name is derived._--Ver. 538. Venus was
called Aphrodite, by the Greeks, from +aphros+, 'the foam of the
sea,' from which she was said to have sprung.]

[Footnote 72: _A Divinity._--Ver. 542. Ino and Melicerta were
worshipped as Divinities both in Greece and at Rome.]

[Footnote 73: _Sidonian attendants._--Ver. 543. The Theban matrons
are meant, who had married the companions of Cadmus that
accompanied him from Phoenices.]

EXPLANATION.

The story of Ino, Athamas, and Melicerta appears to have been based
upon historical facts, as we are informed by Herodotus, Diodorus
Siculus, and Pausanias.

Athamas, the son of AEolus, and great-grandson of Deucalion, having, on
the death of Themisto, his first wife, married Ino, the daughter of
Cadmus, divorced her soon afterwards, to marry Nephele, by whom he had
Helle and Phryxus. She having been divorced in her turn, he took Ino
back again, and by her had Learchus and Melicerta. Ino, not being able
to endure the presence of the children of Nephele, endeavored to
destroy them. The city of Thebes being at that time afflicted with
famine, which was said to have been caused by Ino, who ordered the
seed to be parched before it was sown, Athamas ordered the oracle of
Delphi to be consulted. The priests, either having been bribed, or the
messengers having been corrupted, word was brought, that, to remove
this affliction, the children of Nephele must be sacrificed.

Phryxus being warned of the designs of his stepmother, embarked in a
ship, with his sister Helle, and sailed for Colchis, where he met with
a kind reception from his kinsman AEetes. The young princess, however,
either becoming sea-sick, and leaning over the bulwarks of the vessel,
fell overboard and was drowned, or died a natural death in the passage
of the Hellespont, to which she gave its name from that circumstance.
Athamas, having discovered the deceitful conduct of Ino, in his rage
killed her son Learchus, and sought her, for the purpose of
sacrificing her to his vengeance. To avoid his fury, she fled with her
son Melicerta, and, being pursued, threw herself from a rock into the
sea. To console her relatives, the story was probably invented, that
the Gods had changed Ino and Melicerta into Sea Deities, under the
names of Leucothoe and Palaemon. Melicerta was afterwards worshipped in
the Isle of Tenedos, where children were offered