[5.] As large a size.]—Ver. 44. This description of the enormous size of the dragon or serpent is inconsistent with what the Poet says in line 91, where we find Cadmus enabled to pin his enemy against an oak.
[6.] With his sting.]—Ver. 48. He enumerates in this one instance the various modes by which serpents put their prey to death, either by means of their sting, or, in the case of the larger kinds of serpent, by twisting round it, and suffocating it in their folds.
[7.] Some breathed upon.]—Ver. 49. It was a prevalent notion among the ancients, that some serpents had the power of killing their prey by their poisonous breath. Though some modern commentators on this passage may be found to affirm the same thing, it is extremely doubtful if such is the fact. The notion was, perhaps, founded on the power which certain serpents have of fascinating their prey by the agency of the eye, and thus depriving it of the means of escape.
[8.] A huge stone.]—Ver. 59. ‘Molaris’ here means a stone as large as a mill-stone, and not a mill-stone itself, for we must remember that this was an uninhabited country, and consequently a stranger to the industry of man.
[9.] His infernal mouth.]—Ver. 76. ‘Stygio’ means ‘pestilential as the exhalations of the marshes of Styx.’
[10.] Form of a dragon.]—Ver. 98. This came to pass when, having been expelled from his dominions by Zethus and Amphion, he retired to Illyria, and was there transformed into a serpent, a fate which was shared by his wife Hermione.
[11.] With painted cones.]—Ver. 108. The ‘conus’ was the conical part of the helmet into which the crest of variegated feathers was inserted.
[12.] When the curtains.]—Ver. 111. The ‘Siparium’ was a piece of tapestry stretched on a frame, and, rising before the stage, answered the same purpose as the curtain or drop-scene with us, in concealing the stage till the actors appeared. Instead of drawing up this curtain to discover the stage and actors, according to our present practice, it was depressed when the play began, and fell beneath the level of the stage; whence ‘aulæa premuntur,’ ‘the curtain is dropped,’ meant that the play had commenced. When the performance was finished, this was raised again gradually from the foot of the stage; therefore ‘aulæa tolluntur,’ ‘the curtain is raised,’ would mean that the play had finished. From the present passage we learn, that in drawing it up from the stage, the curtain was gradually displayed, the unfolding taking place, perhaps, below the boards, so that the heads of the figures rose first, until the whole form appeared in full with the feet resting on the stage, when the ‘siparium’ was fully drawn up. From a passage in Virgil’s Georgics (book iii. l. 25), we learn that the figures of Britons (whose country had then lately been the scene of new conquests) were woven on the canvas of the ‘siparium,’ having their arms in the attitude of lifting the curtain.
[13.] Echion.]—Ver. 126. The names of the others were Udeus, Chthonius, Hyperenor, and Pelor, according to Apollodorus. To these some added Creon, as a sixth.
[14.] Mars and Venus.]—Ver. 132. The wife of Cadmus was Hermione, or Harmonia, who was said to have been the daughter of Mars and Venus. The Deities honored the nuptials with their presence, and presented marriage gifts, while the Muses and the Graces celebrated the festivity with hymns of their own composition.