tion: 'Then part of them bounces about in hollow
kettles; part hisses upon spits; the parlor runs down with gore.']

[Footnote 70: _Viperous sisters._--Ver. 662. Tereus invokes the
Furies, who are thus called from having their hair wreathed with
serpents. Clarke translates, 'ingenti clamore,' in line 661, 'with
a huge cry.']

[Footnote 71: _Cecropian._--Ver. 667. The Cecropian or Athenian
Nymphs are Progne and Philomela, the daughters of Pandion, king of
Athens.]

EXPLANATION.

By the symbolical changes of Philomela, Progne, and Tereus, those who
framed this termination of the story intended to depict the different
characters of the persons whose actions are there represented. As the
lapwing delights in filth and impurity, the ancients thereby portrayed
the unscrupulous character of Tereus; and, as the flight of that bird
is but slow, it shows that he was not able to overtake his wife and
her sister. The nightingale, concealed in the woods and thickets,
seems there to be concealing her misfortunes and sorrows; and the
swallow, which frequents the abodes of man, shows the restlessness of
Progne, who seeks in vain for her son, whom, in her frantic fit, she
has so barbarously murdered.

Anacreon and Apollodorus, however, reverse the story, saying that
Philomela was changed into a swallow, and Progne into a nightingale.
This event is said by some writers to have happened not in Thrace, but
at Daulis, a town of Phocis, where Tereus is supposed to have gone to
settle. Pausanias tells us, that the tomb of Tereus was to be seen
near Athens, so that it is probable that he died at a distance from
Thrace, his native country. Homer alludes to the story of Philomela in
somewhat different terms; speaking of the grounds of the grief of
Penelope, he says, that 'she made her complaints to be heard like the
inconsolable Philomela, the daughter of Pandarus, always hidden among
the leaves and branches of trees. When the Spring arrives, she makes
her voice echo through the woods, and laments her dear Itylus, whom
she killed by an unhappy mistake; varying, in her continued plaints,
the mournful melody of her notes.' By this, Homer seems to have known
nothing of Tereus or of Progne, and to have followed a tradition,
which was to the following effect:--Pandarus had three daughters,
AEdon, Mecrope, and Cleothera. AEdon, the eldest, was married to Zeth