Clasp’d wise Ulysses: and from rapturous love
Nausithous and Nausinous gave to day.
Lo! these were they, who yielding to embrace
Of mortal men, themselves immortal, gave
A race resembling gods. Oh now the tribe
Of gentle women sing! Olympian maids!
Ye Muses, born from ægis-bearer Jove!
FOOTNOTES
[142] They lightly leap in dance.] This representation of the Muses is taken from the ancient custom of dancing round the altar during sacrifice.
[143] In springs that gush’d fresh from the courser’s hoof.] Hippos was an Ægyptian title of the sun. This ancient term became obsolete, and was misapplied by the Greeks, who uniformly applied it to horses. Hippocrene was a sacred fountain denominated from the god of light, who was the patron of verse and science. But by the Greeks it was referred to an animal, and supposed to have been produced by the hoof of a horse. Other nations, says Athanasius, reverenced rivers and fountains: but above all people in the world the Ægyptians held them in the highest honour, and esteemed them as divine. From hence the custom passed westward to Greece, Italy, and the extremities of Europe. One reason for holding waters so sacred arose from a notion that they were gifted with supernatural powers. Bryant.