(See p. [173])
A translation of the passage from Pausanias is quoted in the text. I append extracts from some letters I have received on the subject. The first are from Mr. Heard, Fettes College, Edinburgh.
October 5th.
"I cannot find a reference to Cephisus; but I send you a passage in point from Homer, Iliad, 23, 140. I rather suspect Wordsworth had this passage in mind, for no commentator I have quotes a parallel; in which case he has either forgotten Spercheius as the river, or substituted, on purpose, the better known Attic river.
"Achilles offers to the dead Patroclus the locks which his father had vowed to Spercheius, if ever he returned to his native land:
ἔνθ᾿ αὖτ ἄλλ᾿ ἐνόησε ποδάρκης δῖος Αχιλλεύς
στὰς ἀπάνευθε πυρῆς ξανθὴν ἀπεκείρατο χαίτην
τήν ῥα Σπερχειῷ ποταμῷ τρέφε τηλεθόωσαν
ὀχθήσας δ᾿ ἄρα εἶπεν ιδὼν ἐπὶ οἴνοπα πόντον
Σπερχεί᾿, ἄλλως σοίγε πατὴρ ἠρήατο Πηλεὺς