The women wore white dresses during the period of its
performance, and they adopted the same colour during the
celebration of the Cerealia at Rome. Burmann thinks, that an
Eastern festival, in honour of Ceres, is here referred to. If so,
no accounts of it whatever have come down to us.]

[Footnote 49: _Among the Triones._--Ver. 446. 'Triones'. This
word, which is applied to the stars of the Ursa Major, or
Charles's Wain, literally means 'oxen;' and is by some thought to
come from 'tero,' 'to bruise,' because oxen were used for the
purpose of threshing corn; but it is more likely to have its
origin from 'terra,' 'the earth,' because oxen were used for
ploughing. The Poet employs this periphrasis, to signify the
middle of the night.]

[Footnote 50: _Sabaean country._--Ver. 480. Sabaea, or Saba, was a
region of Arabia Felix, now called 'Yemen.' It was famed for its
myrrh, frankincense, and spices. In the Scriptures it is called
Sheba, and it was the queen of this region, who came to listen to
the wisdom of Solomon.]

[Footnote 51: _Warm drops distil._--Ver. 500. He alludes to the
manner in which frankincense is produced, it exuding from the bark
of the tree in drops; this gum, Pliny the Elder and Lucretius call
by the name of 'stacta,' or 'stacte.' The ancients flavoured their
wines with myrrh.]

EXPLANATION.

Le Clerc, forming his ideas on what Lucian, Phurnutus, and other
authors have said on the subject, explains the story of Cinyras and
Myrrha in the following manner. Cynnor, or Cinyras, the grandfather
of Adonis, having one day drank to excess, fell asleep in a posture
which violated the rules of decency. Mor, or Myrrha, his
daughter-in-law, the wife of Ammon, together with her son Adonis,
seeing him in that condition, acquainted her husband with her
father's lapse. On his repeating this to Cinyras, the latter was so
full of indignation, that he loaded Myrrha and Adonis with
imprecations.

Loaded with the execrations of her father, Myrrha retired into
Arabia, where she remained some time; and because Adonis passed some
portion of his youth there, the poets feigned that Myrrha was
delivered of him in that country. Her transformation into a tree was
only invented on account of the equivocal character of her name,
'Mor,' which meant in the Arabic language 'Myrrh.' It is very
probable that t