_--Ver. 222. This island was near Rhodes.
Its honey is praised by Strabo.]

[Footnote 21: _Received its name._--Ver. 230. The island of Samos
being near the spot where he fell, received the name of Icaria.]

[Footnote 22: _Branching holm oak._--Ver. 237. Ovid here forgot
that partridges do not perch in trees; a fact, which, however,
he himself remarks in line 257.]

EXPLANATION.

Daedalus was a talented Athenian, of the family of Erechtheus; and he
was particularly famed for his skill in statuary and architecture.
He became jealous of the talents of his nephew, Talos, whom Ovid
here calls Perdix; and, envying his inventions of the saw, the
compasses, and the art of turning, he killed him privately. Flying
to Crete, he was favourably received by Minos, who was then at war
with the Athenians. He there built the Labyrinth, as Pliny the Elder
asserts, after the plan of that in Egypt, which is described by
Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, and Strabo. Philochorus, however, as
quoted by Plutarch, says that it did not resemble the Labyrinth of
Egypt, and that it was only a prison in which criminals were
confined.

Minos, being informed that Daedalus had assisted Pasiphae in carrying
out her criminal designs, kept him in prison; but escaping thence,
by the aid of Pasiphae, he embarked in a ship which she had prepared
for him. Using sails, which till then, according to Pausanias and
Palaephatus, were unknown, he escaped from the galleys of Minos,
which were provided with oars only. Icarus, either fell into the
sea, or, overpowered with the fatigues of the voyage, died near an
island in the Archipelago, which afterwards received his name. These
facts have been disguised by the poets under the ingenious fiction
of the wings, and the neglect of Icarus to follow his father's
advice, as here related.

FABLE IV. [VIII.260-546]

Diana, offended at the neglect of Oeneus, king of Calydon, when
performing his vows to the Gods, sends a wild boar to ravage his
dominions; on which Oeneus assembled the princes of the country for
its pursuit. His son Meleager leads the chase, and, having killed
the monster, presents its head to his mistress, Atalanta, the
daughter of the king of Arcadia. He afterwards kills his two uncles,
Plexippus and Toxeus, who would deprive her of this badge of his
victory. Their sister Althaea, the mother of Meleager, filled wit