admissis uxorem exclusit. Hoc forsitan dicit Gorgo [by mistake for Praxinoe, for so it is in his text] respectu habito ad multitudinem exclusam." This is a very improbable interpretation, though not lacking its Attic salt.

78. Our party are now in the interior of the pavilion, which we may conceive to have been sumptuously adorned in honour of the solemnity. After much consideration of the nature of the spectacle which opens upon us, and in which I have in vain sought for satisfactory assistance from the commentators within my reach, it appears the safest course to note down what seems certain with regard to it, and to reserve speculation only for what must be doubtful. It appears, then, sufficiently clear that the lines from Ta Toikia to v. 87, present to our view an image of Adonis laid out upon a silver couch adorned with splendid draperies, richly and accurately embroidered, and that before this idol were ranged the fruits, flowers, unguent vases, cakes, and representations of birds and beasts, which are enumerated in vv. 112-119.

Again, in verse 119, et sqq. we learn that there were "bowers of freshest green" erected within the hall or court, over which boy Cupids hovered, &c.; and a comparison of the passage quoted from Athenæus on v. 118, makes it certain that under these bowers were the Kλívaι mentioned distinctly in vv. 127, 128, as appropriated, the one to Venus and the other to Adonis. And nearly

as certain does it appear that the lines from 122 to 127 are employed to describe the bower and couch of Venus. Cf. Annot. in loc.

So much seems sufficiently clear, but it may be doubted whether the ἀργύ pεos koμós of vv. 84, 85, which Praxinoe mentions, is identical or not with the kλivn äλλŋ of Adonis in 127. If the exε of v. 128 be taken in the sense of "occupies," we must either suppose them to be the same, or imagine a second image exhibited in what may be called a second chapter of the pageant. If ye be translated in the sense "owns," the necessity of both suppositions is avoided. It is perhaps most probable that the χλωραὶ δὲ Okiádεg of v. 119, introduce a new series of objects in the spectacle, and that the kλivn of v. 127, which lies under a oxías assigned to Adonis, is distinct from the кλioμós of v. 85.

It may also be doubted whether an idol of Venus constituted a part of the shew. She had her bower there, and couch. The hymn opens with an address to her, v. 100. To her the Horæ lead Adonis, vv. 102, 103. It is to do her a pleasure that her lover is thus honoured. v. 109.

In the description of the festival of Venus and Adonis, which Musæus gives in Τὰ καθ ̓ Ηρὼ καὶ Λέανδρον. δὴ γὰρ Κυπριδιή πανδήμιος ἦλθεν ἑορτή,

τὴν ἀνὰ Σηστὸν ἄγουσιν ̓Αδώνιδι καὶ Κυθερείη. V. 42, 43.

We find in v. 45, ǹ dè Oeñs àvà vnòv ἐπῴχετο παρθένος Ηρώ, as if the tem

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ple of Venus was the place of assembly, &c. It would be straining a point, however, to draw any inference from this, and it is clear that exɛ has the same sense where it is expressed as where it is understood in v. 138.

Upon the whole, perhaps, we may conclude, that there was but one idol, viz., that of Adonis, that the kioμós of v. 85 was distinct from the kλívn of v. 127, and that exe in v. 128 only implies that one couch was appropriated to Venus, the other to Adonis.

But we anticipate our party. Gorgo, remembering perhaps her friend's taste for executing such works herself, cf. v. 37, invites Praxinoe to examine first the embroidered vestments, &c., of the idol. Cf. Gloss. on ποικίλος.

79. λεπτὰ καὶ ὡς χαριέντα “of finest texture, and how tasteful!" Wuest. correctly prefers not to assume an s before λETTá, as is usual in the case of prepositions. He also places a colon after ἄθρησον, and constructs λεπτ. Kai is xap. as an exclamation. But admitting this, a reference to the case οἱ τὰ ποικίλα is at the same time not to be excluded. ἔμψυχ ̓ οὐκ ἐνυφ. in v. 83, presents a similar construction.

With the language compare Odyss. x. 222,

οἷα θεάων

λεπτά τε καὶ χαρίεντα καὶ ἀγλαὰ ἔργα πέλονται.

Ib. θεῶν περοναμάτα φασεῖς, “ You will say they are the robes of gods." Cf. Gloss. and V. R.

