resembling new wax. Nor, I being thy husband, will there be wanting to thee chesnuts, nor the fruit of the arbute tree:75every tree shall be at thy service. All this cattle is my own: many, too, are wandering in the valleys: many the wood conceals: manymoreare penned in my caves. Nor, shouldst thou ask me perchance, could I tell thee, how many there are; ’tis for the poor man to count his cattle. For the praises of these trust not me at all; in person thou thyself mayst see how they can hardly support with their legs their distended udders. Lambs, too, a smaller breed, are in the warm folds: there are kids, too, of equal ageto themin other folds. Snow-white milk I always have: a part of it is kept for drinking,anotherpart the liquified rennet hardens. Nor will common delights, and ordinary enjoyments alone fall to thy lot,such asdoes, and hares, and she-goats, or a pair of doves, or a nest taken from the tree top. I have found on the mountain summit the twin cubs of a shaggy she-bear, which can play with thee, so like each other that thou couldst scarce distinguish them.TheseI found, and I said, ‘These for my mistress will I keep.’

“‘Do now but raise thy beauteous head from out of the azure sea; now, Galatea, come, and do not scorn my presents. Surely I know myself, and myself but lately I beheld in the reflection of the limpid water; and my figure76pleased me as I saw it. See how huge I am. Not Jove, in heaven, is greater than this body; for thou art wont to tell how one Jupiter reigns, who he is I know not. Plenty of hair hangs over my grisly features, and, like a grove, overshadows my shoulders; nor think it uncomely that my body is rough, thick set with stiff bristles. A tree without leaves is unseemly; a horse is unseemly, unless a mane covers his tawny neck. Feathers cover the birds; their wool is an ornament to the sheep; a beard and rough hair upon their body is becoming to men. I have but one eye in the middle of my forehead, but it is likexiii. 852-890.a large buckler. Well! and does not the Sun from the heavens behold all these things? and yet the Sun has but one eye. And, besides, in your seas does my father reign. Him do I offer thee for a father-in-law; only do take pity on a suppliant, and hear his prayer, for to thee alone do I give way. And I, who despise Jove, and the heavens, and the piercing lightnings, dread thee, daughter of Nereus; than the lightnings is thy wrath more dreadful to me. But I should be more patient under these slights, if thou didst avoid all men. For why, rejecting the Cyclop, dost thou love Acis? And why prefer Acis to my embraces? Yet, let him please himself, and let him please thee, too, Galatea,thoughI wish he could not; if only the opportunity is given, he shall find that I have strength proportioned to a body so vast. I will pull out his palpitating entrails; and I will scatter his torn limbs about the fields, and throughout thy waves,andthus let him be united to thee. For I burn: and my passion,thusslighted, rages with the greater fury; and I seem to be carrying in my breast Ætna, transferred there withallits flames; and yet, Galatea, thou art unmoved.’

“Having in vain uttered such complaints (for all this I saw), he rises; and like an enraged bull, when the heifer is taken away from him, he could not stand still, and he wandered in the wood, and the well known forests. When the savagemonsterespied me, and Acis unsuspecting and apprehensive of no such thing; and he exclaimed:— ‘I see you, and I shall cause this to be the last union for your affection.’ And that voice was as loud as an enraged Cyclop ought,for his size, to have. Ætna trembled at the noise; but I, struck with horror, plunged into the adjoining sea. The hero, son of Symæthis, turned his back and fled, and cried,— ‘Help me, Galatea, I entreat thee; help me, ye parentsof hers; and admit me,nowon the point of destruction, within your realms.’ The Cyclop pursued, and hurled a fragment, torn from the mountain; and though the extreme angle only of the rock reached him, yet it entirely crushed Acis. But I did the only thing that was allowed by the Fates to be done, that Acis might assume the properties of his grandsire. The purple blood flowed from beneath the rock, and in a little time the redness began to vanish; and at first it became the colour of a stream muddied by a shower; and, in time, it became clear. Then the rock, that had been thrown, opened,xiii. 890-897.and through the chinks, a reed vigorous and stately arose, and the hollow mouth of the rock resounded with the waters gushing forth. And, wondrous event! a youth suddenly emerged, as far as the midriff, having his new-made horns encircled with twining reeds. And he, but that he was of larger stature, and azure in all his features, was Acisstill. But, even then, still it was Acis, changed into a river; and the stream has since retained that ancient name.”

Homer, who, in the ninth Book of the Odyssey, has entered fully into the subject of Polyphemus and the other Cyclops, does not recount this adventure, which Ovid has borrowed from Theocritus, the Sicilian poet. Some writers have suggested that Acis was a Sicilian youth, who, having met with a repulse from Galatea, threw himself into the river, which was afterwards called by his name. It is, however, more probable that this river was so called from the rapidity of its course. Indeed, the scholiast on Theocritus and Eustathius distinctly say that the stream was called Acis, because the swiftness of its course resembled that of an arrow, which was calledἀκὶς, in the Greek language.

Homer, in describing the Cyclops, informs us that they were a lawless race, who, neglecting husbandry, lived on the spontaneous produce of a rich soil, and dwelling in mountain caves, devoted themselves entirely to the pleasures of a pastoral life. He says that they were men of monstrous stature, and had but one eye, in the middle of their forehead. Thucydides supposes them to have been the original inhabitants of Sicily. As their origin was unknown, it was said that they were the offspring of Neptune, or, in other words, that they had come by sea, to settle in Sicily. According to Justin, they retained possession of the island till the time of Cocalus; but in that point he disagrees with Homer, who represents them as being in the island after the time of Cocalus, who was a contemporary of Minos, and lived long before the Trojan war.

