Voyages to the Moon and the Sun

by Cyrano de Bergerac

[69] The famous oracle of Zeus was here.

[70] Nobody "observed Nature" in the 17th century, of course!

[71] Cyrano seems to have confused Orestes and Pylades with Virgil's Nisus and Euryalus; Æneid, Bk. IX.

[72] A body of 300 picked Theban infantry, used notably by Pelopidas and Epaminondas in the battles of Tegyra and Leuctra, B.C. 375 and 371.

[73] These tales are from Ovid's Metamorphoses.

[74] Any reader of our Caroline poets will know how fond they were of the Remora.

[75] Another hiatus here, perhaps.

[76] Some have thought this combat of the Salamander and the Remora was the lost Story of the Spark. In any case it is typical of the age. See Montfaucon de Villars's Comte de Gabalis. 1670.

[77] Probably not!

[78] Or "Scoters"; the text has "Maquereuses".