f;
thou {subduest} the conquered Deities of the deep, and him who rules
over the Deities of the deep. Why is Tartarus exempt? Why dost thou not
extend the Empire of thy mother and thine own? A third part of the world
is {now} at stake. And yet so great power is despised even in our own
heaven, and, together with myself, the influence of Love becomes but a
trifling matter. Dost thou not see how that Pallas, and Diana, who
throws the javelin, have renounced me? The daughter of Ceres, too, will
be a virgin, if we shall permit it, for she inclines to similar hopes.
But do thou join the Goddess to her uncle, if I have any interest with
thee in favor of our joint sway.

"Venus {thus} spoke. He opened his quiver, and, by the direction of his
mother, set apart one out of his thousand arrows; but one, than which
there is not any more sharp or less unerring, or which is more true to
the bow. And he bent the flexible horn, by pressing his knee against it,
and struck Pluto in the breast with the barbed arrow."

[Footnote 40: _Trinacria._--Ver. 347. Sicily was called Trinacris,
or Trinacria, from its three corners or promontories, which are
here named by the Poet.]

[Footnote 41: _Pelorus._--Ver. 350. This cape, or promontory, now
called Capo di Faro, is on the east of Sicily, looking towards
Italy, whence its present epithet, 'Ausonian.' It was so named
from Pelorus, the pilot of Hannibal, who, suspecting him of
treachery, had put him to death, and buried him on that spot.]

[Footnote 42: _Pachynus._--Ver. 351. This Cape, now Capo Passaro,
looks towards Greece, from the south of Sicily.]

[Footnote 43: _Lilybaeum._--Ver. 351. Now called Capo Marsala. It
is on the west of Sicily, looking towards the African coast.]

[Footnote 44: _Erycina._--Ver. 363. Venus is so called from Eryx,
the mountain of Sicily, on which her son Eryx, one of the early
Sicilian kings, erected a magnificent temple in her honor.]

[Footnote 45: _The triple kingdom._--Ver. 368. In the partition of
the dominion of the universe the heavens fell to the lot of
Jupiter, the seas to that of Neptune; while the infernal regions,
or, as some say, the earth, were awarded to Pluto.]

EXPLANATION.

The ancients frequently accounted for natural phaenomena on fabulous
grounds: and whatever they found difficult to explain, from their
ignorance of the principles of natural philosophy,