[29.] Cytherea was a name of Venus, derived from Cythera, an island in the Ægean Sea, one of the favourite residences of Aphrodite, or Venus. Cf. Virgil, Æn. i. 680: "super alta Cythera Aut super Idalium, sacrata sede," etc.
[30.] With antic Sports. This is the reading of the 1st ed. and also of the ed. of 1768. Some eds. have "sport."
Antic is the same word as antique. The association between what is old or old-fashioned and what is odd, fantastic, or grotesque is obvious enough. Cf. Milton, Il Pens. 158: "With antick pillars massy-proof." In S. A. 1325 he uses the word as a noun: "Jugglers and dancers, anticks, mummers, mimicks." Shakes. makes it a verb in A. and C. ii. 7: "the wild disguise hath almost Antick'd us all."
[31.] Cf. Thomson, Spring, 835: "In friskful glee Their frolics play."
[32, 33.] Cf. Virgil, Æn. v. 580 foll.
[35.] Gray quotes Homer, Od. ix. 265: [Greek: marmarugas thêeito podôn thaumaze de thumôi]. Cf. Catullus's "fulgentem plantam." See also Thomson, Spring, 158: "the many-twinkling leaves Of aspin tall."
[36.] Slow-melting strains, etc. Cf. a poem by Barton Booth, published in 1733:
| "Now to a slow and melting air she moves, So like in air, in shape, in mien, She passes for the Paphian queen; The Graces all around her play, The wondering gazers die away; Whether her easy body bend, Or her fair bosom heave with sighs; Whether her graceful arms extend, Or gently fall, or slowly rise; Or returning or advancing, Swimming round, or sidelong glancing, Strange force of motion that subdues the soul." |