They inhabited the western parts of Sicily, near the promontories of Lilybæum and Drepanum; and from that circumstance, according to Bochart, they received their name. He supposes that the Cyclopes were so called from the Phœnician compound word Chek-lub, contracted for Chek-le-lub, which, according to him, was the name of the Gulf of Lilybæum. Because, in the Greek languageκυκλὸςsignified ‘a circle,’ andὤπς, ‘an eye,’ it was given out that the name of Cyclops was given to them, because they had but one round eye in the middle of the forehead. It is possible that they may have acquired their character of being cannibals on true grounds, or, perhaps, only because they were noted for their extreme cruelty. Living near the volcanic mountain of Ætna, they were called the workmen of Vulcan; and Virgil describes them as forging the thunderbolts of Jupiter. Some writers represent them as having armed the three Deities, who divided the empire of the world: Jupiter with thunder; Pluto with his helmet; and Neptune with his trident. Statius represents them as the builders of the walls of Argos and Virgil as thexiii. 898-917.founders of the gates of the Elysian fields. Aristotle supposes that they were the first builders of towers.

Diodorus Siculus and Tzetzes say that Polyphemus was king of a part of Sicily, when Ulysses landed there; who, falling in love with Elpe, the daughter of the king, carried her off.The Læstrygons, the neighbours of Polyphemus, pursued him, and obliged him to give up the damsel, who was brought back to her father. Ulysses, in relating the story to the Phæacians, artfully concealed circumstances so little to his credit, and with impunity invented the absurdities which he related concerning a country to which his audience were utter strangers.

Glaucushaving observed some fishes which he has laid upon the grass revive and leap again into the water, is desirous to try the influence of the grass on himself. Putting some of it into his mouth, he immediately becomes mad, and leaping into the sea, is transformed into a sea God.

Galatea ceases77speaking, and the company breaking up, they depart; and the Nereids swim in the becalmed waves. Scylla returns, (for, in truth, she does not trust herself in the midst of the ocean) and either wanders about without garments on the thirsty sand, or, when she is tired, having lighted upon some lonely recess of the sea, cools her limbs in the enclosed waves.When, lo! cleaving the deep, Glaucus comes, a new-made inhabitant of the deep sea, his limbs having been lately transformed at Anthedon,78near Eubœa; and he lingers from passion for the maidennowseen, and utters whatever words he thinks may detain her as she flies. Yet still she flies, and, swift through fear, she arrives at the top of a mountain, situate near the shore.

In front of the sea, there is a huge ridge, terminating in one summit, bending for a long distance over the waves,andwithout trees. Here she stands, and secured by the place, ignorant whether he is a monster or a God, she both admires his colour, and his flowing hair that covers his shoulders and his back, and how a wreathed fish closes the extremity of his groin.Thishe perceives; and leaning upon a rock that stands hard by, he says, “Maiden, I am no monster, no savagexiii. 917-956.beast; I am a God of the waters: nor have Proteus, and Triton, and Palæmon, the son of Athamas, a more uncontrolled reign over the deep. Yet formerly I was a mortal; but, still, devoted to the deep sea, even then was I employed in it. For, at one time, I used to drag the nets that swept up the fish; at another time, seated on a rock, I managed the line with the rod. The shore was adjacent to a verdant meadow, one part of which was surrounded with water, the other with grass, which, neither the horned heifers had hurt with their browsing, nor had you, ye harmless sheep, noryou, ye shaggy goats,evercropped it. No industrious bee tookthencethe collected blossoms, no festive garlands were gathered thence for the head; and no mower’s hands had ever cut it. I was the first to be seated on that turf, while I was drying the dripping nets. And that I might count in their order the fish that I had taken; I laid out those upon it which either chance had driven to my nets, or their own credulity to my barbed hooks.

“The thing is like a fiction (but of what use is it to me to coin fictions?); on touching the grass my prey began to move, and to shift their sides, and to skip about on the land, as though in the sea. And while I both paused and wondered, the whole batch flew off to the waves, and left behind their new master and the shore. I was amazed, and, in doubt for a long time, I considered what could be the cause; whether some Divinity had done this, or whether the juice ofsomeherb. ‘And yet,’ said I, ‘what herb has these properties?’ and with my hand I plucked the grass, and I chewed it,soplucked, with my teeth. Hardly had my throat well swallowed the unknown juices, when I suddenly felt my entrails inwardly throb, and my mind taken possession of by the passions of another nature. Nor could I stay inthatplace; and I exclaimed, ‘Farewell, land, never more to be revisited;’ and plunged my body beneath the deep. The Gods of the sea vouchsafed me, on being received by them, kindred honours, and they entreated Oceanus and Tethys to take away from me whatever mortality I bore. By them was I purified; and a charm being repeated over me nine times, that washes awayallguilt, I was commanded to put my breast beneath a hundred streams.

“There was no delay; rivers issuing from different springs, and whole seas, were poured over my head. Thus far I canxiii. 956-968.relate to thee what happened worthy to be related, and thus far do I remember; but my understanding was not conscious of the rest. When it returnedto me, I found myself different throughout all my body from what I was before, and not the same in mind. Then, for the first time, did I behold this beard, green with its deep colour, and my flowing hair, which I sweep along the spacious seas, and my huge shoulders, and my azurecoloured arms, and the extremities of my legs tapering inthe form ofa finny fish. But still, what does this form avail me, what to have pleased the ocean Deities,andwhat to be a God, if thou art not moved by these things?”

As he was saying such things as these, and about to say still more, Scylla left the God. He was enraged, and, provoked at the repulse, he repaired to the marvellous court of Circe, the daughter of Titan.

The ancient writers mention three persons of the name of Glaucus: one was the son of Minos, the second of Hippolochus, and the third is the one here mentioned. Strabo calls him the son of Polybus, while other writers make him to have been the son of Phorbas, and others of Neptune. Being drowned, perhaps by accident, to do honour to his memory, it was promulgated that he had become a sea God, and the city of Anthedon, of which he was a native, worshipped him as such.

Athenæus says that he carried off Ariadne from the isle of Naxos, where Theseus had left her; on which Bacchus punished him by binding him to a vine. According to Diodorus Siculus, he appeared to the Argonauts, when overtaken by a storm. From Apollonius Rhodius we learn that he foretold to them that Hercules, and Castor and Pollux, would be received into the number of the Gods. It was also said, that in the battle which took place between Jason and the Tyrrhenians, he was the only person that escaped unwounded. Euripides, who is followed by Pausanias, says that he was the interpreter of Nereus, and was skilled in prophecy; and Nicander even says that it was from him that Apollo learned the art of prediction. Strabo and Philostratus say that he was metamorphosed into a Triton, which is a-kin to the description of his appearance here given by Ovid.

