[4] Then indeed the sun freshly struck the fields [with its rays], ascending heaven from the calmly-flowing, deep-moving ocean. Iliad vii. 421; Odyssey xix. 433. These references relate to the Greek text; any one wishing to verify the poetic translation will find the place in Cowper, by adding a few lines to the number adapted to the Greek. The prose version is taken from Bohn’s edition.
[5] And the bright light of the sun fell into the ocean, drawing dark night over the fruitful earth. Iliad viii. 485.
“Bright and steady as the star
Autumnal, which in ocean newly bathed,
Assumes fresh beauty.”
Iliad v. 6.
[7] Gosselin remarks that in his opinion Strabo frequently attributes to Homer much information of which the great poet was entirely ignorant: the present is an instance, for Spain was to Homer a perfect terra incognita.
[8] The Phœnician Hercules, anterior to the Grecian hero by two or three centuries. The date of his expedition, supposing it to have actually occurred, was about sixteen or seventeen hundred years before the Christian era.
[9] “But the immortals will send you to the Elysian plain, and the boundaries of the Earth, where is auburn-haired Rhadamanthus; there of a truth is the most easy life for men. There is nor snow, nor long winter, nor even a shower, but every day the ocean sends forth the gently blowing breezes of the west wind to refresh men.” Odyssey iv. 563.