80. The appeal to Minerva is natural, as weaving, and all other occupations of this description, were supposed to be patronized by this goddess, hence entitled Εργάνη. Cf. "Pallade placata, lanam mollire puellæ

Discant, et plenas exonerare colos. Illa etiam stantes radio percurrere telas Erudit, et rarum pectine denset opus." Ovid. Fast. III. 817. Hence in Id. XXVIII. 1, the distaff is said to be γλαυκᾶς ̓Αθανάας δῶρον. Cf. Hor. III. Od. XII. 4, 5, " tibi telas Operosæque Minervæ studium;" Tibull. II. 1, 65, "Atque aliqua assiduæ textis operata Minervæ cantat;" and Virg. Æn. v. 284, and ib. VIII. 409, &c.

Valcken. compares

οἷς ἔσχον χερνῆτα βίον δηναιόν, Αθάνα πότνια, ταῦθ' αἱ σαὶ σοὶ θέσαν ἐργάτιδες. Epigr. of Archias. Anthol. VI. c. vш.10.

Ib. With this use of πóvaσav, cf. "Arte laboratæ vestes," Æn. 1. 639, and "quale non perfectius Meæ laborarint manus.' ." Hor. Epod. v. 60. 81. Cf. Gloss.

εὖ δ ̓ ὀμμάτων γαληνὸς ἐκλάμπει πόθος, καὶ μαζός, ἀκμῆς ἄγγελος, κυδωνιᾷ αὐτὰ δ' ̓Αθάνα καὶ Διὸς συνευνέτις φάσουσιν, ὦ Ζεῦ, λειπόμεσθα τῷ κρίσει.

Valcken. also compares ἔμψυχον τὸ πλάσμα. Anthol. IV. c. VII. Ep. XI., and 'Α Βάκχα Παρία μὲν, ἔνεψύχωσε δ ̓ ὁ γλύπτας Τὸν λίθον. Anthol. IV. c. III. 5.

Cf. “spirantia . . aera,” Virg. Æn. vi. 848; vivos . . vultus,”ib. 849; “signa animosa. Propert. III. El. VII. 9; “spirantia signa." Claud. B. Get. 612. "cum omnis solertia admiranda est tum ea quæ efficit, ut, inanima quæ sint, vivere ac spirare videantur.” Cicero in Hortens. apud Nonium Marcell. v. Inanima.

6

• Contra Shaksperius, ο Antony and Cleopatra. Act. III. sc. 3 :

'Her motion and her station are as one; She shews a body rather than a life: A statue than a breather."" Briggs.

Ib. σοφόν τι χρῆμ ̓ ἄνθρωπος. This contemplative observation, in addition to its naive effect, occasions a sort of prelusive pause, favourable to the bringing forward the principal object in the next verse, especially as it is of an immobile character. With this phrase, which we have had in v. 23, and will meet again in v. 145, and in Id. XVIII. 4, compare Plat. Ion. p. 534, Β. κοῦφον χρῆμα ποιητής ἐστι, καὶ πτηνὸν καὶ ἱερόν; Eur. Orest. v. 70, ἄπορον χρῆμα δυστυχῶν δόμος; ἄμαχον πρᾶγμα, said of a woman, Xen. Cyrop. vi.1, 36.

Compare also "Homo sacra res.' Senec. Epist. 95. "Res timida est omnis miser.” Ovid. Pont. II. Epist. VII. 37.

Muretus, V. L. п. c. v. p. 42, conceives that Cicero used ". "negotium" in a similar sense. "Callisthenes quidem vulgare et notum negotium," ad Q. Fratr. II. 13, and “ Teucris illa, lentum sane negotium,” ad Attic. I. 12. Kiessl. adds “ res sum prisca.” Ovid. Fast. I. 103.

8487. The αὐτός (compare the use of ipse, Virg. Geor. IV. 433, 464, &c., and Wagner, Quæst. XVII.) introduces the chief object of the scene, and the god of Venus' idolatry appears before us "how admirable !" reposing on a

couch of silver. Below his temples the first down of manhood droops along his cheek. "The thrice-loved Adonis, who even in Hades is loved!"

Wuest. conceives that the apуúpεos Kλoμós was probably of the same nature as that which is called κλίνη ἀργυpórovs in Athen. II. p. 48. With the expression ἴουλον ἀπὸ κροτάφων καταβάλλων compare ἐκβάλλειν ἴουλον ἀρTíxvovv. Philost. Imagg. 1, 6. "lovλoí τε ἀυτοῦ κατιόντες ταῖς παρειαῖς ἐπήνOovv. Herodian. de Commodo, I. VII. 15.