The place where he leaped into the sea was long remembered; and in the days of Pausanias ‘Glaucus’ Leap’ was still pointed out by the people of Anthedon. It is not improbable that he drowned himself for some reason which tradition failed to hand down to posterity.

1.We are pleading.]—Ver. 5. The skill of the Poet is perceptible in the abrupt commencement of the speech of the impetuous Ajax.2.Nor his.]—Ver. 11. Ajax often uses the pronoun ‘iste’ as a term of reproach.3.Night alone.]—Ver. 15. By this he means that the alleged exploits of Ulysses were altogether fictitious; or that they were done in the dark to conceal his fear.4.Took the city.]—Ver. 23. Telamon, was the companion of Hercules when he sacked Troy, as a punishment for the perfidy of Laomedon.5.Sisyphus.]—Ver. 26. This is intended as a reproachful hint against Ulysses, whose mother, Anticlea, was said to have been seduced by Sisyphus before her marriage to Laërtes.6.Ajax is the third.]—Ver. 28. That is the third, exclusive of Jupiter; for Ajax was the grandson of Æacus, and the great grandson of Jupiter.7.My cousin.]—Ver. 31. ‘Frater’ here means, not ‘brother,’ but ‘cousin,’ as Peleus and Telamon, the fathers of Achilles and Ajax, were brothers.8.No informer.]—Ver. 34. He alludes to the means which Ulysses adopted to avoid going to the Trojan war. Pretending to be seized with madness, he ploughed the sea-shore, and sowed it with salt. To ascertain the truth, Palamedes placed his infant son, Telemachus, before the plough; on which Ulysses turned on one side, to avoid hurting the child, which was considered a proof that his madness was not real.9.Son of Nauplius.]—Ver. 39. Palamedes was the son of Nauplius, the king of Eubœa, and a son of Neptune.10.The contrivance.]—Ver. 38. Ulysses forged a letter from Priam, in which the king thanked Palamedes for his intended assistance to the Trojan cause, and begged to present him a sum of money. By bribing the servants of Palamedes, he caused a large quantity of gold to be buried in the ground, under his tent. He then caused the letter to be intercepted, and to be carried to Agamemnon. On the appearance of Palamedes to answer the charge, Ulysses appeared seemingly as his friend, and suggested, that if no gold should be found in his possession, he must be innocent. The gold, however, being found, Palamedes was stoned to death.11.Son of Pœas.]—Ver. 45. Philoctetes was the possessor of the arrows of Hercules, without the presence of which Troy could not be taken. Accompanying the Greeks to the Trojan war, he was wounded in the foot by one of the arrows; and the smell arising from the wound was so offensive, that, by the advice of Ulysses, he was left behind, in the island of Lemnos, one of the Cyclades.12.Is being clothed.]—Ver. 53. The Poet Attius, as quoted by Cicero, says that Philoctetes, while in Lemnos, made himself clothing out of the feathers of birds.13.Or by death.]—Ver. 61. Exile in the case of Philoctetes; death, in that of Palamedes.14.Forsaking of Nestor.]—Ver. 64. Nestor having been wounded by Paris, and being overtaken by Hector, was on the point of perishing, when Diomedes came to his rescue, Ulysses having taken to flight. See the Iliad, Book iii.15.And upbraided.]—Ver. 69. He alludes to the words in the Iliad, which Homer puts in the mouth of Diomedes.16.And covered him.]—Ver. 75. Ajax, at the request of Menelaüs, protected Ulysses with his shield, when he was wounded.17.Fall to my lot.]—Ver. 85. He alludes to the occasion when some of the bravest of the Greeks drew lots which should accept the challenge of Hector: the Greeks wishing, according to Homer, that the lot might fall to Ajax Telamon, Ajax Oïleus, or Agamemnon.18.Rhesus.]—Ver. 98. He was slain by Ulysses and Diomedes on the night on which he arrived, Iliad, Book x.19.Dolon.]—Ver. 98. Being sent out by Hector to spy, he was intercepted by Ulysses and Diomedes, and slain at Troy. Iliad, Book x.20.Helenus.]—Ver. 99. Being skilled in prophesy, after he was taken prisoner by Diomedes and Ulysses, his life was saved; and marrying Andromache, after the death of Pyrrhus, he succeeded to the throne of part of the kingdom of Chaonia.21.Dulichian.]—Ver. 107. Dulichium was an island of the Ionian Sea, near Ithaca, and part of the realms of Ulysses.22.The spear.]—Ver. 109. The spear of Achilles had been cut from the wood on Mount Pelion, and given by the Centaur Chiron to his father Peleus.23.He through whom.]—Ver. 134. Through whom Achilles had been discovered, concealed among the daughters of Lycomedes, king of Seyros.24.Ever condemned.]—Ver. 145. He alludes to the joint crime of Peleus the uncle, and Telamon, the father of Ajax, who were banished for the murder of their brother Phocus.25.Through the mother.]—Ver. 146. Anticlea, the mother of Ulysses, was the daughter of Autolycus, of whom Mercury was the father by Chione, the daughter of Dædalion.26.Phthia.]—Ver. 156. Phthia was the city of Thessaly, where Peleus, the father of Achilles, was residing; while Pyrrhus, his son, was living with his mother Deidamia, in the isle of Scyros, one of the Cyclades.27.Teucer.]—Ver. 157. Teucer was the cousin of Achilles, being the son of Telamon, and the half-brother of Ajax; Hesione being the mother of Teucer, while Ajax was the son of Eubœa.28.Chrysa.]—Ver. 174. Chrysa and Cylla were cities in the vicinity of Troy. This Scyros was, probably, not the island of that name, but some place near Troy.29.Lyrnessian.]—Ver. 176. This was a city of the Troad, on the taking of which by Achilles, Hippodamia, or Briseïs, the daughter of Bryses, was made captive by Achilles.30.Grief of one.]—Ver. 181. He alludes to the misfortune of Menelaüs in losing his wife, if, indeed, it could be deemed a misfortune.31.Antenor.]—Ver. 201. Antenor, who was related to Priam, always advocated peace with the Greeks; for which reason, according to Livy, the Greeks did not treat him as an enemy.32.Surround the trenches.]—Ver. 212. He probably alludes to the trenches thrown up before the ships of the Greeks, and defended by embankments, which were afterwards destroyed by Neptune.33.I am sent.]—Ver. 215. As on the occasion when he was sent to restore Chryseis to her father Chryses, the priest of Apollo, that the pestilence might be stayed, which had been sent by the offended God.34.Thersites.]—Ver. 233. He was the most deformed, cowardly, and impudent of the Greeks, who, always abusing his betters, was beaten by Ulysses, and was at last killed by Achilles with a blow of his fist.35.Compelled him.]—Ver. 245. When he was taken prisoner by them, Ulysses and Diomedes compelled Dolon to disclose what was going on in the Trojan camp, and learned from him the recent arrival of Rhesus, the son of either Mars or Strymon, and the king of Thrace.36.Sarpedon.]