P. 430, c. 2—“Odyssey,” ŏd´e-se. An epic poem relating to the adventures of Ulysses as he returned to Ithaca after the fall of Troy.
P. 430, c. 2—“Virgil,” ver´jil, (70 B. C.-19 B. C.) After Homer, the greatest of epic poets. His life was mainly spent in Italy. At thirty-four he began his “Georgics,” and worked seven years at them. The rest of his life was given to his epic, the Æneid. In 19 B. C. he went to Greece to revise this, but meeting the Emperor Augustus, then on his triumphal march, he started back with him. On the voyage he contracted a fatal illness and died a few days after reaching Italy.
P. 430, c. 2—“Ovid,” ŏv´id. (43 B. C.-18 A. D.) A Roman, educated for the law, but most famous as a poet. He was banished by the Emperor Augustus in 8 A. D., and died ten years later in the tower of Ovid, at the mouth of the Danube, where he is supposed to have been confined.
P. 430, c. 2—“Mĕ-ta-mor´phō-ses.” One of Ovid’s best-known works, treating of the transformation, or changes of form, which were so often the subject of ancient stories and legends.
P. 430, c. 2—“Lund.” A town in the extreme south of Sweden. There are two famous universities in Sweden, at Upsala and at Lund. The latter was founded in 1628, and has thirty professors, about five hundred students, and a library of fifty thousand volumes. In 1853 Lund erected a colossal statue to the memory of Tegnér.
P. 430, c. 2—“Idyl,” ī´dyl. A short pastoral poem in a highly finished style.
P. 430, c. 2—“Æsthetics,” ĕs-thet´ics. The theory of taste, or the science of the beautiful.
P. 430, c. 2—“Dithyramb,” dĭth´e-rămb. The word comes from Dithyrambus, an ancient name of Bacchus, and afterward applied to lyric poetry of an enthusiastic and vehement style.
P. 430, c. 2—“Phosphoristic.” An unusual word of about the same meaning as phosphorescent, but not as yet accepted by lexicographers. It is applied to that school of poetry which may be said to seek its source entirely from within, or from the spirit—a kind of transcendentalism.
P. 430, c. 2—“Whitsun Idyl.” A story of White-Sunday-tide, or, contracted, Whitsuntide, the English name for the Pentecost. It is so called from the white garments which were prescribed for those to wear who were about to receive the Lord’s Supper for the first time.