Sic ubi fata vocant, udis abjectus in herbis,
Ad vada Mæandri concinit albus olor.
Ov. Ep.—Pope.
[511] Vid. Homer, Il. viii. and Virg. Æn. xii.—Pope.
The passage in Homer to which the poet refers is where Jupiter, before the conflict between Hector and Achilles, weighs the issue in a pair of scales.
[512] These two lines added for the above reason.—Pope.
[513] In imitation of the progress of Agamemnon's sceptre in Homer, Il. ii.—Pope.
[514] Pins to adorn the hair were then called bodkins, and Sir George Etherege, in Tonson's Second Miscellany, traces the genealogy of some jewels through the successive stages of the ornament of a cap, the handle of a fan, and ear-rings, till they became, like the gold seal rings, in the Rape of the Lock,
A diamond bodkin in each tress,
The badges of her nobleness,
For every stone, as well as she,
Can boast an ancient pedigree.
[515] "Who," asked Dennis, "ever heard of a dead man that burnt in Cupid's flames?" Pope had originally written,
And still burn on, in Cupid's flames, alive.