[2.] A ravished wife.]—Ver. 5. This was Helen, the wife of Menelaüs, whose abduction by Paris was the cause of the Trojan war.
[3.] A thousand ships.]—Ver. 7. That is, a thousand in round numbers. For Homer makes them, 1186; Dictys Cretensis, 1225; and Dares, 1140.
[4.] The whole body.]—Ver. 7. The adjective ‘commune’ is here used substantively, and signifies ‘the whole body.’
[5.] Serpent seized.]—Ver. 16-17. Clarke translates this line, ‘Which the snake whipt up, as also the dam flying about her loss, and buried them in his greedy paunch.’
[6.] On the top.]—Ver. 43. ‘Summaque domum sibi legit in arce,’ is translated by Clarke, ‘And chooses there a house for herself, on the very tip-top of it.’
[7.] Protesilaüs.]—Ver. 68. He was the husband of Laodamia, the daughter of Acastus. His father was Iphiclus, who was noted for his extreme swiftness.
[8.] Spear of Hector.]—Ver. 67. Some writers say that he fell by the hand of Æneas.
[9.] Of a Nereid.]—Ver. 93. Cygnus says this sarcastically, in allusion to Achilles being born of Thetis, a daughter of Nereus.
[10.] As a bull.]—Ver. 103-4. Clarke translates these lines in this comical strain: ‘Achilles was as mad as a bull in the open Circus, when he pushes at the red coat, stuffed, used on purpose to provoke him.’
[11.] The open Circus.]—Ver. 104. We learn from Seneca, that it was the custom in the ‘venationes’ of the Circus to irritate the bull against his antagonist, by thrusting in his path figures stuffed with straw or hay, and covered with red cloth. Similar means are used to provoke the bull in the Spanish bull-fights of the present day.