“Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,
So many _mermaids_, tended her i’ th’ eyes,
And made their bends adornings. At the helm
A seeming mermaid steers.”
I have the greatest difficulty in believing that Shakespeare wrote the
first “mermaids.” He never, I think, would have so weakened by useless
anticipation the fine image immediately following. The epithet “seeming”
becomes so extremely improper after the whole number had been positively
called “so many mermaids.”
“Timon Of Athens.”