[54.] The Aonian.]—Ver. 313. Aonia was a mountainous region of Bœotia; and Actæa was an ancient name of Attica, from ἄκτη, the sea-shore.
[55.] By name Parnassus.]—Ver. 317. Mount Parnassus has two peaks, of which the one was called ‘Tichoreum,’ and was sacred to Bacchus; and the other ‘Hypampeum,’ and was devoted to Apollo and the Muses.
[56.] The Corycian Nymphs.]—Ver. 320. The Corycian Nymphs were so called from inhabiting the Corycian cavern in Mount Parnassus; they were fabled to be the daughters of Plistus, a river near Delphi. There was another Corycian cave in Cilicia, in Asia Minor.
[57.] The prophetic Themis.]—Ver. 321. Themis is said to have preceded Apollo in giving oracular responses at Delphi. She was the daughter of Cœlus and Terra, and was the first to instruct men to ask of the Gods that which was lawful and right, whence she took the name of Themis, which signifies in Greek, ‘that which is just and right.’
[58.] The native purple shells.]—Ver. 332. ‘Murex’ was the name of the shell-fish from which the Tyrian purple, so much valued by the ancients, was procured. Some suppose that the meaning here is, that Triton had his shoulders tinted with the purple color of the murex. It is, however, more probable that the Poet means to say that he had his neck and shoulders studded with the shells of the murex, perhaps as a substitute for scales.
[59.] He bids him blow.]—Ver. 333. There were several Tritons, or minor sea gods. The one mentioned here, the chief Triton, was fabled to be the son of Neptune and Amphitrite, who always preceded Neptune in his course, and whose arrival he was wont to proclaim by the sound of his shell. He was usually represented as swimming, with the upper part of his body resembling that of a human being, while his lower parts terminated with the tail of a fish.
[60.] The hollow-wreathed trumpet.]—Ver. 335. The ‘Buccina,’ or, as we call it, ‘the conch shell,’ was a kind of horn, or trumpet, made out of a shell, called ‘buccinum.’ It was sometimes artificially curved, and sometimes straight, retaining the original form of the shell. The twisted form of the shell was one of the characteristic features of the trumpet, which, in later times, was made of horn, wood, or metal, so as to imitate the shell. It was chiefly used among the Romans, to proclaim the watches of the day and of the night, which watches were thence called ‘buccina prima,’ ‘secunda,’ etc. It was also blown at funerals, and at festive entertainments, both before sitting down to table and after. Macrobius tells us, that Tritons holding ‘buccinæ’ were fixed on the roof of the temple of Saturn.
[61.] The bidden retreat.]—Ver. 340. ‘Canere receptus’ was ‘to sound the retreat,’ as the signal for the soldiers to cease fighting, and to resume their march.
[62.] Now the sea.]—Ver. 343. This and the two following lines are considered as entitled to much praise for their terseness and brevity, as depicting by their short detached sentences the instantaneous effect produced by the commands of Neptune in reducing his dominions to a state of order.
[63.] A common origin.]—Ver. 352. Because Prometheus was the father of Deucalion and Epimetheus of Pyrrha; Prometheus and Epimetheus being the sons of Iapetus. It is in an extended sense that he styles her ‘sister,’ she being really his cousin.