NOTES TO BOOK TWO
[XXII.] An oracle said that the citadel of Troy would never be taken as long as the Palladium, or image of Pallas, remained in it. So Diomedes and Ulysses stole the image.
[XXXII.] Apollo had conferred on Cassandra the gift of prophecy. But she deceived him, and as he could not take away his former gift, he added as a curse that no one should ever believe her.
[XXXV.] Neoptolemus was the son of Achilles and grandson of Peleus.
[XLII.] Sigeum is the name of the promontory which juts out into the Hellespont from the Troad.
[LV.] The 'Atridan pair' were Agamemnon, king of Argos, and Menelaus, king of Sparta, the sons of Atreus.
[LVI.] Nereus was one of the chief sea-gods.
[LXI.] Andromache was the wife of Hector.
[LXIII.] Pyrrhus is the same as Neoptolemus in [stanza xxxv.]
[LXXVI.] Creusa and Iulus were the wife and son of Aeneas.
[LXXVII.] Helen is called 'Tyndarean' because she was the daughter of Tyndarus. Paris, son of Priam, had carried her off from her husband Menelaus, and so caused the Trojan war.
[LXXXIII.] The goddess Pallas (Athena) wore on her shield the head of the snaky-haired monster Medusa, one of the Gorgons.
[LXXXIV.] The walls of Troy were said to have been built by Apollo and Neptune.
[CV.] Hesperia, 'the western land,' here means Italy. The Tiber is called Lydian from a tradition that the Lydians had colonised Etruria.