William Morris Archive

Annotations, Book III

III.2 busk: to prepare oneself, get ready

III.26 Argus: a renowned and skilled shipwright; in other versions, he joins the Argo on its way through the Black Sea.

III.30 Danaus: In mythology, a son of Belus and Anchinoe, who, after his father’s death, became co-monarch with his brother Ægyptus of Ægypt. According to Lemprière, when the brothers fell out, Danaus sailed in search of another home accompanied by his fifty daughters. He arrived safely on the coast of Peloponnesus, where he was hospitably received by Gelanor, king of Argos. Aegyptus' fifty sons pursued their cousins and forced marriage on them, but on Danaus' order, the unwilling brides killed their new husbands on their wedding night, all but one, Hypermnestra, who with her husband Lynceus, became ancestors of later kings of Argos (the Danaan Dynasty).

III.46 hearken: listen

III.61 rooftree: the main beam or ridge-pole of a roof

III.73 enow: enough

III.88 the Queen of Heaven: i.e. Hera

III.90 Asterion: Son of Cometes, from Piresia, a city in Thessaly at the foot of Mount Philaeus.

III.91 Philæus: The mountain by which Asterion lived.

III.92 Polyphemus: In the Argonautica, a Lapith and son of E[i]latus. After helping vainly in the search for Hylas, he remained in Mysia, supposedly founding the city of Cius (Argonautica, Bk IV, l. 1491).

III.93 Larissa: The chief city of Thessaly, set on the river Peneus in the fertile plain of Pelasgiotis. See Map 1, E3.

III.95 Erginus: here, an Argonaut from Miletus and legendary son of Neptune

III.97 Mæander: River of Asia Minor, rising near Celænæ and flowing through Caria and Priene. Its more than 600 bends caused it to be celebrated by Greek poets for its winding course. See Map 3.

III.99 Miletus: The leading city of Ionia in Asia Minor, near the mouth of the Mæander River on the western coast of Anatolia in ancient Caria (in what is now Aydin Province, Turkey). See Map 3.

III.101 Theseus: Legendary son of Aethra and Aegeus and Poseidon, and the national hero of Athens. Accounts of Hercules seem to have influenced the legends associated with Theseus (e.g., encounters with brigands and monsters; a campaign against the Amazons), and it is not surprising that he is made Hercules’ friend and contemporary.

III.104 Pirithous: Son of Zeus and Dia, wife of Ixion. Homer speaks of him as fighting the Centaurs (Iliad, Bk. I, 263 ff.), presumably in the quarrel mentioned in the Odyssey Bk. XXI, 295, and a doubtfully genuine verse (Odyssey, Bk. II, 631) mentions him in Hades. In Homer and later authors, he is Theseus's closest friend.

III.109 Daedalus: A legendary artist, craftsman, and inventor of archaic times. His most noted creation was the Labyrinth to hold the Minotaur, in which King Minos later imprisoned Daedalus and his son Icarus. To escape Daedalus constructed artificial wings for himself and his son. When Icarus ventured too close to the sun, the wax of his wings melted, and he drowned in the Aegean Sea.

III.117 Argive: adj. form of Argos, Greek Peleponnesean city. See Map 3, F4/5.

III.118 Nauplius: The Argonaut is the son of Poseidon and Amymone and ancestor of the Nauplius who was founder of Nauplia and father of Oeax and Palamedes, who died in the Trojan war from Greek treachery. Nauplia lies at the head of the Gulf of Argolis in the Peloponnesus. See Map 2.

III.119 dryshod: without wetting the feet

III.122 Idmon: "The knowing one," a seer and son of Apollo or of Abas, who accompanied the Argonauts although he foreknew he would not return alive.

III.126 Cyrene: A maiden huntress, daughter of the Lapith king Hypseus, of whom Apollo was enamored. He carried her to that part of northern Africa (later Cyrenaica), where she gave birth to Aristæus.

III.127 Iolaus: Hercules' charioteer, son of his brother Iphicles (Iphiclus).

III.131 Arcadian forests: Arcadia is a mountainous area in central Peloponnesus approaching the sea only in the southwest, near Phigalia. It was named after the mythological Arcas, son of Jupiter.