—Ver. 255. He was the son of Jupiter and Europa, and was king of Lycia. Aiding the Trojans, he was slain by Patroclus.37.In their place.]—Ver. 263. That is, inflicted on the breast, and not on the back.38.A single wound.]—Ver. 267. He alludes to his being invulnerable, from having been wrapped in the lion’s skin of Hercules.39.Dared to engage.]—Ver. 275. Hector and Ajax Telamon meeting in single combat, neither was the conqueror; but on parting they exchanged gifts, which were fatal to them both. Hector was dragged round the walls of Troy by the belt which he received from Ajax; while the latter committed suicide with the sword which was given to him by Hector.40.Dardanian prophet.]—Ver. 335. Helenus,the son of Priam.41.The hidden statue.]—Ver. 337. This was the Palladium, or statue of Minerva, which was destined to be the guardian of the safety of Troy, so long as it was in the possession of the Trojans.42.By thy looks.]—Ver. 350. We are to suppose, that here Ajax is nodding at, or pointing towards Diomedes, as having helped Ulysses on all the occasions which he names, he having been his constant companion in his exploits.43.Eurypilus.]—Ver. 357. He was the son of Evæmon, and came with forty ships to aid the Greeks. He was from Ormenius, a city of Thessaly.44.Andremon.]—Ver. 357. Thoas, the son of Andremon, was the leader of the Ætolians; he came with forty ships to the Trojan war.45.Idomeneus.]—Ver. 358. He was the son of Deucalion, king of Crete. After the siege of Troy, he settled at Salentinum, a promontory of Calabria, in Italy.46.Meriones.]—Ver. 359. He was the nephew and charioteer of Idomeneus.47.To the name.]—Ver. 398. See note to Book x., line 207.48.Country of Hypsipyle.]—Ver. 399. The island of Lemnos is here called the country of Hypsipyle, who saved the life of her father Thoas, when the other women of the island slew the males.49.A foreign air.]—Ver. 406. Namely, Thrace, which was far away from her native country.50.Priestess of Apollo.]—Ver. 410. Cassandra was the priestess of Apollo. Being ravished by Ajax Oïleus, she became the captive of Agamemnon, and was slain by Clytemnestra.51.Astyanax.]—Ver. 415. He was the only child of Hector and Andromache. Ulysses threw him from the top of a high tower, that none of the royal blood might survive.52.Forsooth.]—460. Clarke translates ‘scilicet,’ ‘I warrant ye.’53.And children.]—Ver. 509. Hyginus names fifty-four children of Priam, of whom seventeen were by Hecuba.54.She beheld.]—Ver. 536. Euripides represents, in his tragedy of Hecuba, that a female servant, sent by Hecuba to bring water from the sea shore for the purpose of washing the body of Polyxena, was the first to see the corpse of Polydorus.55.Derives its name.]—Ver. 569. Strabo places it near Sestos, in the Thracian Chersonesus, and calls itκυνὸς σῆμα, ‘The bitches’ tomb.’56.Of their parent.]—Ver. 619. He perhaps alludes to the fights of the Gladiators, on the occasion of the funerals of the Roman patricians. ‘Parentali perituræ Marte,’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘to fall in the fight of parentation.’57.Antandros.]—Ver. 628. This was a city of Phrygia, at the foot of Mount Ida, where the fleet of Æneas was built.58.Trees once grasped.]—Ver. 635. These were a palm and an olive tree, which were pointed out by the people of Delos, as having been held by Latona, when in the pangs of labour.59.Of slain oxen.]—Ver. 637. This, however, was contrary to the usual practice; for if we credit Macrobius, no victim was slain on the altars of Apollo, in the island of Delos.60.Of thy consort.]—Ver. 673. It must be remembered, that he is addressing Anchises, who was said to have enjoyed the favour of Venus; to which Goddess the dove was consecrated.61.In place of.]—Ver. 686. For the seven gates, would at once lead to the conclusion that it represented the city of Thebes, in Bœotia. Myla, before referred to, was a town of Sicily.62.Calls ‘Coronæ’.]—Ver. 698. The word ‘Coronas’ is here employed as the plural of a female name ‘Corona;’ in GreekΚώρωνις.63.Of that place.]—Ver. 707. Æneas and his followers founded in Crete the city of Pergamea; but the pestilence which raged there, and a continued drought, combined with the density of the atmosphere, obliged them to leave the island.64.The Strophades.]—Ver. 709. These were two islands in the Ionian Sea, on the western side of Peloponnesus. They received their name from the Greekwordστροφὴ, ‘a return,’ because Calais and Zethes pursued the Harpies, which persecuted Phineus so far, and then returned home by the command of Jupiter.65.Same.]—Ver. 711. This island was also called Cephalenia. It was in the Ionian Sea, and formed part of the kingdom of Ulysses.66.Ambracia.]—Ver. 714. This was a famous city of Epirus, which gave its name to the gulf of Ambracia.67.Actian Apollo.]—Ver. 715. Augustus built a temple to Apollo, at Actium, in Epirus, near which he had defeated the fleet of Antony and Cleopatra. He also instituted games, to be celebrated there every fifth year in honour of his victory.68.The Phæacians.]—Ver. 719. The Phæacians were the people of the Island of Corcyra (now Corfu), who were so called from Phæax, the son of Neptune. This island was famous for the gardens of Alcinoüs, which are mentioned in the Odyssey. The Corcyrans were the originators of the disastrous Peloponnesian war.69.Buthrotos.]—Ver. 721. This was a city of Epirus, not far from Corcyra. It received its name from its founder.70.Galatea.]—Ver. 738. She was a sea Nymph, the daughter of Nereus and Doris.71.Daughter of Cratæis.]—Ver. 749. Cratæis was a river of Calabria, in Italy. Symæthis was a stream of Sicily, opposite to Calabria.72.The pine tree.]—Ver. 782. By way of corroborating this assertion, Boccaccio tells us, that the body of Polyphemus was found in Sicily, his left hand grasping a walking-stick longer than the mast of a ship.73.Fairer than.]—Ver. 789. This song of Polyphemus is, in some measure, imitated from that of the Cyclop, in the Eleventh Idyll of Theocritus.74.Snow-white privet.]—Ver. 789. Hesiod says, that Galatea had her name from her extreme fairness;γάλαbeing the Greek word for milk. To this the Poet here alludes.75.Arbute tree.]—Ver. 820. The fruit of the arbutus, or strawberry tree, were so extremely sour, that they were called, as Pliny the Elder tells us, ‘unedones;’ because people could not eat more than one. The tree itself was valued for the beauty and pleasing shade of its foliage.76.My figure.]—Ver. 841. Virgil and Theocritus also represent Polyphemus as boasting of his good looks.77.Ceases.]—Ver. 898. ‘Desierat Galatea loqui,’ is translated by Clarke, ‘Galatea gave over talking.’78.Anthedon.]—Ver. 905. Anthedon was a maritime city of Bœotia, only separated from the Island of Eubœa, by the narrow strait of the Euripus.

