[72] The reading—
ού φθεγξη; λύκον εΐδες; επαιξέ τις, ως σοφός, εΐπε,—makes good sense. ως σοφός is put in the mouth of the girl, and would mean ‘a good guess’! The allusion of a guest to the superstition that the wolf struck people dumb is taken by Cynisca for a reference to young Wolf, her secret lover.
[73] Or, as Wordsworth suggests, reading δάκρυσι, ‘for him your cheeks are wet with tears.’
[74a] Shaving in the bronze, and still more, of course, in the stone age, was an uncomfortable and difficult process. The backward and barbarous Thracians were therefore trimmed in the roughest way, like Aeschines, with his long gnawed moustache.
[74b] The Megarians having inquired of the Delphic oracle as to their rank among Greek cities, were told that they were absolute last, and not in the reckoning at all.
[77] Our Lady, here, is Persephone. The ejaculation served for the old as well as for the new religion of Sicily. The dialogue is here arranged as in Fritzsche’s text, and in line 8 his punctuation is followed.
[78a] If cats are meant, the proverb is probably Alexandrian. Common as cats were in Egypt, they were late comers in Greece.
[78b] Most of the dialogue has been distributed as in the text of Fritzsche.
[82] Reading πέρυσιν.
[89] I.e. Syracuse, a colony of the Ephyraeans or Corinthians. The Maiden is Persephone, the Mother Demeter.