[1] This Virgil imitates.
[2] _Bellerophontis literæ. Ad Eras._ This long speech many critics
tax as untimely, being, as they take it, in the heat of fight; Hier.
Vidas, a late observer, being eagerest against Homer. Whose ignorance
in this I cannot but note, and prove to you; for, besides the
authority and office of a poet, to vary and quicken his poem with
these episodes, sometimes beyond the leisure of their actions, the
critic notes not how far his forerunner prevents his worst as far; and
sets down his speech at the sudden and strange turning of the Trojan
field, set on a little before by Hector; and that so fiercely, it made
an admiring stand among the Grecians, and therein gave fit time for
these great captains to utter their admirations, the whole field in
that part being to stand like their commanders. And then how full of
decorum this gallant show and speech was to sound understandings, I
leave only to such, and let our critics go cavil.
[3] _Φρένας ἐξέλετο Ζεύς, Mentem ademit Jup._, the text hath it; which
only I alter of all Homer’s original, since Plutarch against the
Stoics excuses this supposed folly in Glaucus. Spondanus likewise
encouraging my alterations, which I use for the loved and simple
nobility of the free exchange in Glaucus, contrary to others that, for
the supposed folly in Glaucus, turned his change into a proverb,
_χρύσεα χαλχείων_, golden for brazen.
[4] Hector dissembles the cowardice he finds in Paris turning it, as
if he chid him for his anger at the Trojans for hating him, being
conquered by Menelaus, when it is for his effeminacy. Which is all
paraphrastical in my translation.
[5] Thebes, a most rich city of Cilicia.
[6] The names of two fountains: of which one in Thessaly, the other
near Argos, or, according to others, in Peloponnesus or Lacedæmon.
[7] His simile, high and expressive; which Virgil almost word for word
hath translated, Æn. xi. (v. 492).