Anciently it was called Drymodes, on account of the great number of oaks it produced, and afterwards named Pelasgia. Celebrated by poets, the inhabitants were mostly shepherds, who lived upon acorns and were skillful warriors, and able musicians. Pan, the god of shepherds, made his home with them. See Map 3, D4.

III.133 Atalanta: Daughter of Iasius, from Arcadia, a maiden huntress.

She is not necessarily to be identified with the Boeotian Atalanta, daughter of Schoeneus, who was exposed by her father as an infant and raised by hunters. This Atalanta took part in the hunt of the Calydonian boar, to which she gave the first wound with her arrows. Her father announced she would marry anyone able to run faster than she in a race. Atalanta's swiftness deterred most suitors, but Melanion or Hippomenes won her by throwing golden apples in front of her given to him by Aphrodite, and when she stooped to retrieve them he surged ahead, and they were married. This tale forms the basis for Morris's "Atalanta's Race," the first classical tale in The Earthly Paradise.

In some versions of the quest for the Golden Fleece, Atalanta sailed with the Argonauts as the only female among them, suffered injury in the battle at Colchis, and was healed by Medea. Other versions claim that Jason would not allow a woman on the ship; Morris chooses to include her.

III.143 Her, who through the forest goes a-nights: i.e., Diana

III.146 Oileus: A king of the Locrians, son of Odoedocus and Agrianome. He married Eriope, with whom he had a son Ajax (called Oileus from his father, to discriminate him from Ajax, the son of Telamon). He also fathered another son, Medon, with a courtesan called Rhene.

III.150 Iphiclus: (also Iphicles), a son of Phylacus of Thessaly, noted for his herds of cattle.

III.151 kine: archaic. plural of cow

III.153 Admetus: One of the Argonauts, son of Pheres and Clymene, king of Pheræ in Thessaly. He first married Theone daughter of Thestor, and after her death, he won the hand of Alcestis, daughter of king Pelias, who had promised his daughter in marriage only to the man who could bring him a chariot drawn by a lion and a wild boar.

Admetus accomplished this feat with the aid of Apollo, who had served as his herdsman when the latter had been banished from heaven, and who also obtained on his behalf from the Parcæ or Fates the promise that Admetus should not die, if another person laid down his/her life for him. This was cheerfully done by Alcestis at a time when Admetus would otherwise have died. Some say that Hercules brought him back Alcestis from hell.

The plot forms the basis for Euripides' play Alcestis, and Morris provides a version of this story in "The Love of Alcestis," the classical tale for June in The Earthly Paradise.

III.153 Pheræ: Kingdom ruled by Admetus, in Thessaly. See Map 2, G3.

III.156 Echion: Son of Hermes and Antianeira, daughter of Menetus, and twin of Erytus, with whom he joined the Argonauts and participated in the Calydonia boar hunt. Their home was near Mt. Pangaeon (Alpe) in northern Greece. See Map 2.

III.157 Ephesian: of Ephesus, a city of Ionia, which according to various legends had been founded by the Amazons; by Androchus, son of Codrus; or by Ephesus, legendary son of the river god Cayster. Its temple of Diana was reckoned one of the seven wonders of the world. See Map 1, K5.

III.163 Eurytus: Mythological son of Mercury, among the Argonauts.

III.164 Caeneus: (also Ceneus), an Argonaut and Lapith from Magnesia, child of Elatus and originally a maiden called Caenis. In compensation for raping her, Neptune/Poseidon transformed her into a man who would be invulnerable to edged weapons, at her request.

III.169 Aetalides: Version of Aethalides, mythological son of Hermes and Eupolemeia, a daughter of Myrmidon, and herald of the Argonauts. He had received from his father the faculty of remembering everything, even in Hades, and was allowed to reside alternately in the upper and lower worlds.

III.171 neat: a bovine animal, a cow or heifer

III.173 Mopsus: The Argonaut’s prophet, son of Ampyx or Ampycus, who came from the river Titaresos, near Dodona (See Iliad, Bk. II, 750-52). See Map 2.

