on, and
that opposition is made to his spirit, desirous to depart from its
wretched abode. And, as he has assumed newformed wings on his shoulders,
he flies aloft, and again he throws his body in the waves: his feathers
break the fall. AEsacus is enraged; and headlong he plunges into the
deep,[62] and incessantly tries the way of destruction. Love caused his
leanness; the spaces between the joints of his legs are long; his neck
remains long, {and} his head is far away from his body. He loves the
sea, and has his name because he plunges[63] in it.

[Footnote 58: _Some old man._--Ver. 749-50. 'Hos aliquis
senior--spectat;' these words are translated by Clarke, 'Some old
blade spies them.']

[Footnote 59: _Ganymede._--Ver. 756. Ovid need not have inserted
Assaracus and Ganymede, as they were only the brothers of Ilus,
and the three were the sons of Tros. Ilus was the father of
Laomedon, whose son was Priam, the father of AEsacus.]

[Footnote 60: _Granicus._--Ver. 763. The Granicus was a river of
Mysia, near which Alexander the Great defeated Darius with immense
slaughter.]

[Footnote 61: _Cebrenus._--Ver. 769. The Cebrenus was a little
stream of Phrygia, not far from Troy.]

[Footnote 62: _Plunges into the deep._--Ver. 791-2. 'Inque
profundum Pronus abit,' Clarke renders, 'Goes plumb down into the
deep.' Certainly this is nearer to its French origin, 'a plomb,'
than the present form, 'plump down;' but, like many other
instances in his translation, it decidedly does not help us, as he
professes to do, to 'the attainment of the elegancy of this great
Poet.']

[Footnote 63: _Because he plunges._--Ver. 795. He accounts for the
Latin name of the diver, or didapper, 'mergus,' by saying that it
was so called, 'a mergendo,' from its diving, which doubtless was
the origin of the name, though not taking its rise in the fiction
here related by the Poet.]

EXPLANATION.

Ovid and Apollodorus agree that AEsacus was the son of Priam, and
that he was changed into a didapper, or diver, but they differ in
the other circumstances of his life. Instead of being the son of
Alexirhoe, Apollodorus says that he was the son of Priam and Arisbe
the daughter of Merope, his first wife; that his father made him
marry Sterope, who dying very young, he was so afflicted at her
death, that he threw himself into the sea. He also says th