[79] Atreus, king of Mycenæ, murdered the two sons of his brother Thyestes, and feasted their father with dishes made of their flesh.
[80] Bacchus forced the Theban women to assemble, and give loose to the wild rites by which he was celebrated. It was on this occasion that Pentheus was massacred by his mother.
[81] Nisus was king of Megara when it was besieged by Minos. The king's daughter, Scylla, conceived a passion for Minos, and to ensure him the victory she plucked from her father's head a purple hair upon which depended the preservation of himself and the city.
[82] Statius says that when Polynices was in the middle of the isthmus of Corinth he could hear the waves beat against both its shores. "This," remarked Pope, "could hardly be; for the isthmus of Corinth is full five miles over," and he calls the introduction of the circumstance "a geographical error." It was his own geography that was at fault. The width of the isthmus is only three miles and a half. Pope spoilt the incident when he transferred it to the Scironian rock. Sciron was a robber and murderer, who compelled his victims to wash his feet upon the cliff, and while they were engaged in the operation he kicked them over into the sea.
[83] "We have scarcely in our language eight more beautiful lines than these, down to human care," ver. 481.—Warton.
[84] Pope owed some happy expressions to the translation of Stephens:
The silent world does view
Her airy chariot pearled with drops of dew.
[85] He again borrowed from Stephens:
And nodding through the air brings down in haste
A sweet forgetfulness of labour passed.
[86] A very faulty expression; as also below, verse 501,—"rolls a deluge on."—Warton.