HKB
will attend thee to the war, as soon as the East wind, which brought thee prosperously hither (for the East wind had brought him), shall have changed to the South.”
[Footnote 105: From Dodona.--Ver. 623. Dodona was a town of Chaonia, in Epirus, so called from Dodone, the daughter of Jupiter and Europa. Near it was a temple and a wood sacred to Jupiter, which was famous for the number and magnitude of its oaks. Doves were said to give oracular responses there, probably from the circumstance that the female soothsayers of Thessaly were called πελειαδαι. Some writers, however, say that the oaks had the gift of speech, combined with that of prophesying.]
[Footnote 106: Myrmidons.--Ver. 654. From the Greek word μύρμηξ, ‘an ant;’ according to this version of the story.]
EXPLANATION.
This fable, perhaps, has no other foundation than the retreat of the subjects of Æacus into woods and caverns, whence they returned, when the contagion had ceased with which their country had been afflicted, and when he had nearly lost all hopes of seeing them again. It is probable that the old men were carried off by the plague, while the young, who had more strength, resisted its power, which circumstance would fully account for the active habits of the remaining subjects of Æacus. Some writers, however, suppose that the Myrmidons were a barbarous, but industrious people of Thessaly, who usually dwelt in caves, and who were brought thence by Æacus to people his island, which had been made desolate by a pestilence. The similarity of their name to the Greek word μύρμηξ, signifying ‘an ant,’ most probably gave occasion to the report that Jupiter had changed ants into men.
FABLE VII. [VII.661-793]
Cephalus, having resisted the advances of Aurora, who has become enamoured of him while hunting, returns in disguise to his wife, Procris, to try if her affection for him is sincere. She, discovering his suspicions, flies to the woods, and becomes a huntress, with the determination not to see him again. Afterwards, on becoming reconciled to him, she bestows on him a dog and a dart, which Diana had once given her. The dog is turned into stone, while hunting a wild beast, which Themis has sent to ravage the territories of Thebes, after the interpretation of the riddle of the Sphinx, by Œdipus.
In these and other narratives they passed the day. The last part of the day was spent in feasting, and the night in sleep. The golden Sun had {now} shed his beams, {when} the East wind was still blowing, and detained the sails about to return. The sons of Pallas repair to Cephalus, who was stricken in years. Cephalus and the sons of Pallas, together {with him}, {come} to the king; but a sound sleep still possessed the monarch. Phocus, the son of Æacus, received them at the threshold; for Telamon and his brother were levying men for the war. Phocus conducted the citizens of Cecrops into an inner room, and a handsome apartment. Soon as he had sat down with them, he observed that the grandson of Æolus[107] was holding in his hand a javelin made of an unknown wood, the point of which was of gold.