NOTES TO BOOK THREE
[X.] The Nereids were sea-nymphs, the daughters of Nereus. The island mentioned is Delos, and the story referred to is that Jupiter hid Latona, the mother of Apollo and Diana, on the floating island of Delos, in order to shelter her from the jealousy of Juno. By means of chains Apollo fixed Delos between the two small neighbouring islands Myconos and Gyarus.
[XII.] 'Thymbrean lord.' Apollo, so called from the town of Thymbra in the Troad, where he was worshipped.
[XVI.] Crete is called 'Gnosian' from 'Gnossos,' the chief town of the island.
[XVII.] Ortygia was the ancient name of Delos.
[XXIII.] The 'Ausonian shores' means Italy. For the Ausonians, see [Book VII. stanza vi.]
[XXIX.] The Strophades were a small group of islands off the south-west coast of Greece. The story alluded to is that Phineus, king of Thrace, unjustly put out the eyes of his sons. As a punishment the gods blinded him, and sent the Harpies—loathsome monsters with the bodies of birds and the faces of women—to defile and seize all the food that was set before him. Phineus was at last freed from them by Zetes and Calais, the sons of the North Wind, who drove the Harpies from Thrace to the Strophades.
For Celaeno's prophecy, see note on [Book VII. stanza xvi.]
[XXXVI.] Ulysses, the most cunning of the Greek leaders before Troy, was king of Ithaca, and son of Laertes.
[XXXIX.] Phaeacia means Corcyra, and Chaonia is a district of Epirus. Its chief harbour was Buthrotum.
[XLIII.] Hermione was the daughter of Menelaus and Helen. Orestes was the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. He slew his mother on account of her treacherous murder of Agamemnon when the latter returned home from Troy, and killed Pyrrhus for having deprived him of his promised bride, Hermione.
[XLVI.] Xanthus was a river that flowed near Troy. The 'Scaean Gate' was the western gate of Troy and looked towards the sea. It was the best known of the gates because most of the fighting took place before it.
[XLVII.] Apollo was called 'Clarian' from Claros (near Ephesus), where there was a shrine and oracle of the god.
[LII.] Narycos, or more properly Naryx, was a town of the Opuntian Locri in Greece. Virgil follows the tradition that they went and settled in the south of Italy at the close of the Trojan war.
The 'Sallentinian plain' was the land bordering on the Tarentine Gulf, and 'Petelia' was on the east coast of Bruttium, and had been founded by Philoctetes, after he had been expelled from Thessaly.
[LV.] Scylla and Charybdis are taken from Homer. The former was a terrible sea-monster with six heads, and the latter a whirlpool. Tradition fixed their abode as the Straits of Messina. Scylla dwelt in a cave on the Italian side, Charybdis on the Sicilian.
[LX.] Dodona, in Epirus, was one of the famous oracles in Greece.
[LXVIII.] The place was called 'Castrum Minervae,' and lay a few miles to the north of the southern extremity of Calabria.
[LXXII.] The Cyclops were placed by Virgil on the slopes of Aetna.
[LXXIV.] Enceladus was one of the giants who had fought against the gods, but Jupiter struck him down with a thunderbolt and buried him under Mount Aetna.
[LXXXVII.] Pelorus was the most northerly headland of the Straits of Messina.
[LXXXVIII.] Plemmyrium ('the place of the tides') is the headland near the harbour of Syracuse, which was built on the island of Ortygia. The legend which Virgil refers to relates that Alpheus, the god of a river in Elis, fell in love with the nymph Arethusa while she was bathing in his waters. Diana changed her into a stream, and in that guise she fled from Alpheus under land and sea, finally issuing forth in Ortygia. Alpheus pursued her, and mingled his waters with hers.