[386] Homer.
[387] Virgil.
[388] The Muses.
[389] Homer's Odyssey, bk. x. 460.
[390] See the Odyssey, bk. ix.
[391] See Æn. v. 833
[392] The Lotophagi, so named from the lotus, are thus described by Homer:—
"Not prone to ill, nor strange to foreign guest,
They eat, they drink, and Nature gives the feast;
The trees around them all their fruit produce;
Lotos the name; divine, nectareous juice;
(Thence call'd Lotophagi) which whoso tastes,
Insatiate, riots in the sweet repasts,
Nor other home, nor other care intends,
But quits his home, his country, and his friends:
The three we sent, from off th' enchanting ground
We dragg'd reluctant, and by force we bound:
The rest in haste forsook the pleasing shore,
Or, the charm tasted, had return'd no more."
Pope, Odyss. ix. 103.
The Libyan lotus is a shrub like a bramble, the berries like the myrtle, purple when ripe, and about the size of an olive. Mixed with bread-corn, it was used as food for slaves. They also made an agreeable wine of it, but which would not keep above ten days. See Pope's note in loco.
[393] In skins confin'd the blust'ring winds control.—The gift of Æolus to Ulysses.