Her´mês (2 syl.), son of Maia; patron of commerce. Akenside makes Hermês say to the Thames, referring to the merchant ships of England:
By you [ships] my function and my honored name
Do I possess; while o’er the Bætic vale,
Or thro’ the towers of Memphis, or the palms
By sacred Ganges watered, I conduct
The English merchant.
Akenside, Hymn to the Naiads (1767).
(The Bætis is the Guadalquiver, and the Bætic vale Granāda and Andalucia).
Her´mês (2 syl.), the same as Mercury, and applied both to the god and to the metal. Milton calls quicksilver “volatil Hermês.”
So when we see the liquid metal fall,