"Black with the curls of snakes, sits a spectatrix."
It may be doubted whether Mr Reed had sufficient warrant for altering the old reading: at all events spectatrix, the word of the time, might have stood; perhaps, in the two next lines their should be changed to her.—Collier.
[364] So in Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra"—
"Let me lodge Lichas on the horn o' th' moon."
—Steevens.
Again, Ovid's "Metam.," lib. 9. l. 215—
"Tremit ille pavetque
Pallidus; et timide verba excusantia dicit
Dicentem, genibusque manus adhibere parantem
Corripit Alcides; et terque quaterque rotatum
Mittit in Euboicas tormento fortius undas,
Ille per aerias pendens indurnit auras."
Of which the following is Gay's translation—
"The youth all pale with shiv'ring fear was stung,
And vain excuses falter'd on his tongue:
Alcides snatch'd him, as with suppliant face
He strove to clasp his knees, and beg for grace;
He toss'd him o'er his head with airy course,
And hurl'd with more than with an engine's force:
Far o'er the Eubœan main aloof he flies,
And hardens by degrees amid the skies."
[365] A cant term for a foolish fellow or idiot. See Mr Steevens's note on "Troilus and Cressida," act ii. sc. 1.