III.173 Idmon: “The knowing one,” a seer and son of Apollo or Abas, who accompanied the Argonauts although he foreknew he would not return alive.

III.174 Lipara: The largest of the Aeolian islands off the northern coast of Sicily, now called the Lipari. See Map 5, B6.

III.175 Eurydamas: Argonaut and oarsman; in the Argonautica, a son of Ctimenus.

III.176 Xynias: A lake of ancient south-western Thessaly, in the region of Dolopia (now the ancient lake basin of Kashmir, about 85 miles long). See Map 1, E3.

III.179 Menœtius: One of several legendary figures by this name, the Argonaut was son of Actor and Ægina and father of Patroclus with Sthenele, daughter of Acastus.

III.180 Asopus: A river of Thessaly, which enters the bay of Malis north of Thermopylæ. See Map 2, G5.

III.181 Opus: The chief city of Eastern Locris, a district of ancient Greece on the mainland coast opposite Euboea, built on an Asopus River (not the one in Thessaly), and later destroyed by an earthquake. See Map 1, F4.

III.182 Eribotes: Argonaut and son of Teleon, Eribotes was skilled in medicine and tended the wounded Oileus.

III.187 Eurytion: Several legendary figures bore this name. In the Argonautica, listed as the son of Iras and a Theban, the Argonaut Eurytion by other accounts was the son of Kenethos and Cerion.

III.191 Œchalia: A city probably in central Greece, placed in various locations by ancient geographers. According to legend, this town was destroyed by Hercules when ruled by Eurytus.

III.191 Clytius the king: Son of the Œechalian king Eurytus, probably killed by Hercules when he sacked Oechalia.

III.192 Iphitus: A son of Eurytus, king of Œchalia, allegedly thrown to his death from the walls of Tiryns by Hercules in revenge for Eurytus' refusal to permit him to marry the latter's daughter Iole despite having won a competition for her hand.

III.202 Telamon: Legendary king of the island of Salamis; son of Æacus, king of Aegina, and Endeïs; brother of Peleus; and father of Ajax and Teucer. Telamon fled from his home after killing his half-brother Phocus and sailed to the island of Salamis, where he soon after married Glauce, the daughter of its king Cychreus, at whose death he became king of Salamis.

III.203 Peleus: Complicated legends surround the name of Peleus, brother of Telamon, son of Endeïs and Æacus, King of Aegina, and father of Achilles. He and his brother were friends with Hercules, allegedly serving in his expedition against Troy.

III.205 Aegina: Greek island in the Saronic Gulf, 31 miles (50 km) from Athens. Aegina was inhabited from late neolithic times and in contact with Minoan Crete and Mycenae. It was conquered c.1100 B. C. E. by the Dorians under Deiphontes, the son-in-law of Temenus of Argos, and again in the fifth century B. C. E. by the Athenians, who resented its naval power. See Map 2, J9.

III.210 the doomsmen of the Trojan’s godlike home: i.e., the Grecian warriors Achilles, Ajax and Teucer.

III.212 Phalerus: This legendary Argonaut was a son of Alcon and grandson of Erechtheus or Eurysthenes, and the founder of the town of Gyrton in Thessaly. He is said to have emigrated with his daughter Chalciope or Chalcippe to Chalcis in Euboea, and when his father demanded that he should be sent back, the Chalcidians refused to deliver him up.

III.214 Butes: Supposed founding ancestor of a family which provided priestesses of Athena and priests of Erechtheus.

III.218 besotted with the Sirens' lays: Bewitched by the Sirens’ songs. In the Odyssey the Sirens were sea-singers who inhabit an island near Scylla and Charybdis. Sailors charmed by their song landed only to perish and leave a meadow full of decaying corpses, but Odysseus, following the advice of Circe, had himself lashed to the mast so that he could hear their song without harm. Similarly Orpheus saves the Argonauts by successfully competing with their song.

In some stories they are called daughters of Earth, and are credited with omniscience and the power to quiet the winds; in others, they must die when mortals resist their songs, and so the escape of Odysseus and Orpheus leads to their death.

III.220 Tiphys the pilot: An Argonaut and son of Hagnias, or, according to some, of Phorbas. He died before the Argonauts reached Colchis, and Erginus was chosen in his place.

