BOOK THREE

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[Footnote 501: Than the other.--Ver. 8. 'He alludes to the unequal lines of the Elegiac measure, which consists of Hexameters and Pentameters. In personifying Elegy, he might have omitted this remark, as it does not add to the attractions of a lady, to have one foot longer than the other; he says, however, that it added to her gracefulness.]

[Footnote 502: The Lydian buskin.--Ver. 14. As Lydia was said to have sent colonists to Etruria, some Commentators think that the word 'Lydius' here means 'Etrurian and that the first actors at Rome were Etrurians. But, as the Romans derived their notions of tragedy from the Greeks, we may conclude that Lydia in Asia Minor is here referred to; for we learn from Herodotus and other historians, that the Greeks borrowed largely from the Lydians.]

[Footnote 503: Drunken revels.--Ver. 17. He probably alludes to the Fourth Elegy of the First, and the Fifth Elegy of the Second Book of the 'Amores.']

[Footnote 505: Mighty inspiration.--Ver. 23. The 'thyrsus' was said to have been first used by the troops of Bacchus, in his Indian expedition, when, to deceive the Indians, they concealed the points of their spears amid leaves of the vine and ivy. Similar weapons were used by his devotees when worshipping him, which they brandished to and fro. To be touched with the thyrsus of Bacchus, meant 'to be inspired with poetic frenzy.' See the Notes to the Metamorphoses,