d he was
anxious, in self-defence, to keep his daughter, Hippodamia, from
marrying. As he possessed the swiftest horses in the world he required
her suitors to contend with him in a chariot-race, which allowed them no
chance of success. The prize of victory was to be his daughter; the
penalty of defeat was death, and the bones which laid unburied in the
neighbourhood of Jupiter's temple were those of the lovers of
Hippodamia.]

[Footnote 72: The Cretans claimed to possess both the birth-place and
burial-place of Jupiter.]

[Footnote 73: "Derived from Jove," inasmuch as Perseus, one of the kings
of Argos, was the son of Jupiter and Danae.]

[Footnote 74: Eteocles and Polynices.--POPE.]

[Footnote 75: Mercury, so called because he was born upon Mount
Cyllene.]

[Footnote 76: Eteocles.]

[Footnote 77: Stephens's translation:

This were such a day
He'd spend an age to see 't.]

[Footnote 78: To Argos, of which Danaus had been king, whence the
Argives were also called Danai.]

[Footnote 79: Atreus, king of Mycenae, murdered the two sons of his
brother Thyestes, and feasted their father with dishes made of their
flesh.]

[Footnote 80: Bacchus forced the Theban women to assemble, and give
loose to the wild rites by which he was celebrated. It was on this
occasion that Pentheus was massacred by his mother.]

[Footnote 81: Nisus was king of Megara when it was besieged by Minos.
The king's daughter, Scylla, conceived a passion for Minos, and to
ensure him the victory she plucked from her father's head a purple hair
upon which depended the preservation of himself and the city.]

[Footnote 82: Statius says that when Polynices was in the middle of the
isthmus of Corinth he could hear the waves beat against both its shores.
"This," remarked Pope, "could hardly be; for the isthmus of Corinth is
full five miles over," and he calls the introduction of the circumstance
"a geographical error." It was his own geography that was at fault. The
width of the isthmus is only three miles and a half. Pope spoilt the
incident when he transferred it to the Scironian rock. Sciron was a
robber and murderer, who compelled his victims to wash his feet upon the
cliff, and while they were engaged in the operation he kicked them over
into the sea.]

[Footnote 83: "We have scarcely in our language eight more beautiful
lines than these, down to human care," ver. 481.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 84: Pope owed some happy expre