was delivered of a firebrand which consumed the kingdom.' Hecuba's dream is described in Ovid, Her. 16. 45-46.

The true Althæa's brand is alluded to in H6B, which is to be referred to Met. 8. 260-547. Paris is rightly called a

'firebrand' in Troil. 2. 2. 110. (See Paris.)

Amazons.-K. J. 5. 2. 155; Cor. 2. 2. 95; Tim. 1. 2. 136; H6A 1. 2. 104; H6C 1. 4. 114; 4. I. 106.

The term is used of women who, as La Pucelle for example, take part in war. It is impossible to assign any source for so common an idea.

Amphion (?)

In Tp. 2. 1. 87 Sebastian says: 'His word is more than the miraculous harp; he hath raised the wall and houses too.' That Amphion raised the walls of Thebes with his music, is mentioned in Mct. 6. 178. Golding translates (p. 77b):

This same towne whose walles my husbands harpe did frame. W. A. Wright says that it may rather be Apollo who raised the walls of Troy. The miraculous harp of Apollo is mentioned in Her. 16. 180.

Anchises.-Cæs. 1. 2. 114; Troil. 4. 1. 21; H6B 5. 2. 62.

Eneas.

Anna.-Shr. 1. I. 159. See Dido.

Antiopa.-Mids. 2. 1. 80. See Theseus.

Apollo.

See

Except in a single epithet 'fire-robed' (Wint. 4. 4. 30), there is no suggestion that Shakespeare connects Apollo with the sun, which he personifies so often under the name of Phœbus. (See Sun-divinities.) It is as patron of music and of learning that Shakespeare regards him. As, motto to one of his earliest works, the Ven., he quoted two lines from Ovid (Am. 1. 15. 35-36) which show Apollo in this capacity:

Vilia miretur vulgus; mihi flavus Apollo
Pocula Castalia plena ministret aqua.

In LLL we find the simile: 'As sweet and musical as bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair'—a conceit which is probably Shakespeare's own, though the beauty of Apollo's hair is implied in the epithet 'flavus.' Apollo is also patron of music in LLL 5. 2. 941; Troil. 3. 3. 305; Shr. Ind. 2. 37. He is patron of learning in Per. 3. 2. 67 and probably also in Troil. 1. 3. 328. In Troil. 2. 2. 79 he is merely a type of beauty.

In Wint. Leontes consults the oracle at Delphi as to his wife's chastity, and in consequence Apollo's name occurs frequently, especially in Acts 2 and 3. It is to be noticed that Shakespeare considers Delphi an island (3. 1. 2), a mistake which he borrows from Dorastus and Fawnia (Hazlitt's Shak. Libr. Pt. 1. Vol. 4. p. 39), from which he takes the whole incident of consulting the oracle. The 'ysle of Delphi' is also mentioned by Caxton, p. 548 etc. Lear's oath by Apollo (Lr. 1. 1. 162) may be explained by the fact that Holinshed says that a 'temple of Apollo stood in the citie of Troinouant' (London) (Boswell-Stone's Shakespeare's Holinshed, p. 5, note).

Of the mythology in a narrower sense, there is a mere allusion to Apollo's metamorphosis into a shepherd for the deception of Isse (Met. 6. 122) taken over bodily from Dorastus and Fawnia (Hazlitt's Shak. Libr. Pt. I. Vol. 4. p. 62.) in Wint. 4. 4. 30; and three allusions to the fable of Apollo and Daphne: Mids. 2. 1. 231; Troil. 1. 1. 101; Shr. Ind. 2. 61. Shakespeare may well have learned the story from Mct. 1. 452 seq. More explicit is the reference in Shr. where the servant, having offered various pictures to poor Sly, suggests:

Or Daphne roaming through a thorny wood,

Scratching her legs that one shall swear she bleeds,
And at that sight shall sad Apollo weep.

With this cf. Met. 1. 508-9; Apollo says:

Alas alas how woulde it greeve my hart,

Too see thee fall among the briers, and that the blud shoulde start Out of thy tender legges, I wretch the causer of thy smart.

(Golding, p. 11b)

Aquilon-Argonauts

Aquilon.-Troil. 4. 5. 9.

39

The north wind. Only twice does Shakespeare personify the winds under classical names: here and in Troil. 1. 3. 38 where Boreas is mentioned, both times, it will be observed, in the same play. The particular expression:

Blow, villain, till thy sphered bias cheek
Outswell the colic of puff'd Aquilon

suggests the

Blow winds, and crack your cheeks

of Lr. 3. 2. 1. In each case the allusion is to the conventional pictorial representation of the winds as cherubs with puffed cheeks. (Cf. Botticelli's Venus.)

