ct man against the depredations of
that kind of vermin.]

[Footnote 53: _Thermodontean._--Ver. 611. He alludes to
Penthesilea, the Queen of the Amazons, who, aiding the Trojans
against the Greeks, was slain by Achilles. The battle-axe was the
usual weapon of the Amazons]

[Footnote 54: _Had armed him._--Ver. 614. Vulcan, the God of Fire,
made his armour at the request of his mother, Thetis; and now his
body was burned by fire.]

[Footnote 55: _Son of Oileus._--Ver. 622. This was Ajax, the King
of the Locrians.]

[Footnote 56: _Descendant of Tantalus._--Ver. 626. Agamemnon was
the son of Atreus, grandson of Pelops, and great-grandson of
Tantalus. He wisely refused to take upon himself alone the onus of
deciding the contention between Ajax and Ulysses.]

EXPLANATION.

Periclymenus was the son of Neleus and Chloris, as we are told by
Homer, Apollodorus, and other authors. According to these authors,
Neleus, king of Orchomenus, was the son of Neptune, who assumed the
form of the river Enipeus, the more easily to deceive Tyro, the
daughter of Salmoneus. Neleus married Chloris, the daughter of
Amphion, king of Thebes, who bore him eleven sons and one daughter,
of which number, Homer names but three. Periclymenus, the youngest
of the family, was a warlike prince, and, according to Apollodorus,
accompanied Jason in the expedition of the Argonauts. Hercules,
after having instituted the Olympic games, marched into Messenia,
and declared war with Neleus. The ancient writers differ as to the
cause of this expedition; but they agree in stating, that Hercules
made himself master of Pylos, a town which Neleus had built, as a
refuge from the capricious humours of his brother Pelias; and that
Neleus and all his children were killed, except Nestor, who had been
brought up among the Geranians, and who afterwards reigned in Pylos.
The story which here relates how Periclymenus transformed himself
into an eagle, and was then killed by Hercules, may possibly mean,
that having long resisted the attacks of his formidable enemy, he
was at length put to flight, and slain by an arrow. It is said that
Neptune had given him the power to metamorphose himself into
different figures, very probably because his grandfather, who was a
maritime prince, had taught him the art of war and various
stratagems, which he industriously made use of, to