1.We are pleading.]—Ver. 5. The skill of the Poet is perceptible in the abrupt commencement of the speech of the impetuous Ajax.

2.Nor his.]—Ver. 11. Ajax often uses the pronoun ‘iste’ as a term of reproach.

3.Night alone.]—Ver. 15. By this he means that the alleged exploits of Ulysses were altogether fictitious; or that they were done in the dark to conceal his fear.

4.Took the city.]—Ver. 23. Telamon, was the companion of Hercules when he sacked Troy, as a punishment for the perfidy of Laomedon.

5.Sisyphus.]—Ver. 26. This is intended as a reproachful hint against Ulysses, whose mother, Anticlea, was said to have been seduced by Sisyphus before her marriage to Laërtes.

6.Ajax is the third.]—Ver. 28. That is the third, exclusive of Jupiter; for Ajax was the grandson of Æacus, and the great grandson of Jupiter.

7.My cousin.]—Ver. 31. ‘Frater’ here means, not ‘brother,’ but ‘cousin,’ as Peleus and Telamon, the fathers of Achilles and Ajax, were brothers.

8.No informer.]—Ver. 34. He alludes to the means which Ulysses adopted to avoid going to the Trojan war. Pretending to be seized with madness, he ploughed the sea-shore, and sowed it with salt. To ascertain the truth, Palamedes placed his infant son, Telemachus, before the plough; on which Ulysses turned on one side, to avoid hurting the child, which was considered a proof that his madness was not real.

9.Son of Nauplius.]—Ver. 39. Palamedes was the son of Nauplius, the king of Eubœa, and a son of Neptune.

10.The contrivance.]—Ver. 38. Ulysses forged a letter from Priam, in which the king thanked Palamedes for his intended assistance to the Trojan cause, and begged to present him a sum of money. By bribing the servants of Palamedes, he caused a large quantity of gold to be buried in the ground, under his tent. He then caused the letter to be intercepted, and to be carried to Agamemnon. On the appearance of Palamedes to answer the charge, Ulysses appeared seemingly as his friend, and suggested, that if no gold should be found in his possession, he must be innocent. The gold, however, being found, Palamedes was stoned to death.

11.Son of Pœas.]—Ver. 45. Philoctetes was the possessor of the arrows of Hercules, without the presence of which Troy could not be taken. Accompanying the Greeks to the Trojan war, he was wounded in the foot by one of the arrows; and the smell arising from the wound was so offensive, that, by the advice of Ulysses, he was left behind, in the island of Lemnos, one of the Cyclades.

12.Is being clothed.]—Ver. 53. The Poet Attius, as quoted by Cicero, says that Philoctetes, while in Lemnos, made himself clothing out of the feathers of birds.

13.Or by death.]—Ver. 61. Exile in the case of Philoctetes; death, in that of Palamedes.

14.Forsaking of Nestor.]—Ver. 64. Nestor having been wounded by Paris, and being overtaken by Hector, was on the point of perishing, when Diomedes came to his rescue, Ulysses having taken to flight. See the Iliad, Book iii.

15.And upbraided.]—Ver. 69. He alludes to the words in the Iliad, which Homer puts in the mouth of Diomedes.

16.And covered him.]—Ver. 75. Ajax, at the request of Menelaüs, protected Ulysses with his shield, when he was wounded.

17.Fall to my lot.]—Ver. 85. He alludes to the occasion when some of the bravest of the Greeks drew lots which should accept the challenge of Hector: the Greeks wishing, according to Homer, that the lot might fall to Ajax Telamon, Ajax Oïleus, or Agamemnon.

18.Rhesus.]—Ver. 98. He was slain by Ulysses and Diomedes on the night on which he arrived, Iliad, Book x.