The names Boreas and Aquilon occur in Vergil.

Arachne (Ariachne).—Troil. 5. 2. 152.

Arachne is the maiden, who, presuming to vie with Minerva in weaving, was for her arrogance turned into a spider. Met. 6. 1-145.

By Ariachne's broken woof' Shakespeare means, apparently, cobweb. (Cf. K. J. 4. 3. 128.) The passage would then be paraphrased: 'No opening large enough for a thread of cobweb to enter.' The phrase 'broken woof,' however, is suggestive of the Ovidian story. Shakespeare's mistaken form of the name is to be traced to confusion with Ariadne, who is also famed for her thread.

Argonauts.-Merch. 1. 1. 170-172; 3. 2. 244; 5. 1. 13; H6B 5. 2. 59.

It is worthy of notice that all the allusions to the Argonauts in the genuine plays occur in Merch. The winning of the golden fleece is alluded to in the first two passages, for which the source is to be found in Met. 7. I seq. in Golding's translation, as shown by the phrase 'Colchos strand' (Merch. 1. 1. 171), evidently taken from the following line on p. 89b of Golding:

And so with conquest and a wife he loosde from Colchos strond.

(Colchos is a frequent spelling in 16th century books.) In Merch, 5. 1. 13 we read:

In such a night

Medea gather'd the enchanted herbs

That did renew old son.

The mention of Medea after Thisbe and Dido, whose stories are related consecutively in that order in the Legend of Good Women, would make us look to the Legend as a source, but we find there no mention of the 'renewal' of Æson. The story is told at length in Met. 7. 159-293. In 1. 180 we learn that the magic herbs were gathered under a full moon, which is the point of allusion. From this passage of Met. in Golding's translation Shakespeare later borrowed Prospero's incantation in Tp. 5. I. 33 ff. The presumption that Shakespeare read the passage in Golding is further strengthened by the lines on p. 92:

And as from dull unweeldsome age to youth he backwarde drew; Even so a lively youthfull spright did in his hart renew,

which depart widely from the Latin original.

The story of Medea and Absyrtus, alluded to in H6B 5. 2. 59, is told by Ovid in Trist. 3. 9.

Argus.-LLL 3. 1. 201; Merch. 5. 1. 230; Troil. 1. 2. 31.

The monster with a hundred eyes set by the jealous Juno to guard Io. He is lulled asleep by the music of Mercury, Met. 1. 621 seq. By a strange confusion with the Hydra, the charming asleep of Argus' eyes is mentioned in connection with Hydra in H4B 4. 2. 38. (Cf. s. v. Hercules.)

Ariadne.-Gent. 4. 4. 172; Mids. 2. 1. 80.

In Gent. we read:

Madam, 'twas Ariadne passioning

For Theseus' perjury and unjust flight.

Shakespeare may have in mind Her. 10, which is one long 'passioning' of Ariadne, (or Chaucer's imitation of it, Legend of Good Women 2185 ff.) which he imitates in

Merch. (see Dido). The word 'perjury' suggests Fasti 3. 469 seq.:

Flebat amans coniunx, spatiataque litore curvo

Edidit incultis talia verba comis:

'En iterum, fluctus, similis audite querellas!

En iterum lacrimas accipe, harena, meas!

Dicebam, memini, “periure et perfide Theseu!"'

He is called periurus also in Am. 1. 7. 15. Ariadne is mentioned as a forsaken love of Theseus in Mids., where the name may have been taken from North's Plutarch, Theseus, p. 73 (see Theseus).

Arion.-Tw. I. 2. 15.

The story of Arion is told by Ovid, Fasti 2. 83 seq.; but the story was, of course, common property. Cf. Spenser, F. Q. 4. 11. 23. It is noticeable that Shakespeare does not refer to him as a musician.

Ascanius.—H6B 3. 2. 116.

Mentioned as Æneas' son, relating his father's acts to See Dido.

Dido.

Astræa.-Tit. 4. 3. 4; H6A 1. 6. 4.

In Tit. the words "Terras Astræa reliquit' are quoted exactly from Met. 1. 150, and the idea is further expanded at 11. 39. 49 of the same scene. In H6A Charles calls La Pucelle: 'Divinest creature, Astræa's daughter,' meaning possibly that in rescuing Orleans she has made justice prevail, or perhaps associating her with the Golden Age, before Astræa left the earth.

Atalanta.-As. 3. 2. 155; 3. 2. 293.

In the second passage there is a reference to Atalanta's heels that is her swiftness. The story is told in Met. 10. 560-704. What is meant by 'Atalanta's better part' in the first passage has caused long discussion (see Furness' Var.).