— πρίν σφωϊν ὑπὸ κροτάφοισιν ἴούλους ̓Ανθῆσαι. Od. XI. 320.

στείχει δ ̓ ἴουλος ἄρτι διὰ παρηίδων, Esch. Sept. c. Theb. v. 534. in the description of the ἀνδρόπαις ἀνήρ. "Flaventem prima lanugine malas." Virg. Æn. x. 324.

Virg. Æn. vii. 160, &c.

Warton's notion of the exhibition described in the lines before us being an embroidery, is altogether untenable. Cf. Annot. on v. 118.

87. A stranger here intrudes with a rude remark upon the conversation of our worthy dames, and its dialectic peculiarities. "Desist, wretched creatures, from your interminable prattling.—Prating turtles truly! They'll worry us to death with this eternal brogue." Wart. observes, that the poet either forgot here the "decorum characteris," in allowing the stranger to use the Doric dialect himself, or that the latter does so for the purpose of ridiculing the more shrewdly what he affects to disdain as a vulgar "patois."

Perhaps it ought also to be taken into account, that there may have been a platitude of accent about Praxinoe's Dorism, which cannot be expressed by the mode of writing the word only. Wuest. remarks: 66 Hospitem Dorica dialecto non uti patet inde, quod eam perstringit, et quod Gorgo, v. 93, ejus verba ita cepit, quasi vetaretur Dorice loqui," and yet retains the Doric forms in v. 88. Bothe more consistently (on Sophocles T. II. p. 394) wished

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both verses to be altered into the Attic dialect.

With the construction of παύσασθε with κωτίλλοισαι, compare παῦσαι pλvapov. Aristoph. Plut. 360, and Matth. Gr. Gr. 550, d.

88. It is better to take rpvyóves as a Nom. in appos. than to suppose an ellipse of wg. Cf. Annot. on v. 45. Reiske understood äravra as the Acc. sing. and governed it upon έkкvαισEvvτ. Kiessl. adopts the same construction, but understands äravтa as the plur. used for ravτaç, translating "Hæ feminæ omnia, i. e. neminem non enecabunt suo platyasmo." But it is obviously the Acc. on πλατειάσδοισαι, so the Schol. in his exegesis ἤγουν Δωρίζουσαι πάντα.

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Briggs objects to the transition from the second person of παύσασθα to the third of ἐκκναισεῦντι. As he was desirous of recommending an emendation of his own, he may be excused for being blind to this imitation of nature; such transitions are made every day under the like circumstances. Compare the Schol., TOUTO δέ φησί τις παρεπόμενος καὶ ἀγανακτῶν ἐπὶ τῇ ἄγαν αὐτῶν ἀδολεσχίᾳ. διὸ καὶ ἐπιτιμᾷ αὐταῖς, ὡς τὰ κατὰ μέρος τῶν

εἰκόνων ἀνερευνώσαις· εἶτα πρὸς ἑαυ τὸν ἐπιστρέφων “ τρυγόνες εκκναισεῦντι.”

89-94. Gorgo's retort is very amusing. There is a choice humour in the long drawn and true Doric μã with which she begins, and which was no doubt delivered with a deliberate emphasis, intended to convey how completely she felt herself at liberty to use her own mode of speaking, and to supply a practical illustration of the power of the dialect to express dissatisfaction at least; and so all through, πόθεν ἄνθρωπος, “ where the plague did the fellow come from? to you if prattlers we be?

What's it Buy your

drudge, and give her your commands— commands from you to dames of Syracuse! That you may be aware of this fact also (as well as that Syracuse is our country), we are by extraction of Corinth, as also the renowned Bellerophon; Peloponnessian is the fashion of our speech. The Dorians, I venture to presume, may follow the Dorian mode." 89. Compare Aristoph. Eccles. v.520: Βλ. αὕτη, πόθεν ἥκεις, Πραξαγόρα ; Π. τί δ ̓ ὦ μέλε, Σοὶ τοῦθ; Βλ. ὅ, τί μοι τοῦτ' ἐστίν ; and Thesm. v. 497, εἰ δὲ Φαίδραν λοιδορεῖ, ἡμῖν τί τοῦτ ̓ ἔστ;