19.Dolon.]—Ver. 98. Being sent out by Hector to spy, he was intercepted by Ulysses and Diomedes, and slain at Troy. Iliad, Book x.

20.Helenus.]—Ver. 99. Being skilled in prophesy, after he was taken prisoner by Diomedes and Ulysses, his life was saved; and marrying Andromache, after the death of Pyrrhus, he succeeded to the throne of part of the kingdom of Chaonia.

21.Dulichian.]—Ver. 107. Dulichium was an island of the Ionian Sea, near Ithaca, and part of the realms of Ulysses.

22.The spear.]—Ver. 109. The spear of Achilles had been cut from the wood on Mount Pelion, and given by the Centaur Chiron to his father Peleus.

23.He through whom.]—Ver. 134. Through whom Achilles had been discovered, concealed among the daughters of Lycomedes, king of Seyros.

24.Ever condemned.]—Ver. 145. He alludes to the joint crime of Peleus the uncle, and Telamon, the father of Ajax, who were banished for the murder of their brother Phocus.

25.Through the mother.]—Ver. 146. Anticlea, the mother of Ulysses, was the daughter of Autolycus, of whom Mercury was the father by Chione, the daughter of Dædalion.

26.Phthia.]—Ver. 156. Phthia was the city of Thessaly, where Peleus, the father of Achilles, was residing; while Pyrrhus, his son, was living with his mother Deidamia, in the isle of Scyros, one of the Cyclades.

27.Teucer.]—Ver. 157. Teucer was the cousin of Achilles, being the son of Telamon, and the half-brother of Ajax; Hesione being the mother of Teucer, while Ajax was the son of Eubœa.

28.Chrysa.]—Ver. 174. Chrysa and Cylla were cities in the vicinity of Troy. This Scyros was, probably, not the island of that name, but some place near Troy.

29.Lyrnessian.]—Ver. 176. This was a city of the Troad, on the taking of which by Achilles, Hippodamia, or Briseïs, the daughter of Bryses, was made captive by Achilles.

30.Grief of one.]—Ver. 181. He alludes to the misfortune of Menelaüs in losing his wife, if, indeed, it could be deemed a misfortune.

31.Antenor.]—Ver. 201. Antenor, who was related to Priam, always advocated peace with the Greeks; for which reason, according to Livy, the Greeks did not treat him as an enemy.

32.Surround the trenches.]—Ver. 212. He probably alludes to the trenches thrown up before the ships of the Greeks, and defended by embankments, which were afterwards destroyed by Neptune.

33.I am sent.]—Ver. 215. As on the occasion when he was sent to restore Chryseis to her father Chryses, the priest of Apollo, that the pestilence might be stayed, which had been sent by the offended God.

34.Thersites.]—Ver. 233. He was the most deformed, cowardly, and impudent of the Greeks, who, always abusing his betters, was beaten by Ulysses, and was at last killed by Achilles with a blow of his fist.

35.Compelled him.]—Ver. 245. When he was taken prisoner by them, Ulysses and Diomedes compelled Dolon to disclose what was going on in the Trojan camp, and learned from him the recent arrival of Rhesus, the son of either Mars or Strymon, and the king of Thrace.

36.Sarpedon.]—Ver. 255. He was the son of Jupiter and Europa, and was king of Lycia. Aiding the Trojans, he was slain by Patroclus.

37.In their place.]—Ver. 263. That is, inflicted on the breast, and not on the back.

38.A single wound.]—Ver. 267. He alludes to his being invulnerable, from having been wrapped in the lion’s skin of Hercules.

39.Dared to engage.]—Ver. 275. Hector and Ajax Telamon meeting in single combat, neither was the conqueror; but on parting they exchanged gifts, which were fatal to them both. Hector was dragged round the walls of Troy by the belt which he received from Ajax; while the latter committed suicide with the sword which was given to him by Hector.

40.Dardanian prophet.]—Ver. 335. Helenus,the son of Priam.

41.The hidden statue.]—Ver. 337. This was the Palladium, or statue of Minerva, which was destined to be the guardian of the safety of Troy, so long as it was in the possession of the Trojans.

42.By thy looks.]—Ver. 350. We are to suppose, that here Ajax is nodding at, or pointing towards Diomedes, as having helped Ulysses on all the occasions which he names, he having been his constant companion in his exploits.

43.Eurypilus.]—Ver. 357. He was the son of Evæmon, and came with forty ships to aid the Greeks. He was from Ormenius, a city of Thessaly.

44.Andremon.]—Ver. 357. Thoas, the son of Andremon, was the leader of the Ætolians; he came with forty ships to the Trojan war.

45.Idomeneus.]—Ver. 358. He was the son of Deucalion, king of Crete. After the siege of Troy, he settled at Salentinum, a promontory of Calabria, in Italy.

46.Meriones.]—Ver. 359. He was the nephew and charioteer of Idomeneus.

47.To the name.]—Ver. 398. See note to Book x., line 207.

48.Country of Hypsipyle.]—Ver. 399. The island of Lemnos is here called the country of Hypsipyle, who saved the life of her father Thoas, when the other women of the island slew the males.

49.A foreign air.]—Ver. 406. Namely, Thrace, which was far away from her native country.

50.Priestess of Apollo.]—Ver. 410. Cassandra was the priestess of Apollo. Being ravished by Ajax Oïleus, she became the captive of Agamemnon, and was slain by Clytemnestra.

51.Astyanax.]—Ver. 415. He was the only child of Hector and Andromache. Ulysses threw him from the top of a high tower, that none of the royal blood might survive.

52.Forsooth.]—460. Clarke translates ‘scilicet,’ ‘I warrant ye.’

53.And children.]—Ver. 509. Hyginus names fifty-four children of Priam, of whom seventeen were by Hecuba.

54.She beheld.]—Ver. 536. Euripides represents, in his tragedy of Hecuba, that a female servant, sent by Hecuba to bring water from the sea shore for the purpose of washing the body of Polyxena, was the first to see the corpse of Polydorus.

