0. Hymen, or Hymenaeus, was one of
the Gods of Marriage; hence the name 'Hymen' was given to the
union of two persons in marriage.]

[Footnote 76: _The nuptial torch._--Ver. 483. Plutarch tells us,
that it was the custom in the bridal procession to carry five
torches before the bride, on her way to the house of her husband.
Among the Romans, the nuptial torch was lighted at the parental
hearth of the bride, and was borne before her by a boy, whose
parents were alive. The torch was also used at funerals, for the
purpose of lighting the pile, and because funerals were often
nocturnal ceremonies. Hence the expression of Propertius,--
'Vivimus inter utramque facem,' 'We are living between the two
torches.' Originally, the 'taedae' seem to have been slips or
lengths of resinous pine wood: while the 'fax' was formed of a
bundle of wooden staves, either bound by a rope drawn round them
in a spiral form, or surrounded by circular bands at equal
distances. They were used by travellers and others, who were
forced to be abroad after sunset; whence the reference in line 493
to the hedge ignited through the carelessness of the traveller,
who has thrown his torch there on the approach of morning.]

[Footnote 77: _Here in rude guise._--Ver. 514. 'Non hic armenta
gregesve Horridus observo' is quaintly translated by Clarke, 'I do
not here in a rude pickle watch herds or flocks.']

[Footnote 78: _Claros and Tenedos._--Ver. 516. Claros was a city
of Ionia, famed for a temple and oracle of Apollo, and near which
there was a mountain and a grove sacred to him. There was an
island in the Myrtoan Sea of that name, to which some suppose that
reference is here made. Tenedos was an island of the AEgean Sea, in
the neighborhood of Troy. Patara was a city of Lycia, where Apollo
gave oracular responses during six months of the year. It was from
Patara that St. Paul took ship for Phoenicia, Acts, xxi. 1, 2.]

[Footnote 79: _The properties of simples._--Ver. 522. The first
cultivators of the medical art pretended to nothing beyond an
acquaintance with the medicinal qualities of herbs and simples; it
is not improbable that inasmuch as the vegetable world is
nourished and raised to the surface of the earth in a great degree
by the heat of the sun, a ground was thereby afforded for
allegorically saying t