[Footnote 98: Strictly his sons-in-law.]
[Footnote 99: That is, he ordained that the oracles should be incapable
of interpretation before it was fulfilled.]
[Footnote 100: Calydon, of which his father Oeneus was king.]
[Footnote 101: The mode in which the two fugitives became known to the
king and gained admission to the palace, is not told by Pope, who has
left upwards of seventy lines untranslated, and by the mutilation
rendered the incidents improbable. Polynices reaches the palace first
and lies down, worn out, on the pavement of the vestibule. Tydeus
arrives at the same spot, and Polynices is unwilling that he should
share the shelter. A quarrel ensues, and from words they proceed to
blows. The king is disturbed by the uproar; he issues forth from the
palace with attendants and torches to ascertain the cause; explanations
follow, and these result in Tydeus and Polynices becoming the guests of
Adrastus. "There is an odd account," Pope says to Cromwell, "of an
unmannerly battle at fisty-cuffs between the two Princes on a very
slight occasion, and at a time when, one would think, the fatigue of
their journey, in so tempestuous a night, might have rendered them very
unfit for such a scuffle. This I had actually translated, but was very
ill satisfied with it, even in my own words, to which an author cannot
but be partial enough of conscience."]
[Footnote 102: Before the victory of Hercules over the Nemean lion, he
is said by Statius to have worn the skin of a lion which he slew in the
neighbourhood of Mount Temessus.]
[Footnote 103: "Horror" at the thought of the dreadful forebodings which
had been suggested by the literal language of the oracle; "glad" because
of the manner in which the prediction was verified. Jortin, in a note on
another passage of the Thebais, says, "Statius could not help falling
into his beloved fault of joining contraries together. He is too apt to
seek this opposition in his words. He never indeed misses this favourite
figure when he can bring it in."]
[Footnote 104: "Firm" for confirm was sanctioned by the frequent example
of Dryden, from whose translation of Virg. AEn. viii. 107, Pope has
borrowed the entire couplet:
But oh! be present to thy people's aid,
And firm the gracious promise thou hast made.]
[Footnote 105: In the first edition this verse was an Alexandrine,
ending with "and wake the sleeping fires," which Pope took from Dryden,
Virg. AEn. viii, 720: