orthy of remark,
how strongly the affecting tale of Pyramus and Thisbe contrasts
with the loose story of the loves of Mars and Venus.]

[Footnote 28: _The son of Juno._--Ver. 173. Vulcan is called
'Junonigena,' because, according to some, he was the son of Juno
alone. Other writers, however, say that he was the only son of
Jupiter and Juno.]

[Footnote 29: _The folding doors._--Ver. 185. The plural word
'valvae' is often used to signify a door, or entrance, because
among the ancients each doorway generally contained two doors
folding together. The internal doors even of private houses were
bivalve; hence, as in the present case, we often read of the
folding doors of a bed-chamber. Each of these doors or valves was
usually wide enough to permit persons to pass each other in egress
and ingress without opening the other door as well. Sometimes each
valve was double, folding like our window-shutters.]

[Footnote 30: _Cytherean._--Ver. 190. Cythera was an island on the
southern coast of Laconia; where Venus was supposed to have
landed, after she had risen from the sea. It was dedicated to her
worship.]

[Footnote 31: _Hyperion._--Ver. 192. He was the son of Coelus, or
Uranus, and the father of the Sun. The name of Hyperion is,
however, often given by the poets to the Sun himself.]

[Footnote 32: _Rhodos._--Ver. 204. She was a damsel of the Isle of
Rhodes, the daughter of Neptune, and, according to some, of Venus.
She was greatly beloved by Apollo, to whom she bore seven
children.]

[Footnote 33: _Beauteous mother._--Ver. 205. This was Persa, the
daughter of Oceanus, and the mother of the enchantress Circe, who
is here called 'AEaea,' from AEaea, a city and peninsula of Colchis.
Circe is referred to more at length in the 14th Book of the
Metamorphoses.]

[Footnote 34: _Perfume-bearing._--Ver. 209. Being born in Arabia,
the producer of all kinds of spices and perfumes, which were much
in request among the ancients, for the purposes of sacrifice.]

[Footnote 35: _Produced._--Ver. 210. Eurynome was the wife of
Orchamus, and was the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys.]

[Footnote 36: _Achaemenian._--Ver. 212. Persia is called
Achaemenian, from Achaemenes, one of its former kings.]

[Footnote 37: _Ancient Belus._--Ver. 213. The order of descent is
thus reckoned fro