III.222 in the rich Bœotian realm: Bœotia is a region of Greece bounded on the west by Phocis, on the southeast by Attica, on the northeast across the Euripus Strait by Eubœa, and on the south by the gulf of Corinth. See Map 2, J7.

According to legend, it was called Bœotia from Bœotius son of Itonus; or, according to others, a bove, from a cow, by which Cadmus was led into the country where he built Thebes. The inhabitants were stereotyped as rude, illiterate, and strong, but not clever. Yet Bœotia was the home of distinguished authors such as Pindar, Hesiod, and Plutarch. The mountains of Bœotia, particularly Helicon, were the legendary home of the Muses, to whom also many of their fountains and rivers were consecrated.

III.223 merceries: the goods sold by a mercer; esp. fine textile fabrics

III.227 Phlias: Argonaut and son of Dionysus and Chthonophyle, a native of Araithyrea in Boeotia, whose vineyards were watered by the river Asopus.

III.233 Bacchus: In Greek mythology, Dionysus or Dionysos, son of Zeus by Semele, was the god of wine, representing revelry and intoxication, but also its social and beneficial influence. He is also represented as a patron deity of agriculture and the theater, and allegedly helped soothe care and worry and enabled communication between the living and the dead. His attendants were wild and untamed young women, the Maenads.

III.234 a lion's fell: a lion’s hide

III.236 with his fair Phœnician weed: Phoencian clothing. Phœnicia or Phœnice was a country at the eastern edge of the Mediterranean, with leading cities Sidon and Tyre. See Map 5, K7/8.

Phoenicia was an imperial and sea-faring power known for its commercial prominence, development of the arts of writing and navigation, and fine craft and cloth wares.

III.243 Amphytrion: A Theban prince, son of Alcaeus and Hypponome. His sister Anaxo had married Electryon, king of Mycenae, whose sons were killed in a battle by the Teleboans. When Electryon promised his crown and daughter Alcmena to him who could revenge the death of his sons upon the Teleboans, Amphitryon did so. Before the wedding, however, Zeus assumed Amphtrion's features in order to deceive Alcmena, with whom he had a child, Hercules. Later Amphitryon and Alcmena married and were parents of Iphicles.

III.245 Alcmena’s son, the dreadful Hercules: For his strength and violent tendencies.

III.246 Nemæan trees: Nemaea was a town of Argolis, between Cleonae and Phlius, near a wood, where according to legend Hercules killed the celebrated Nemaean lion as his first "labor." When Hercules found that his arrows and his club were useless against the lion's s hard and impenetrable skin, he seized him in his arms and squeezed him to death. The conqueror clothed himself in the skin, and games were instituted to commemorate the event. See Map 3, G4.

III.257 Hylas: In mythology, son of Theiodamas, king of the Dryopes, and the beautiful nympth Melite. According to legend Theiodamas attacked Heracles because the latter had seized and eaten one of his plough-oxen, and after a desperate struggle between Deianira and Hercules and the monarch, Theiodamas was killed. Heracles spared Theiodamas's young son Hylas and made him his squire, and they joined the voyage of the Argonauts till the landing at Cios in Mysia. There Hylas was kidnapped by the nymph of the spring of Pegae, Dryope, and he vanished without a trace (Apollonius Rhodios), remaining willingly beneath the water to share the nymphs' love.

III.257 Theodamas: Theodamas, the father of Hylas and a king of the Dryopes, killed in a quarrel with Hercules; see Hercules.

III.260 Ismenian shore: The river Ismenus was in Boeotia, near Thebes. See Map 2, I7.

III.261 Ephebus: Nothing is known of this athletic Theban Argonaut except the origins provided by Morris. An ephebe was a general term for an adolescent Greek male, usually a member-in-training of an elite, engaged in military and athletic exercises.

III.274 quoit: A flat disc of stone or metal, thrown as an exercise of strength or skill.

III.280 cinnabar: A pigment made of the red or crystalline form of mercuric sulphide (HgS). The name originally applied to native cinnabar, a rhombohedral mineral, the most important ore of mercury; it was used as a dye and medicinal substance.

III.282 soothly: truly; verily

III.292 nought witting: unaware, knowing nothing

III.294 certes: certainly

III.329 nowise: in no way or manner

III.330 Castor and Pollux: In mythology, twin brothers, sons of Jupiter and Leda, the wife of Tyndarus, king of Sparta.

Jupiter changed himself into a beautiful swan in order to seize the already pregnant Leda, whom he found bathing in the Eurotas river. According to one version, she then gave birth to Castor and Pollux (the former a child of Tyndarus, the latter of Zeus); according to another, she brought forth two eggs, from one which came Pollux and Helena, children of Zeus; and from the other, Castor and Clytemnestra, the children of Tyndarus. After the twins' birth Mercury carried them to Pallene, where they were educated; and as soon as they were old enough they joined Jason on the quest of the golden fleece. They are traditionally depicted as armed with spears and riding a matched pair of snow-white horses.

A further legend states that when the mortal Castor was killed, his grieving brother begged Zeus to grant them shared immortality, and Zeus united the brothers in the heavens in the constellation which bears their name. Castor and Pollux were unique among those placed in the sky in that they are not represented merely as a constellation but as actual stars within the constellation.

III.331 Lacedæmon: Lacedæmon, the chief city of Laconia, also called Sparta, was named after Lacedæmon, a son of Jupiter and Taygeta the daughter of Atlas. Lacedæmon married Sparta, the daughter of Eurotas, and their children were Amyclas and Eurydice, later the wife of Acrisius. He was the first to introduce the worship of the Graces in Laconia, and built them a temple. The chief city of Laconia was called Lacedæmon and Sparta after Laedæmon and his wife. See Map 3, E7.

III.334 Tyndarus the king: King of Sparta, legendary descendant of Zeus and son of Œbalus, husband of Leda, and father or stepfather of Castor, Pollux, Helen (later Helen of Troy) and Clytemnestra. Hercules had restored him to his throne on the condition that he bequeath it to his descendants, the Heraclidae.

III.336 Leda: Daughter of the Aetolian King Thestius, wife of Tyndarus, king of Sparta, and mother of Castor, Pollux, Helen (later of Troy) and Clytemnestra. She was famously raped by Jove in the guise of a swan, and accounts differ on which of her children were fathered by Jove and which by Tyndarus, though it is agreed that one of her children was divine and one human.

III.337 Eurotas: The river which flows near Sparta, allegedly named after Eurotas, one of the first Laconian kings, who in Greek mythology was the son of Myles, grandson of Lelex, brother of Lacedaemon, and father of Sparta with Clete. He is associated with the building of a canal which brought the waters of Sparta into the sea, forming the river which bears his name. See note III.331 and Map 3, E7.

III.347 Lynceus and Idas: Sons of Aphereus and Arene, both were Argonauts and joined in the hunt for the Calydonian boar. Lynceus was alleged to be so sharpsighted that he could see through walls, trees, and underground, and distinguish objects more than nine miles away. The brothers Lynceus and Idas were probably betrothed to their uncle Leucippus's daughters Phoebe and Hilaeria, but those sisters were abducted (and possibly wedded) by Castor and Pollux. The rival pairs of brothers later fougth to the death: in one version to avenge the abduction, in another in a quarrel over raided cattle. Lynceus, Idas and Castor were killed.

III.348 Messene: The chief city of Messenia, the southwestern quarter of the Peloppenese. It was subjugated, and its people enslaved, by the Spartans between 750 and 650 B. C. E. After its liberation, a new city was built on Mount Ithome in 369 B. C. E. See Map 3, C7.

III.348 kestrels: Species of small hawk (Falco tinnunculus, or Tinnunculus alaudarius), also called stannel or windhover, remarkable for its habit of hovering, or sustaining itself in the same place in the air with its head to the wind. The name is extended to about 15 foreign species of the restricted genus Tinnunculus.

III.354 privity: a thing kept hidden or secret

III.356 Periclymenes: In Greek mythology, a brother of Nestor and son of Chloris and Neleus king of Pylos (a city on the west coast of the Peloponnese, in what was later Messenia; see Map 2). He was one of the Argonauts, and had received from Neptune the power of changing his shape. According to legend, he was later killed by Hercules along with his father and all of his siblings except Nestor.

III.357 Proteus: A sea deity, son of Oceanus and Tethys, or, in other accounts, of Neptune and Phoenice, who resided in the Carpathian sea. He had received the gift of prophecy from Neptune, but he disliked using this in the service of humans, and when seized and interrogated could assume different shapes to escape. Those who managed to extract information from him included Aristaeus and Menelaus. (Odyssey, Bk. IV, trans. William Morris, 380-399).

In the myths, he is an old man of the sea, who in some accounts is entrusted by Poseidon (but not Neptune; the relationship between the Greek Poseidon and Roman Neptune is not exact) with the watching of his flocks, which are the seals that frolic along the coastal borders of the sea-god's domain.

III.358 Tegea: City in the southeast Arcadian plain, standing across the roads from Sparta to the Argolid and the Isthmus. Ancient Tegea was an important religious center of classical Greece, containing the Temple of Athena Alea ("Winged Athena"). Tegea was listed in Homer's Catalogue of Ships as one of the cities that contributed ships and men for the Achaean assault on Troy. See Map 1, E8.

III.360 Ancæus: An Argonaut from Arcadia, he was the strongest next to Heracles, with whom he is paired. He was later killed in the Calydonian boar hunt.

III.361 Amphidamus and Apheus: In the Argonautica (Bk. I, 161), Amphidamus and Cepheus were Arcadians from Tegea, sons of Aleus and uncles of Ancaeus. Morris has apparently substituted Apheus for Cepheus.

III.368 meed: help; assistance for Actaeon

III.370 Augeas or Augias: Legendary son of Eleus and one of the Argonauts, was king of Elis. His large and filthy stables were cleaned by Hercules, who undertookthis task on the promise of receiving the tenth part of the herds of Augias or an equivalent. To clean the stables Hercules changed the course of a nearby river, but, claiming that Hercules had employed an artifice, Augias refused the promised recompense. When Augias' son Phyleus supported Hercules' claims, he drove him from his kingdom; in response, Hercules conquered Elis, killed Augias, and gave the crown to Phyleus.

III.370 Elis: Elis, or Eleia is an ancient district in the northwest Peloponnese, bounded on the northeast by Achaea, the east by Arcadia, the south by Messenia, and the west by the Ionian sea. See Map 2, C8.

III.374 Pellene: a town of Achaeia in the northern Peloponnesus, west of Sicyon, famous for its wool. See Map 2, G11.

According to legend, Pellene was founded by the giant Pallas, and according to Lemprière, was the home of Proteus the sea god.

III.375 Amphion: Not the Theban hero, who, after having with his brother Zethus avenged their mother Antiope's sufferings on her brother Lycus's wife Dirce, built the walls of Thebes with his music.

III.381 Tenarus: Southern promontory of Laconia, in the south of Greece. See Map 2, G13.

III.384 Ancaeus: King of the Leleges of Samos; accounts of his paternity vary. According to one version he was a son of Poseidon and Astypalaea (not Alta) and brother of Eurypylus, and by other accounts he was the son of Altes.

A story surrounds his name: reportedly when planting a vineyard - for Samos was famed for its wine - he was told by a seer that he would never taste its wine. When he returned from the voyage of the Argonauts, the wine had been harvested and he summoned the seer before him and raised a cup to his lips, mocking the seer for his error. The seer retorted, "There is many a slip between cup and lip." Before Ancaeus had tasted the wine, news came that a wild boar was ravaging the vineyard, and when he dropped the cup and went out to investigate he was promptly killed by the boar. (Pausanias, 1.30.4 and 5.15.6).

III.385 Samos: An island in the Aegean sea, on the coast of Asia Minor, from which it is divided by a narrow strait, with a city of the same name built B.C. 986. See Map 5, G6.

In classical antiquity, the island was a center of Ionian culture and luxury, renowned for its Samian wines and its red pottery (called Samian ware by the Romans). Its most famous building was the Ionic order archaic Temple of the goddess Hera, the Heraion.

III.386 white-footed Alta: Apparently beloved of Poseidon, Ancaeus' father.

III.388 Calydon: A city of Aetolia located on the river Evenus, and according to legend named after Calydon the son of Ætolus. At the time of the Caledonian boar hunt, Œneus the father of Meleager was its king, and when he offended the goddess Diana by neglecting her rites, she sent a wild boar to ravage the country. Many of the renowned warriors and princes of the age assembled to hunt the boar, and Meleager killed it with his own hand and gave the head to the hunter Atalanta, of whom he was enamored. See Map 1, D5.

III.389 Meleager: In Greek mythology, one of the Argonauts, the son of Althaea and Œneus, king of Calydon. In the famed Caledonian boar hunt, Atalanta, a fierce hunter, wounded the boar and Meleager killed it with his own hand, giving the head to Atalanta, of whom he was enamored. Allegedly when his mother's brothers (his uncles) were enraged that a woman could receive the coveted boar's head, Meleager killed them, and his mother retaliated by killing him. The story forms the subject of Algernon Charles Swinburne's drama Atalanta in Calydon (1865).

III.391 the Aetolian land: A mountainous region of Greece on the north coast of the Gulf of Corinth, location of the city Calydon. See Map 2, C6.

III.397 Laocoon: an uncle of Meleager

III.402 Thestius: Mythological king of Pleuron, a city of Aetolia on the northern coast of the gulf of Patrae (see Map 2), and cousin of Oeneus, king of Calydon. Among his children with Eurythemis were Althaea, who married her uncle Oeneus, Leda, who married Tyndareus, the king of Sparta, and Hypermnestra, wife of Oicles and mother of Amphiaraus the prophet.

III.406 Arcas the hunter: In mythology, a son of Jupiter and Callisto, after whom Arcadia was named, and who taught its inhabitants the skills of agriculture and spinning wool. Juno, enraged at her husband's seduction/rape of Callisto, turned the latter into a bear, whom Arcas almost killed by accident. Zeus took pity on the pair and placed them in the constellations Ursa Major (Callisto) and Ursa Minor (Arcas) respectively.

III.417 Zetes and Calais, sons of Boreas: In mythology, Zetes and Calais were called the Boreads. They were winged twin sons of Oreithyia and Boreas, god of the north wind, and as Argonauts rescued Phineas from the assaults of the Harpies.

III.418 Erechtheus’s daughter: i.e. Oreithyia. Erechtheus was the fourth king of Athens and son of king Pandian the First. He and his wife Praxithea were the parents of sons Cecrops II, Metion, Pandorus, Thespius, and Eupalamus, and daughters Creusa, Oreithyia, Procris, Merope and Othonia.

III.419 Ilissus: River of Attica, in southern Greece. See Map 4, I9.

III.421 Thrace: Ancient Thrace (i.e. the territory where ethnic Thracians lived) included present-day Bulgaria, European Turkey, north-eastern Greece and the easternmost parts of Serbia. Its boundaries were the Danube River to the north and the Aegean Sea and Propontis to the south, the Black Sea to the east; on the west it reached the River Strymon. See Map 5, F4, and surrounding areas.

The Greeks believed that the tribes of the mountainous regions were warlike and ferocious, but they found the plains peoples more peaceable and willing to maintain more contact with their Greek neighbors.

III.427 Phocus: In mythology, an athlete, son of Aeacus (who was the son of Zeus and Aegina) and the nymph Psamathe, and king of the island of Aegina in the Saronic Gulf. (see Map 2). Phocus's half-brothers Peleus and Telamon, the sons of Endeis, killed him from jealousy during an athletic contest.

III.435 Asclepius: i.e. Aesculapius, legendary son of Apollo and Coronis, and demi-god of medicine and physician to the Argonauts. Angered at Coronis's love for Ischys, son of Elatus, Apollo arranged her death but rescued their son, whom he gave to the centaur Chiron to raise. Chiron taught Asclepius the art of surgery and the use of drugs, incantations, and love potions. According to legend, Asclepius was married to Epione, and the couple had six daughters and three sons, Machaon, Telesphoros, and Podalirius.

