These Nymphs he supposes to frequent or reside in woods, hills, the sea, fountains, grottos etc., whence they are peculiarly called Naiads, Dryads and Nereids:
“What sounds are those that gather from the shores,
The voice of nymphs that haunt the sylvan bowers,
The fair-hair’d dryads of the shady wood,
Or azure daughters of the silver flood?”
(Odyss. B. vi. 122.)
The original word, indeed, is nymphs, which, it must be confessed, furnishes an accurate idea of the fays (fées or fates) of the ancient French and Italian romances; wherein they are represented as females of inexpressible beauty, elegance, and every kind of personal accomplishment, united with magic or supernatural power; such, for instance, as the Calypso of Homer, or the Alcina of Ariosto. Agreeably to this idea it is that Shakespeare makes Antony say in allusion to Cleopatra—
“To this great fairy I’ll commend thy acts,”
meaning this grand assemblage of power and beauty. Such, also, is the character of the ancient nymphs, spoken of by the Roman poets, as Virgil, for instance:
“Fortunatus et ille, deos qui novit agrestes,
Panaque, Sylvanumque senem, Nymphasque sorores.”
(Geor. ii. 493.)
They, likewise, occur in other passages as well as in Horace—
“——gelidum nemus
Nympharumque leves cum Satyris chori.”