κεῖσέ με νοστήσαντα ϕίλην ἐς πατρίδα γαῖαν
σοί τε κόμην κερέειν.
October 13th.
"I have discovered the reference to the Cephisus. It is from Pausanias, 1, 37, 3. I transcribe the passage: you will notice the reference to the Spercheius of the Iliad.
"πρὶν δὲ διαβαεναι τὸν Καεφισόν, Θεοδώρου μνῆμά ἐστι τραγῳσίαν ὑποκριναμένου τῶν καθ᾿ αὑτὸν ἄριστα. ἀγάλματα δὲ ἐπὶ τῷ ποταμῷ Μνησιμάχης, τὸ δὲ ἐτερον ἀνάθημα κειρομένου οἰ τὴν κόμην τοῦ παιδὸς ἐπὶ τῷ Καϕισῷ. καθεστάναι δὲ ἐκ παλαιοῦ καὶ τοῖς πᾶσι τοῦτο ῞Ἑλλαεσι τῇ Ὁμήρου τις ἂν τεκμαίροιτο ποιήσει, ἃς τὸν Παελέα εὄξασθαί ϕησι τῷ Σπερχειῷ κερεῖν ἀνασωθέντος ἐκ Τροίας Αχιλλέως τὴν κόμην.
"There can be little doubt that Wordsworth had this passage in mind. The Cephisus is the Attic one; this is a statue, which Pausanias saw on the banks of the river, of the son of Mnesimache cutting his locks over the stream."
Professor Campbell writes:—"The Homeric passage is Iliad, 23, 140-151, where Achilles cuts off for Patroclus the lock of hair, which his father Peleus had vowed to the river Spercheius in case of his son's safe return. This is referred to by Plato,—Rep. 3, 391 B,—who regards it as an act of impiety to have given that, which was sacred to the river, to a dead body.
"Unless the passage in Pausanias is singularly apposite, I should think that this passage must have been in Wordsworth's mind, and that by a perfectly legitimate use of poetic freedom, in speaking of the later Greek civilisation, he had put the Attic in place of the Phthiotic river."
Since receiving Mr. Heard's letter, I have found that Wordsworth possessed a copy of Thomas Taylor's translation of Pausanias's Description of Greece, published in 1794, a copy of that work having been sold at the Rydal Mount sale in 1859. Bishop Wordsworth of St. Andrews has also directed my attention to the following note to Pope's translation of the Iliad, a copy of which his uncle possessed. Book xxiii. 175.