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NOTES.

NOTE 1.

Delos received Latona when she was persecuted by Hera, and no other land would give her shelter. Phoebus Apollo and Artemis, the twin deities, were born in the hospitable little island which was henceforth one of the principal seats of the worship of Phoebus, who is frequently called the Delian God.

See KEIGHTLEY'S Mythology, pp. 102, 103.

NOTE 2.

Moirae. Goddesses whose office it was to assign their lot in life to men. They are called daughters of Zeus and Themis (law), but even Zeus himself was bound by their decrees.

See KEIGHTLEY'S Mythology, p. 172.

NOTE 3.

Daphne, daughter of the Peneus, delighted in the life of a huntress; she unhappily attracted the love of Phoebus, who would fain have made her his wife; the frightened maid, unable to escape his pursuit, called on her father for help, and the river god changed her into a laurel, henceforth the sacred tree of Phoebus. The legend is very prettily told by Ovid.

Metamorphoses, Book i. 1. 452.

p. 170

NOTE 4.

Thanatos is represented by Euripides as coming in person to claim Alcestis. He appears to have been represented as a beautiful dusky youth, with none of the grotesque horrors of the later ideas: he is twin brother to Sleep.

See KEIGHTLEY'S Mythology, p. 17 7.

NOTE 5.

Zeus Zenius. Zeus, who guarded the Zenos, the guest-friend, i.e. the foreigner. The relation of Zenia was as sacred among the Achaeans as among the Hebrews; the conduct of Admetus to Herakles is a beautiful illustration of the honour paid to the stranger; Achaean and Hellenic story abounds in similar instances.

NOTE 6.

Thamyris.

"And Dorian where the Muses met,
With Thamyris of Thrace and made him cease
From song as from Oechalia he came,
Leaving the court of Eurylus, for he
Boasting, declared that he would conquer all,
Yea, though the Muses sang with him themselves,
Daughters of Aegis-bearing Jove, in wrath;
They made him blind and took away his song,
And caused him to forget his minstrelsy."
HOMER, L. II. 595-600.

NOTE 7.

Apian land, the name given by Homer to the Peloponnese.

NOTE 8.

Até (mischief), inevitable evil that pursues certain men or houses to their ruin.

p. 171

NOTE 9.

The Clashers, literal translation of Sumplēgadĕs, the rocks at the entrance of the Black Sea, now called the Pavorane, which from their appearing more or less open or confined, according to the course of the vessel, were said by the poets to open and shut upon the ships which entered, and crush them to pieces.

MAJOR'S notes to Medeia.

NOTE 10.

Zeus Sōter, the saviour or deliverer.

NOTE 11.

These are the closing lines of Wordsworth's beautiful poem, "Laodamia."

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