No More Learning

[412] Thetis.

[413] Montera, the Spanish word for a huntsman's cap.

[414] _She who the rage of Athamas to shun. _--Ino, the daughter of
Cadmus and Hermione, and second spouse of Athamas, king of Thebes. The
fables of her fate are various. That which Camoens follows is the most
common. Athamas, seized with madness, imagined that his spouse was a
lioness, and her two sons young lions. In this frenzy he slew Learchus,
and drove the mother and her other son, Melicertus, into the sea. The
corpse of the mother was thrown ashore on Megara and that of the son at
Corinth. They were afterwards deified, the one as a sea goddess, the
other as the god of harbours.

[415] _And Glaucus lost to joy. _--A fisherman, says the fable, who, on
eating a certain herb, was turned into a sea god. Circe was enamoured of
him, and in revenge of her slighted love, poisoned the fountain where
his mistress usually bathed. By the force of the enchantment the
favoured Scylla was changed into a hideous monster, whose loins were
surrounded with the ever-barking heads of dogs and wolves. Scylla, on
this, threw herself into the sea, and was metamorphosed into the rock
which bears her name.
The rock Scylla at a distance appears like the
statue of a woman. The furious dashing of the waves in the cavities,
which are level with the water, resembles the barking of wolves and
dogs.

[416] Thyoneus, a name of Bacchus.

[417] _High from the roof the living amber glows. --_

"From the arched roof,
Pendent by subtle magic, many a row
Of starry lamps, and blazing cressets, fed
With naptha and asphaltus, yielded light
As from a sky. "

MILTON.


[418] The Titans.

[419] The north wind.

[420] _And rent the Mynian sails. _--The sails of the Argonauts,
inhabitants of Mynia.

[421] See the first note on the first book of the Lusiad.

[422]

_In haughty England, where the winter spreads
His snowy mantle o'er the shining meads. --_

In the original--

_La na grande Inglaterra, que de neve
Boreal sempre abunda;_

that is, "In illustrious England, always covered with northern snow. "
Though the translator was willing to retain the manner of Homer, he
thought it proper to correct the error in natural history fallen into by
Camoens. Fanshaw seems to have been sensible of the mistake of his
author, and has given the following (uncountenanced by the Portuguese)
in place of the eternal snows ascribed to his country:--

"In merry England, which (from cliffs that stand
Like hills of snow) once Albion's name did git. "


[423] Eris, or Discordia, the goddess of contention.