BOOK TWO

:

[Footnote 301: The watery Peligni.--Ver. 1. In the Fourth Book of the Fasti, 1. 81, and the Fourth Book of the Tristia, 1. x. El. 3, he mentions Sulmo, a town of the Peligni, as the place of his birth. It was noted for its many streams or rivulets.]

[Footnote 302: And Gyges.--Ver. 12. This giant was more generally called Gyas. He and his hundred-handed brothers, Briareus and Cæus, were the sons of Coelus and Terra.]

[Footnote 303: Verses bring down.--Ver. 23. He alludes to the power of magic spells, and attributes their efficacy to their being couched in poetic measures; from which circumstance they received the name of 'carmina.']

[Footnote 304: And by verses.--Ver. 28. He means to say that in the same manner as magic spells have brought down the moon, arrested the sun, and turned back rivers towards their source, so have his Elegiac strains been as wonderfully successful in softening the obduracy of his mistress.]

[Footnote 305: Bagous.--Ver. 1. The name Bagoas, or, as it is here Latinized. Bagous, is said to have signified, in the Persian language, 'an eunuch.' It was probably of Chaldæan origin, having that meaning. As among the Eastern nations of the present day, the more jealous of the Romans confided the care of their wives or mistresses to eunuch slaves, who were purchased at a very large price.]

[Footnote 306: Daughters of Danaus.--Ver. 4. The portico under the temple of Apollo, on the Palatine Hill, was adorned with the statues of Danaus, the son of Belus, and his forty-nine guilty daughters. It was built by Augustus, on a spot adjoining to his palace. Ovid mentions these statues in the Third Elegy of the Third Book of the Tristia, 1. 10.]

[Footnote 307: Let him go.--Ver. 20. 'Eat' seems here to mean 'let him go away' from the house; but Nisard's translation renders it 'qu'il entre,' 'let him come in.']

[Footnote 308: At the sacrifice.--Ver. 23. It is hard to say what 'si faciet tarde' means: it perhaps applies to the rites of Isis, mentioned in the 25th line.]

If she shall be slow in her sacrifice.']

[Footnote 309: Linen-clad Isis.--Ver. 25. Seethe 74th line of the Eighth Elegy of the preceding Book, and the Note to the passage; and the Pontic Epistles,