was a fresh-water fountain at Syracuse in Sicily, and
the Mincius is a river in north Italy, on which is situated Mantua, the
birthplace of the poet Virgil. The great pastoral poet Theocritus is said
to have been born at Syracuse. Thus Arethusa and the Mincius typify the
pastoral tone in which Milton conceives and constructs his poem. But the
intervention of the great god Apollo has frighted the bucolic muses, to
whom therefore the poet explains it, line 87.

88. Now I am on good terms again with the deities of lower rank. Oat is a
common designation of the shepherd's pipe, or syrinx.

89-90. Neptune, through his herald, Triton, pleads his freedom from all
complicity in the drowning of Lycidas. Triton sends to AEolus, god of the
winds, requesting him to cross-question all his subjects as to what they
were doing on the day of the wreck.

95-99. The winds prove their innocence, and AEolus himself comes to report
to Triton that at the time of the disaster they were all at home and the
air was perfectly calm. Even Panope and all her sisters were out playing
on the tranquil water.

96. sage Hippotades. AEolus was the son of Hippotes. See all about him in
Odyssey, book X. Read also Ruskin, Queen of the Air, section 19.

99. Panope was a Nereid, one of the numerous daughters of Nereus.

103. Now comes another grand personage to make inquiry about the death of
Lycidas. Camus, the deity of the river Cam, stands for the University of
Cambridge.

104. His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge. The river god is represented
as wearing a mantle made of water-grasses and reeds.

105-106. These lines refer to certain markings on the water-plants of the
Cam, said to be correctly described here by the poet. The dimness of the
figures may suggest the great age of the university, and the tokens of
woe belong to the present occasion.

106. that sanguine flower inscribed with woe. This is the hyacinth, the
flower that sprang up on the spot where the youth Hyacinthus had been
accidentally slain by Apollo. The petals of the hyacinth are said to be
marked with the Greek letters AI AI, which form an interjection
expressing grief.

107. Lycidas was one of those collegians whose scholarship, character,
and piety promise to make them the pride of their Alma Mater.

109. The Pilot of the Galilean Lake. See Matthew XIV.

110. Two massy keys he bore of metals twain. See Matthew XVI 19. See also
Comus 13 and Par. Lost III 485. The idea of _t