s dead, took in marriage the other sister,
Philomela. Procne, by means of a web, into which she wove her story,
informed Philomela of the horrible truth. In revenge upon Tereus, the
sisters killed Itylus, and served up the child as food to the father;
but the gods, in indignation, transformed Procne into a swallow,
Philomela into a nightingale, forever bemoaning the murdered Itylus,
and Tereus into a hawk, forever pursuing the sisters."--GAYLEY'S
_Classic Myths_.

=4.= Use the subjoined questions in studying the poem.

=5. O wanderer from a Grecian shore.= See note, l. 27.

=8.= Note the aptness and beauty of the adjectives in this line, not
one of which could be omitted without irreparable loss.

=18. Thracian wild.= Thrace was the name used by the early Greeks for
the entire region north of Greece.
[185]
=21. The too clear web=, etc. See introductory note to poem for
explanation of this and the following lines.

=27. Daulis.= A city of Phocis, Greece, twelve miles northeast of
Delphi; the scene of the myth of Philomela. =Cephessian vale.= The
valley of the Cephissus, a small stream running through Doris, Phocis,
and Boeotia, into the Euboean Gulf.

=29. How thick the bursts=, etc. Compare with the following lines from
Coleridge:--

"'Tis the merry nightingale
That crowds and hurries and precipitates
With fast, thick warble his delicious notes,
As he were fearful that an April night
Would be too short for him to utter forth
His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul
Of all its music!"
--_The Nightingale_.

Also

"O Nightingale! thou surely art
A creature of a 'fiery heart':--
These notes of thine--they pierce and pierce;
Tumultuous harmony and fierce!
Thou sing'st as if the god of wine
Had helped thee to a Valentine."
--WORDSWORTH.

=31-32. Eternal passion!
Eternal pain!= Compare:--

"Thou warblest sad thy pity-pleading strains."
--COLERIDGE, _To a Nightingale_.

and

"Sweet bird ...
Most musical, most melancholy!"
--MILTON, _Il Penseroso_.

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