HKB
Possibly ‘niger arcus’ means a sweeping wave, black with the sand which it has swept from the depths of the ocean; or else with the reflection of the dark clouds.]
[Footnote 46: From the heavens.--Ver. 571. The word Olympus is frequently used by the poets to signify ‘the heavens;’ as the mountain of that name in Thessaly, from its extreme height, was supposed to be the abode of the Gods.]
[Footnote 47: Prepare the garments.--Ver. 575. Horace tells us that their clients wove garments for the Roman patricians; and the females of noble family did the same for their husbands, children, and brothers. Ovid, in the Fasti, describes Lucretia as making a ‘lacerna,’ or cloak, for her husband Collatinus. She says to her hand-maidens, ‘With all speed there must be sent to your master a cloak made with our hands.’ (Book ii. l. 746.) Suetonius tells us that Augustus would wear no clothes but those made by his wife, sister, or daughter.]
[Footnote 48: Polluted hands.--Ver. 584. All persons who had been engaged in the burial of the dead were considered to be polluted, and were not allowed to enter the temples of the Gods till they had been purified. Among the Greeks, persons who had been supposed to have died in foreign countries, and whose funeral rites had been performed in an honorary manner by their own relatives, if it turned out that they were not dead, and they returned to their own country, were considered impure, and were only purified by being dressed in swaddling clothes, and treated like new-born infants. We shall, then, be hardly surprised at Juno considering Halcyone to be polluted by the death of her husband Ceyx, although at a distance, and as yet unknown to her.]
[Footnote 49: The Cimmerians.--Ver. 592. Ovid appropriately places the abode of the drowsy God in the cold, damp, and foggy regions of the Cimmerians, who are supposed, by some authors, to have been a people of Sarmatia, or Scythia, near the Palus Mæotis, or sea of Azof. Other writers suppose that a fabulous race of people, said to live near Baiæ in Italy, and to inhabit dark caves throughout the day, while they sallied forth to plunder at night, are here referred to. This description of the abode of Sleep, and of his appearance and attendants, is supposed to have been borrowed by Ovid from one of the Greek poets.]
[Footnote 50: Geese more sagacious.--Ver. 599. This is said in compliment to the geese, for the service they rendered, in giving the alarm, and saving the Capitol, when in danger of being taken by the Gauls.]
[Footnote 51: Waters of Lethe.--Ver. 603. After the dead had tasted the waters of Lethe, one of the rivers of Hell, it was supposed that they lost all recollection of the events of their former life.]
[Footnote 52: Took to flight.--Ver. 632. Clarke translates this line, ‘Away she scours, and returns through the bow through which she had come.’]
[Footnote 53: Morpheus.--Ver. 635. Morpheus was so called from the Greek μορφὴ, ‘shape,’ or ‘figure,’ because he assumed various shapes. Icelos has his name from the Greek ἴκελος, ‘like,’ for a similar reason. Phobetor is from the Greek φοβὸς, ‘fear,’ because it was his office to terrify mortals. Lucian appears to mean the same Deity, under the name of Taraxion. Phantasos is from the Greek φάντασις, ‘fancy.’]
[Footnote 54: In the Ægean Sea.--Ver. 663. The Ægean Sea lay between the city of Trachyn and the coast of Ionia, whither Ceyx had gone.]
[Footnote 55: The inscription.--Ver. 706. The epitaphs on the tombs of the ancients usually contained the name of the person, his age, and (with the Greeks) some account of the principal events of his life. Halcyone, in her affectionate grief, promises her husband, at least, an honorary funeral, and a share in her own epitaph.]
[Footnote 56: Seven calm days.--Ver. 745. Simonides mentions eleven as being the number of the days; Philochorus, nine; but Demagoras says seven, the number here adopted by Ovid.]