{358}
Note 1 (p. 99).
"What power thy father lent."
Jove was regarded as the grand source of the power exercised by all the
other gods, even Apollo receiving the gift of prophecy from him. There
is a peculiar propriety in the allusion to the father Zeus, as Mercury
is requested to perform the same office of σωτήρ or Saviour to
Orestes that Jove in a peculiar manner performs to all mankind.--See
MÜLLER on _Zeus Soter_. (Eumenides, § 94), whose observations,
however, on this particular passage, seem to force an artificial accent
on the epithet σώτηρ. The opening lines of this piece are wanting
in the MSS. and were supplied by STAN. from the Frogs of Aristophanes.
Note 2 (p. 99).
"* * My early growth of hair
To Inachus I vowed."
These words will recall to the student of Homer a passage from the
twenty-third book of the Iliad, where an account is given of the funeral
ceremonies of Patroclus.
"First the horsemen came, and then a cloud of infantry behind,
Tens of thousands; his companions bore Patroclus in the midst,
And the corpse they sadly covered with the locks which grief had shorn."
v. 133-5