[74.] A fillet tied together.]—Ver. 477. The ‘vitta’ was a band encircling the head, and served to confine the tresses of the hair. It was worn by maidens and by married women also; but the ‘vitta’ assumed on the day of marriage was of a different form from that used by virgins. It was not worn by women of light character, or even by the ‘libertinæ,’ or female slaves who had been liberated; so that it was not only deemed an emblem of chastity, but of freedom also. It was of various colors: white and purple are mentioned. In the later ages the ‘vitta’ was sometimes set with pearls.
[75.] Hymen.]—Ver. 480. Hymen, or Hymenæus, was one of the Gods of Marriage; hence the name ‘Hymen’ was given to the union of two persons in marriage.
[76.] The nuptial torch.]—Ver. 483. Plutarch tells us, that it was the custom in the bridal procession to carry five torches before the bride, on her way to the house of her husband. Among the Romans, the nuptial torch was lighted at the parental hearth of the bride, and was borne before her by a boy, whose parents were alive. The torch was also used at funerals, for the purpose of lighting the pile, and because funerals were often nocturnal ceremonies. Hence the expression of Propertius,— ‘Vivimus inter utramque facem,’ ‘We are living between the two torches.’ Originally, the ‘tædæ’ seem to have been slips or lengths of resinous pine wood: while the ‘fax’ was formed of a bundle of wooden staves, either bound by a rope drawn round them in a spiral form, or surrounded by circular bands at equal distances. They were used by travellers and others, who were forced to be abroad after sunset; whence the reference in line 493 to the hedge ignited through the carelessness of the traveller, who has thrown his torch there on the approach of morning.
[77.] Here in rude guise.]—Ver. 514. ‘Non hic armenta gregesve Horridus observo’ is quaintly translated by Clarke, ‘I do not here in a rude pickle watch herds or flocks.’
[78.] Claros and Tenedos.]—Ver. 516. Claros was a city of Ionia, famed for a temple and oracle of Apollo, and near which there was a mountain and a grove sacred to him. There was an island in the Myrtoan Sea of that name, to which some suppose that reference is here made. Tenedos was an island of the Ægean Sea, in the neighborhood of Troy. Patara was a city of Lycia, where Apollo gave oracular responses during six months of the year. It was from Patara that St. Paul took ship for Phœnicia, Acts, xxi. 1, 2.
[79.] The properties of simples.]—Ver. 522. The first cultivators of the medical art pretended to nothing beyond an acquaintance with the medicinal qualities of herbs and simples; it is not improbable that inasmuch as the vegetable world is nourished and raised to the surface of the earth in a great degree by the heat of the sun, a ground was thereby afforded for allegorically saying that Apollo, or the Sun, was the discoverer of the healing art.
[80.] Ah! wretched me!]—Ver. 523. A similar expression occurs in the Heroides, v. 149, ‘Me miseram, quod amor non est medicabilis herbis.’
[81.] The youthful God.]—Ver. 531. Apollo was always represented as a youth, and was supposed never to grow old. The Scholiast on the Thebais of Statius, b. i., v. 694, says, ‘The reason is, because Apollo is the Sun; and because the Sun is fire, which never grows old.’ Perhaps the youthfulness of the Deity is here mentioned, to account for his ardent pursuit of the flying damsel.
[82.] As when the greyhound.]—Ver. 533. The comparison here of the flight of Apollo after Daphne, to that of the greyhound after the hare, is considered to be very beautifully drawn, and to give an admirable illustration of the eagerness with which the God pursues on the one hand, and the anxiety with which the Nymph endeavors to escape on the other. Pope, in his Windsor Forest, has evidently imitated this passage, where he describes the Nymph Lodona pursued by Pan, and transformed into a river. His words are—
‘Not half so swift the trembling dove can fly,