."

57 Eustathius, after Heraclides Ponticus and others, allegorizes this
apparition, as if the appearance of Minerva to Achilles, unseen by
the rest, was intended to point out the sudden recollection that he
would gain nothing by intemperate wrath, and that it were best to
restrain his anger, and only gratify it by withdrawing his services.
The same idea is rather cleverly worked out by Apuleius, "De Deo
Socratis."

58 Compare Milton, "Paradise Lost," bk. ii:

"Though his tongue
Dropp'd manna."

So Proverbs v. 3, "For the lips of a strange woman drop as an
honey-comb."

59 Salt water was chiefly used in lustrations, from its being supposed
to possess certain fiery particles. Hence, if sea-water could not be
obtained, salt was thrown into the fresh water to be used for the
lustration. Menander, in Clem. Alex. vii. p.713, hydati perriranai,
embalon alas, phakois.

60 The persons of heralds were held inviolable, and they were at
liberty to travel whither they would without fear of molestation.
Pollux, Onom. viii. p. 159. The office was generally given to old
men, and they were believed to be under the especial protection of
Jove and Mercury.

61 His mother, Thetis, the daughter of Nereus and Doris, who was
courted by Neptune and Jupiter. When, however, it was known that the
son to whom she would give birth must prove greater than his father,
it was determined to wed her to a mortal, and Peleus, with great
difficulty, succeeded in obtaining her hand, as she eluded him by
assuming various forms. Her children were all destroyed by fire
through her attempts to see whether they were immortal, and Achilles
would have shared the same fate had not his father rescued him. She
afterwards rendered him invulnerable by plunging him into the waters
of the Styx, with the exception of that part of the heel by which
she held him. Hygin. Fab. 54

62 Thebe was a city of Mysia, north of Adramyttium.

63 That is, defrauds me of the prize allotted me by their votes.

64 Quintus Calaber goes still further in his account of the service
rendered to Jove by Thetis:

"Nay more, the fetters of Almighty Jove
She loosed"--Dyce's "Calaber," s. 58.

65 --_To Fates averse._ Of the gloomy destiny reigning throughout the