55.Derives its name.]—Ver. 569. Strabo places it near Sestos, in the Thracian Chersonesus, and calls itκυνὸς σῆμα, ‘The bitches’ tomb.’

56.Of their parent.]—Ver. 619. He perhaps alludes to the fights of the Gladiators, on the occasion of the funerals of the Roman patricians. ‘Parentali perituræ Marte,’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘to fall in the fight of parentation.’

57.Antandros.]—Ver. 628. This was a city of Phrygia, at the foot of Mount Ida, where the fleet of Æneas was built.

58.Trees once grasped.]—Ver. 635. These were a palm and an olive tree, which were pointed out by the people of Delos, as having been held by Latona, when in the pangs of labour.

59.Of slain oxen.]—Ver. 637. This, however, was contrary to the usual practice; for if we credit Macrobius, no victim was slain on the altars of Apollo, in the island of Delos.

60.Of thy consort.]—Ver. 673. It must be remembered, that he is addressing Anchises, who was said to have enjoyed the favour of Venus; to which Goddess the dove was consecrated.

61.In place of.]—Ver. 686. For the seven gates, would at once lead to the conclusion that it represented the city of Thebes, in Bœotia. Myla, before referred to, was a town of Sicily.

62.Calls ‘Coronæ’.]—Ver. 698. The word ‘Coronas’ is here employed as the plural of a female name ‘Corona;’ in GreekΚώρωνις.

63.Of that place.]—Ver. 707. Æneas and his followers founded in Crete the city of Pergamea; but the pestilence which raged there, and a continued drought, combined with the density of the atmosphere, obliged them to leave the island.

64.The Strophades.]—Ver. 709. These were two islands in the Ionian Sea, on the western side of Peloponnesus. They received their name from the Greekwordστροφὴ, ‘a return,’ because Calais and Zethes pursued the Harpies, which persecuted Phineus so far, and then returned home by the command of Jupiter.

65.Same.]—Ver. 711. This island was also called Cephalenia. It was in the Ionian Sea, and formed part of the kingdom of Ulysses.

66.Ambracia.]—Ver. 714. This was a famous city of Epirus, which gave its name to the gulf of Ambracia.

67.Actian Apollo.]—Ver. 715. Augustus built a temple to Apollo, at Actium, in Epirus, near which he had defeated the fleet of Antony and Cleopatra. He also instituted games, to be celebrated there every fifth year in honour of his victory.

68.The Phæacians.]—Ver. 719. The Phæacians were the people of the Island of Corcyra (now Corfu), who were so called from Phæax, the son of Neptune. This island was famous for the gardens of Alcinoüs, which are mentioned in the Odyssey. The Corcyrans were the originators of the disastrous Peloponnesian war.

69.Buthrotos.]—Ver. 721. This was a city of Epirus, not far from Corcyra. It received its name from its founder.

70.Galatea.]—Ver. 738. She was a sea Nymph, the daughter of Nereus and Doris.

71.Daughter of Cratæis.]—Ver. 749. Cratæis was a river of Calabria, in Italy. Symæthis was a stream of Sicily, opposite to Calabria.

72.The pine tree.]—Ver. 782. By way of corroborating this assertion, Boccaccio tells us, that the body of Polyphemus was found in Sicily, his left hand grasping a walking-stick longer than the mast of a ship.

73.Fairer than.]—Ver. 789. This song of Polyphemus is, in some measure, imitated from that of the Cyclop, in the Eleventh Idyll of Theocritus.

74.Snow-white privet.]—Ver. 789. Hesiod says, that Galatea had her name from her extreme fairness;γάλαbeing the Greek word for milk. To this the Poet here alludes.

75.Arbute tree.]—Ver. 820. The fruit of the arbutus, or strawberry tree, were so extremely sour, that they were called, as Pliny the Elder tells us, ‘unedones;’ because people could not eat more than one. The tree itself was valued for the beauty and pleasing shade of its foliage.

76.My figure.]—Ver. 841. Virgil and Theocritus also represent Polyphemus as boasting of his good looks.

77.Ceases.]—Ver. 898. ‘Desierat Galatea loqui,’ is translated by Clarke, ‘Galatea gave over talking.’

78.Anthedon.]—Ver. 905. Anthedon was a maritime city of Bœotia, only separated from the Island of Eubœa, by the narrow strait of the Euripus.

Circebecomes enamoured of Glaucus, who complains to her of his repulse by Scylla. She endeavours, without success, to make him desert Scylla for herself. In revenge, she poisons the fountain where the Nymph is wont to bathe, and communicates to her a hideous form; which is so insupportable to Scylla, that she throws herself into the sea, and is transformed into a rock.

And nowGlaucus, the Eubœan plougher of the swelling waves, had left behind Ætna, placed upon the jaws of the Giant, and the fields of the Cyclops, that had never experienced the harrow or the use of the plough, and that were never indebted to the yoked oxen; he had left Zancle, too, behind, and the opposite walls of Rhegium,1and the sea, abundant cause of shipwreck, which, confined by the two shores, bounds the Ausonian and the Sicilian lands. Thence, swimming with his huge hands through the Etrurian seas, Glaucus arrived at the grass-clad hills, and the halls of Circe, the daughter of the Sun, filled with various wild beasts. Soon as he beheld her, after salutations were given and received, he said, “Do thou, a Goddess, have compassion on me a God; for thou alone (should I only seem deserving of it,) art able to relieve this passionof mine. Daughter of Titan, by none is it better known how great is the power of herbs, than by me, who have been transformed by their agency; and, that the cause of my passion may not be unknown to thee, Scylla has been beheld by me on the Italian shores, opposite the Messenian walls. I am ashamed to recount my promises, my entreaties, my caresses, and my rejected suit. But, do thou, if there is any power in incantations, utter the incantation with thy holy lips;xiv. 21-50.or, ifanyherb is more efficacious, make use of the proved virtues of powerful herbs. But I do not request thee to cure me, and to heal these wounds; and there is no necessity for an endto them; butlet her share in the flame.” But Circe, (for no one has a temper more susceptible of such a passion, whether it is that the cause of it originates in herself, or whether it is that Venus, offended2by her father’s discovery, causes this,) utters such words as these:—

“Thou wilt more successfully court her who is willing, and who entertains similar desires, and who is captivated with an equal passion. Thou art worthy of it, and assuredly thou oughtst to be courted spontaneously; and, if thou givest any hopes, believe me, thou shalt be courted3spontaneously. That thou mayst entertain no doubts, or lest confidence in thy own beauty may not exist, behold! I who am both a Goddess, and the daughter of the radiant Sun, and am so potent with my charms, and so potent with my herbs, wish to be thine. Despise her who despises thee; her, who is attached to thee, repay by like attachment, and, by one act, take vengeance on two individuals.”

