HKB
return, no otherwise did the Bubasian matrons[61] see Byblis howling over the wide fields; leaving which, she wandered through {the country of} the Carians, and the warlike Leleges,[62] and Lycia.
And now she has left behind Cragos,[63] and Lymira,[64] and the waves of Xanthus, and the mountain in which the Chimæra had fire in its middle parts, the breast and the face of a lioness, and the tail of a serpent. The woods {at length} fail thee; when thou, Byblis, wearied with following him, dost fall down, and laying thy tresses upon the hard ground, art silent, and dost press the fallen leaves with thy face. Often, too, do the Lelegeïan Nymphs endeavour to raise her in their tender arms; often do they advise her to curb her passion, and they apply consolation to a mind insensible {to their advice}. Silent does Byblis lie, and she tears the green herbs with her nails, and waters the grass with the stream of her tears. They say that the Naiads placed beneath these {tears} a channel which could never become dry; and what greater gift had they to bestow? Immediately, as drops from the cut bark of the pitch tree, or as the viscid bitumen distils from the impregnated earth, or as water which has frozen with the cold, at the approach of Favonius, gently blowing, melts away in the sun, so is Byblis, the descendant of Phœbus, dissolving in her tears, changed into a fountain, which even now, in those vallies, bears the name of its mistress, and flows beneath a gloomy oak.
[Footnote 46: Every God has.--Ver. 425-6. ‘Cui studeat, Deus omnis habet crescitque favore Turbida seditio.’ Clarke thus renders these words, ‘Every God has somebody to stickle for, and a turbulent sedition arises by their favours for their darlings.’]
[Footnote 47: Son of Deione.--Ver. 442. According to some writers, Miletus was the son of Apollo and Deione, though others say that Thia was the name of his mother. He was the founder of the celebrated city of Miletus, in Caria, a country of Asia Minor.]
[Footnote 48: Does not think.--Ver. 457. Clarke translates this line, ‘Nor does she think she does amiss that she so often tips him a kiss.’ Antoninus Liberalis says, that Eidothea, the daughter of the king of Paria, and not Cyane, was the mother of Byblis and Caunus.]
[Footnote 49: Sweetheart.--Ver. 465. The word ‘dominus’ was often used as a term of endearment between lovers.]
[Footnote 50: Married Ops.--Ver. 497. Ops, the daughter of Cœlus or Uranus, who was also called Cybele, Rhea, and ‘the great Mother,’ was fabled to have been the wife of her brother Saturn; while Oceanus, the son of Cœlus and Vesta, married his sister Tethys.]
[Footnote 51: Sons of Æolus.--Ver. 506. Æolus had six sons, to whom he was said to have given their sisters for wives. In the case, however, of his daughter Canace, who was pregnant by her brother Macareus, Æolus was more severe, as he sent her a sword, with which to put herself to death.]
[Footnote 52: Clean wax tablets.--Ver. 521. Before the tablet was written upon, the wax was ‘vacua,’ empty; or, as we say of writing-paper, ‘clean.’ There was a blunt end to the upper part of the ‘stylus,’ or iron pen, with which the wax was smoothed down when any writing was erased.]
[Footnote 53: Without my name.--Ver. 531-2. ‘Sine nomine vellem Posset agi mea causa meo,’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘I could wish my business might be transacted without my name.’]
[Footnote 54: In the margin.--Ver. 564. Clarke translates, ‘Summusque in margine versus adhæsit,’ ‘And the last line was clapped into the margin.’]
[Footnote 55: Meandrian youth.--Ver. 573. Caunus was the grandson of the river Mæander.]
[Footnote 56: Part of my sail.--Ver. 589. She borrows this metaphor from sailors, who, before setting out, sometimes unfurl a little portion of the sail, to see how the wind blows.]