III.435 the far-darter: Apollo, father of Asclepius, who had retrieved the infant Asclepius from the corpse of his mother Coronis.

III.438 Coronis: Daughter of Phlegyas, King of the Lapiths, and one of Apollo's lovers. Pregnant with Asclepius, Coronis fell in love with Ischys, son of Elatus; when he heard of the affair Apollo arranged for her death, but the infant was retrieved and carried to Charon to be raised.

III.449 Acastus: Son of Pelias; he took part in the Argonautic expedition and the Calydonian boar-hunt. When Peleus took refuge with him, Acastus’ wife attempted to seduce him, and being repulsed, accused him to her husband of improper advances. Acastus in revenge contrived to steal Peleus’ wonderful sword and leave him asleep on Mt. Pelion, where he was rescued from Centaurs by Chiron. Afterwards Peleus captured Iolcus, putting to death Acastus’ wife and, by some accounts, Acastus himself.

III.473 Nestor: In Greek mythology, son of Neleus and Chloris; the king of the Peloponnesian city Pylos; husband of Eurydice (a different Eurydice than the wife of Orpheus); and father of Peisistratus and others. Noted for his wisdom and hospitality, Nestor helped fight the centaurs, participated in the Calydonian boar hunt, and joined the Argonauts. He and his sons Antilochus and Thrasymedes fought on the side of the Achaeans in the Trojan War, and though old, he served with courage and skill. In the Iliad he is portrayed as giving advice to younger warriors, and urges Agamemnon and Achilles to reconcile. In the Odyssey, he is represented as having returned safely to Pylos, and Odysseus’s son Telemachus travels to Pylos to seek his advice.

III.480 Laertes: Legendary king of Ithaca, an island in the Ionian Sea (see Map 2), and by some accounts one of the Argonauts and a participant in the hunt for the Calydonian boar. Laertes was the son of Arcisius and Chalcomedusa, and husband of Anticlea, the daughter of Autolycus. Anticlea was pregnant by Sisyphus when she married Laertes; and eight months after her union with the king of Ithaca, she bore Odysseus, whom Laertes treated as his son, and to whom he eventually bequeathed his crown, retiring into the country, where he spent his time in gardening.

III.482 Ithaca: Island in the Ionian sea and legendary home of Laertes and Odysseus, and a port city for trade between Corinth and Italy. See Map 4, B8.

III.487 Almenus: Possibly as in the Argonautica, Ialmenus. According to Peter Wright, "The list in Apollodorus is padded at the end with several heroes drawn anachronistically from the list of those Greek leaders who brought ships to attack Troy, in Iliad Book II. Morris has apparently derived this name from one of them, Ialmenus son of Ares. See Iliad, Book II, line 512.

III.490 Enipeus: River, whose river god was allegedly loved by Tyro, daughter of Salmoneus and grandmother of Jason. See Map 4, F6.

III.493 Orpheus: Great Oeager’s son: i.e. Orpheus, legendary Thracian singer and supposed founder of Orphism, whose doctrines and myths were conveyed through poems. Aeschylus and Euripides assert that his songs charmed trees, wild beasts, and even stones as well as humans. In vase and wall paintings, even in the Catacombs, he is often represented singing.

The best-known myth recounts that when his wife Eurydice was killed by a snakebite, Orpheus descended to the Underworld and persuaded its lord to allow him to bring her back on the condition that he should not turn round and look at her before they reached the upper world, and when he did so, she vanished into Hades forever. Morris recounts this myth in an unpublished Earthly Paradise tale, “The Story of Orpheus and Eurydice.”

III.494 King Oeager: In mythology, a wine-god, king of Thrace, and father of Orpheus with Calliope, muse of eloquence and epic poetry. (For Thrace, a region in Asia, see Map 3).

III.496 Calliope: One of the nine muses, daughter of Jupiter and Mnemosyne, who presided over eloquence and heroic poetry.

III.534 well-guerdoned: well-rewarded

III.536 Tyrians: of Tyre in Phoenicia. See Map 5, K8.

III.544 rowlock: A device on the gunwale of a boat, usually consisting of a notch, two thole-pins, or a rounded fork, forming a fulcrum for the oar in rowing.