Glaucus answered her, making such attempts as these,— “Sooner shall foliage grow in the ocean, andsoonershall sea-weed spring up on the tops of the mountains, than my affections shall change, while Scylla is alive.” The Goddess is indignant; and since she is not able to injure him, and as she loves him she does not wishto do so, she is enraged against her, who has been preferred to herself; and, offended with these crosses in love, she immediately bruises herbs, infamous for their horrid juices, and, when bruised, she mingles with them the incantations of Hecate. She puts on azure vestments too, and through the troop of fawning wild beasts she issues from the midst of her hall; and making for Rhegium, opposite to the rocks of Zancle, she enters the waves boiling with the tides; on these, as though on the firm shore, she impresses her footsteps, and with dry feet she skims along the surface of the waves.

There was a little bay, curving inthe shape ofa bent bow, a favourite retreat of Scylla, whither she used to retire from the influence both of the sea and of the weather, when the sun was at its height in his mid career, and made the smallest shadow from the headdownwards. This the Goddess infects beforehand, and pollutes it with monster-breeding drugs; on it she sprinkles the juices distilled from the noxious root, and thrice nine times, with her magic lips, she mutters over the mysterious charm,enwraptin the dubious language of strange words.4Scylla comes; and she hasnowgone in up to the middle of her stomach, when she beholds her loins grow hideous with barking monsters; and, at first believing that they are no part of her own body, she flies from them and drives them off, and is in dread of the annoying mouths of the dogs; but those that she flies from, she carries along withherself; and as she examines the substance of her thighs, her legs, and her feet, she meets with Cerberean jaws in place of those parts. The fury of the dogsstillcontinues, and the backs of savagemonsterslying beneath her groin, cut short, and her prominent stomach,stilladhere to them.

Glaucus,stillin love, bewailedher, and fled from an alliance with Circe, who hadthustoo hostilely employed the potency of herbs. Scylla remained on that spot; and, at the first moment that an opportunity was given, in her hatred of Circe, she deprived Ulysses of his companions. Soon after, the sameScyllawould have overwhelmed the Trojan ships, had she not been first transformed into a rock, which even now is prominent with its crags;thisrock the sailor, too, avoids.

According to Hesiod, Circe was the daughter of the Sun and of the Nymph Perse, and the sister of Pasiphaë, the wife of Minos. Homer makes her the sister of Æetes, the king of Colchis, while other authors represent her as the daughter of that monarch, and the sister of Medea. Being acquainted with the properties of simples, and having used her art in mixing poisonous draughts, she was generally looked upon as a sorceress. Apollonius Rhodius says that she poisoned her husband, the king of the Sarmatians, and that her father Apollo rescued her from the rage of her subjects, by transporting her in his chariot into Italy. Virgil and Ovid say that she inhabited one of the promontories of Italy, which afterwards bore her name, and which at the present day is known by the name of Monte Circello.

It is not improbable that the person who went by the name of Circe was never in Colchis or Thrace, and that she was styled the sister of Medea, merely on account of the similarity of their characters; that they both were called daughters of the Sun, because they understood the properties of simples; and that their pretended enchantments were only a poetical mode of describing the effect of their beauty, which drew many suitors after them, who lost themselves in the dissipation of a voluptuous life. Indeed, Strabo says, and very judiciously, as it would seem, that Homer having heard persons mention the expedition of Jason to Colchis, and hearing the stories of Medea and Circe, he took occasion to say, from the resemblance of their characters, that they were sisters.

According to some authors, Scylla was the daughter of Phorcys and Hecate; but as other writers say, of Typhon. Homer describes her in the following terms:— ‘She had a voice like that of a young whelp; no man, not even a God, could behold her without horror. She had twelve feet, six long necks, and at the end of each a monstrous head, whose mouth was provided with a triple row of teeth.’ Another ancient writer says, that these heads were those of an insect, a dog, a lion, a whale, a Gorgon, and a human being. Virgil has in a great measure followed the description given by Homer. Between Messina and Reggio there is a narrow strait, where high crags project into the sea on each side. The part on the Sicilian side was called Charybdis, and that on the Italian shore was named Scylla. This spot has ever been famous for its dangerous whirlpools, and the extreme difficulty of its navigation. Several rapid currents meeting there, and the tide running through the strait with great impetuosity, the sea sends forth a dismal noise, not unlike that of the howling or barking of dogs, as Virgil has expressed it, in the words, ‘Multis circum latrantibus undis.’

Palæphatus and Fusebius, not satisfied with the story being based on such simple facts, assert that Scylla was a ship that belonged to certain Etrurian pirates, who used to infest the coasts of Sicily, and that it had the figure of a woman carved on its head, whose lower parts were surrounded with dogs. According to these writers, Ulysses escaped them; and then, using the privileges of a traveller, told the story to the credulous Phæacians in the marvellous terms in which Homer has related it. Bochart, however, says that the two names were derived from the Phœnician language, in which ‘Scol,’ the root of Scylla, signified ‘a ruin,’ and Charybdis, ‘a gulf.’

Didoentertains Æneas in her palace, and falls in love with him. He afterwards abandons her, on which she stabs herself in despair. Jupiter transforms the Cercopes into apes; and the islands which they inhabit are afterwards called ‘Pithecusæ,’ from the Greek word signifying ‘an ape.’

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