emotions of it are attended with blushes, we are pleased with the observation. Langhorne. The translator must here also dissent from his favourite Langhorne. P. 130, l. 23. Cythera chants. Doctor Langhorne observes, that the scholiasts have entirely misunderstood this passage. They make Kung Venus; for which they have neither any authority (the Doric name she borrows from that island being always Kudega), nor the least probability from the connexion. P. 131, 1. 22. Why, sweet Adonis, urge the savage chase? OVID. See Nonnus Dionys. b. 41, where it is fabled that Adonis was slain by Mars in the form of a boar. St. Cyril, on Isaiah, mentions the same circumstance. Partly Heskin. P. 131, 1. 28. And from her tears anemones arise. And here bedew'd with love's celestial tears On which Castera remarks: This is applicable to the celestial Venus; for, according to EE mythology, her amour with Adonis had nothing in it impure, but was only the love which nature bears to the sun.' P. 132, 1. 6. That visage with the flowery chaplet crown! It was customary among the ancients to crown the dead with flowers. Thus in the Phoenician Virgins of Euripides, Creon speaks of Polynices: Whoever shall be found Crowning his corse, or covering it with earth. The crown (says Clemens Alexan.) was esteemed the symbol of undisturbed tranquillity: Hence they crown the dead. In the Levant they still crown with flowers the corpses of virgins. Longepierre. P. 132, l. 13. Shear their bright locks, in agony of woe. The ceremony of cutting off the hair in honour of the dead was universally practised among the ancients. In Homer we have several examples of it. See Odyssey, b. iv. l. 197; see also the Iliad, b. xxiii. 1. 135. In the same book, Achilles offers up his hair to Patroclus. In Sappho, 2d epig. the companions of Timas shear their ringlets, and place them on her tomb. Herodotus tells us, that Mardonius cut off his hair after his defeat. Electra, in Euripides, appears with her tresses shorn. (1. 450). The Ephesian matron, in Petronius, seems to have torn off her hair: Ruptosque crines super pectus jacentis imposuit. The passage in Ovid is well known: Scissæque capillas Thus also Statius (Thebaid, b. 6). -pectore fusam Cæsariem ferro, minuit; sectisque jacentis A greater number of instances to this purpose might be easily accumulated: but these are sufficient to show the prevalence of this custom in the days of antiquity. It hath been observed that the ceremony of cutting off the hair, while it was obviously expressive of violent emotion, had a latent meaning couched under it. As the hair was cut off from the head, never more to be united to it, so were the dead cut off from the living, never more to return. This usage was It is taken not confined to the heathen world. notice of in scripture. Ezekiel, describing a great lamentation, says: "They shall make themselves utterly bald for thee.' Chap. xxvii. 31. The ancients, however, were accustomed to cut off and devote their hair on other occasions than those of grief; which appears from a passage in Juvenal. sat. xii. 1. 82. Gaudent ibi vertice raso Garrula securi narrare pericula nautæ. And in the Acts of the Apostles, xviii. 18, St. Paul is said to have shorn his head in Cenchrea; 'for he had a vow.' The custom we have been commenting on still exists in the Eastern nations, who have retained for the most part the usages of ancient times. The Grecian women (according to M. Guys) are at present satisfied with tearing up their hair, though they formerly cut off their long tresses, and strewed them over the tombs of the deceased. And in Calabria (Swinburne tells us) the widow of the deceased plucks off handfuls of her hair, which she strews over the bier of her husband. P. 132, 1. 30. Reserve thy sorrows for the year of woe! Numa seems to have borrowed the custom he instituted, of mourning a year for the deceased, from the Greeks: for though, it is said, only ten months were set apart, yet ten months were the year of Romulus, till regulated by his successor. Langhorne. IDYLLIUM VII. SEE the story of Achilles and Deidamia, in the Achilleid of Statius, book i. Page 137, line 7. -And catch the Scyrian grace. Probably the people of Scyros (the island where Achilles debauched Deidamia) were accustomed to celebrate, on set days, this famous love-intrigue. Myrson here alludes to their music on this occasion. See Heskin. NOTES ON MOSCHUS. IDYLLIUM I. SEE Spenser's Fairy Queen, book iii. c. 6. st. 11. Page 143, line 3. If any one a wandering Cupid see. 'I will rise now, and go about in the streets, and in the broad ways, I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. The watchmen that go about the city found me; to whom I said, saw ye him whom my soul loveth?' Cant. iii. 2, 3. P. 143, I. 13. Smooth are his words, his voice as honey sweet. "The words of his mouth are softer than butter, having war in his heart; his words were smoother than oil, and yet be they very swords.' Psalm lv. 22. For the lips of a strange woman drop as a honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil. But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.' Prov. v. 3, 4. Heskin quotes a rhyming distich to the same purpose: Mel in ore, verba lactis; Fel in corde, fraus in factis. |