Throughout this poem there is reference to the preceding piece, “The Scholar-Gypsy.”
Note [19],] [Page 305].
Young Daphnis with his silver voice doth sing.
Daphnis, the ideal Sicilian shepherd of Greek pastoral poetry, was said to have followed into Phrygia his mistress Piplea, who had been carried off by robbers, and to have found her in the power of the king of Phrygia, Lityerses. Lityerses used to make strangers try a contest with him in reaping corn, and to put them to death if he overcame them. Hercules arrived in time to save Daphnis, took upon himself the reaping-contest with Lityerses, overcame him, and slew him. The Lityerses-song connected with this tradition was, like the Linus-song, one of the early plaintive strains of Greek popular poetry, and used to be sung by corn-reapers. Other traditions represented Daphnis as beloved by a nymph who exacted from him an oath to love no one else. He fell in love with a princess, and was struck blind by the jealous nymph. Mercury, who was his father, raised him to heaven, and made a fountain spring up in the place from which he ascended. At this fountain the Sicilians offered yearly sacrifices. See Servius, Comment. in Virgil. Bucol., v. 20 and viii. 68.
Note [20],] [Page 312].
Ah! where is he, who should have come.
The author’s brother, William Delafield Arnold, Director of Public Instruction in the Punjab, and author of “Oakfield, or Fellowship in the East,” died at Gibraltar, on his way home from India, April the 9th, 1859.
Note [21],] [Page 313].
So moonlit, saw me once of yore.
See the poem, “A Summer Night,” p. 278.