l. [30]. Ixion's wheel. For insolence to Jove, Ixion was tied to an ever-revolving wheel in Hell.
l. [31]. Memphian sphinx. Memphis was a town in Egypt near to which the pyramids were built. A sphinx is a great stone image with human head and breast and the body of a lion.
[Page 148]. ll. [60-3]. The thunderbolts, being Jove's own weapons, are unwilling to be used against their former master.
[Page 149]. l. [74]. branch-charmed . . . stars. All the magic of the still night is here.
ll. [76-8]. Save . . . wave. See how the gust of wind comes and goes in the rise and fall of these lines, which begin and end on the same sound.
[Page 150]. l. [86]. See Introduction, p. 248.
l. [94]. aspen-malady, trembling like the leaves of the aspen-poplar.
[Page 151]. ll. [98 seq.] Cf. King Lear. Throughout the figure of Saturn—the old man robbed of his kingdom—reminds us of Lear, and sometimes we seem to detect actual reminiscences of Shakespeare's treatment. Cf. Hyperion, i. [98]; and King Lear, i. iv. 248-52.
l. [102]. front, forehead.
l. [105]. nervous, used in its original sense of powerful, sinewy.