[Footnote 115: Pope copied Stephens:
devouring some
With rav'nous jaws before their parents' eyes,
And fats herself with public miseries.]
[Footnote 116: Inachus, according to one tradition, built the city of
Argos. After his descendants had reigned for some generations, the
throne was seized by Danaus.]
[Footnote 117: Death cutting off the fatal thread with a scythe, is not
a very sublime or congruous image. Pope has blended modern ideas with
classical: in the original it is "ense metit;"--"_mows_ with his
_sword_." Pope has introduced a "_scythe_," to preserve more accurately
the metaphor, but it has a bad effect.--BOWLES.]
[Footnote 118: Choroebus.]
[Footnote 119: Statius states that Choroebus withdrew, having obtained
his end, and says nothing of his being "unwilling," by which Pope seems
to mean that he was unwilling to accept his life. This deviation from
the original destroys the generous heroism of Choroebus, for if he was
weary of his existence there was no merit in his braving death. Statius,
indeed, had previously said that Apollo granted Choroebus the "sad
boon of life" out of admiration for his magnanimity; but this phrase
only signifies that life is sorrowful, and not that Choroebus would
have preferred to die.]
[Footnote 120: Some of the most finished lines he has ever written, down
to verse 854.--WARTON.]
[Footnote 121: Apollo was specially worshipped by the Lycians.]
[Footnote 122: The celebrated fountain sacred to Apollo on Parnassus.]
[Footnote 123: Apollo was surnamed the Cynthian, from Mount Cynthus in
the island of Delos, which was the place of his birth, and the most
revered of all the localities set apart for his worship. The island,
which had previously floated over the ocean, was, according to one
version of the legend, rendered stationary by Jupiter when Apollo was
born; according to another version, it was subsequently fixed by Apollo
himself.]
[Footnote 124: The walls of Troy were the work of Apollo and Neptune.]
[Footnote 125: In the first edition it was