# The Poetical Works of Thomas Parnell/Epistle/Appendix 1

APPENDIX I.
NOTES TO THE DEDICATORY EPISTLE.
Page xv. Cyrene's shell.] Callimachus was born at Cyrene. Akenside, in his truly classical hymn to the Naiads, says,
———Hail! honored nymphs, Thrice hail! for you the Cyrenaic shell Behold I touch revering.—
Page xv. The wondrous bark.] Eratosth. (Asterism. p. 13. ed. Ox.) says the Argo was the first ship ever built; but this is inconsistent with the account which the Greek poets and historians have related of the still earlier voyages of Cadmus and Danaus. v. Bryant's A. Mythol. ii. p. 493. The ancient writers, says Dr. Musgrave (v. Disc, on Greek Mythology, p. 86.), are not unanimous in representing the Argo as the first ship ever built. Diod. Sic. iv. p. 285. says it was the first of any considerable size. Plin. N. H. vii. 57. says it was the first long ship. Catullus says,
Ilia rudem cursu prima imbuit Amphitriten,
though he mentions the fleet of Theseus, whom he makes older than the Argonauts, consult the note of Is. Vossius in his Edit. p. 262. and of Dresemius on Iscanus de Bello Troj. lib. i. 52. There is scarcely a single circumstance relating to the Argonautic expedition in which the ancient writers are agreed. They seem to have read out of a different Pantheon. With regard to the gifts of voice which the vessel had—Fatidicamque ratem—Dr. Musgrave thinks it to have been a juggle, and that one of the Argonauts was a ventriloquist. Εγγαστριμύθος. Certain it is, that it did speak, and came of a speaking family; for it was made of the woods of Dodona. Orpheus (Arg. v. 707.) calls it λάλος τρόπις, a chattering ship; and Lycophron (v. 1326.) λάληθρον κίσσαν; V. Flacc. (viii. 130.) makes it walk up and pay its compliments to Jason on the success of the enterprise. Orpheus, in his Argonautic Poem, mentions anchors as belonging to the Argo (v. 495.) but these are not mentioned by Homer even in the time of the Trojan war.
Page xv. The Centaur band.] Concerning the distinction made between the Centaur and Hippocentaur, see the note on Mitford's Greece, vol. i. p. 28. 4to. ​Palæphatus, cap. A. does not mention this. Chiron, whom the poets represent as a Hippo-Centaur, has the form of a man in an engraving of him in Gronov. Thes. Gr. Ant. 1. y.y.y.y. from an ancient MS. of Dioscorides. Some, from a passage in Lucian, thought his feet only were like those of a horse. Centaurs were consecrated to Apollo, as may be seen in many medals, especially those of Gallienus. Pliny, N. H, vii. c. 3, asserts that he saw a centaur preserved in honey, brought from Egypt to Rome, for Claudius Caesar. Some beautiful engravings of male and female centaurs may be seen in the Antiquities of Herculaneum.
Page xv. Loud conchs.] Though Homer does not mention the trumpet in the heroic ages, yet other authors have supposed the invention of it to have been as early, or earlier than the Trojan war. Virgil gives Misenus to Æneas as a trumpeter, v. Æn. vi. 164.
———quo non præstantior alter Ære ciere viros, Martemque accendere cantu.
Lycophron (v. 991.) calls Minerva, "the Trumpet," as she invented it.
———άλγυνούσα λάφριαν κόρην Σαλπιγγα.
Euripides (v. Phœn. v. 1392.) mentions the trumpet as used at the siege of Thebes.
Έπἑι δ᾽ άφέιθη, πύρσος ὣς, τυρσενικής Σαλπιγγος ήχή, σήμα φοίνου μάχης.
Where Prof. Porson says,"Sed Tyrrhenicam Tubam Heroicis temporibus usitatam fingunt Tragici; and he refers to Æsch. Eum. v. 570, Eurip. Rhes. 991, Soph. Aj. v. 17, to which references may be added Eurip. Heracl. v. 880, Troad. 1267. The use of conchs, or sea-shells, probably preceded that of the metallic trump. In the Iph. Taur. v. 303, Euripides gives this instrument to the shepherds:
Κοκλους τε φύσων, συλλέγων τ᾽ έγχωρίους.
See Theocr. Idyll, κβ. 75, Virg. Æn. xi. 171, Trumpets, however, were not very necessary, when the voices of men were so much more powerful than at present. Agamemnon (Il. θ. 220.) standing on the ships of Ulysses, called to Ajax and Achilles, whose tents formed the opposite boundary of the Grecian camp, and are supposed to have stretched from the Rhœtean to the Sigœan promontory, a distance of about twelve miles.
​ Page xvi, Heaven-built Troy.]Lycophron says (v. 620.) that Diomede had, after his death, a statue erected to him in Italy, on a column formed of stones, brought as ballast in his ship, which had formed part of the walls of Troy.
Page xvi. Beautiful Helen.]Euripides supposes that Helen never was at Troy, and ascribes the substitution of a phantom in her room, to Juno. Lycophron attributes it to Proteus, but he says that Paris was not deprived of his prize, for he enjoyed the love of Helen at Salamis. They both agree that the Trojan prince only brought a cloud, a visionary resemblance of the beautiful Spartan, to Troy.
Διδωσι δ´ ούκ έμ´ αλλ ὸμοίωσας ´Εμοί Ἔιδωλον ἒμπωουω Ὀυρανου ξυνθεῖς ὓπο. v. Helen, 33.
The anonymous author of the Άποσμ¨Έπους περι Ελενης also mentions this opinion, which the Scholiast thinks, refers to what Lycophron had said, v. ed. Morell. Paris, 1595, 12mo.
Ου δ´ Ελένην φάσκουσι μετἀ Τρώεσσι παρέιναι
And Lycophron, says the Scholiast, took his opinion from Stesichorus, who wrote
Τρωεσσ´ ὅι τοτ´ ἴσαν Έλένης ἒιδωλον ἒχοντες
Const. Manasses (ed. Meurs. p. 390.) makes Proteus, when Paris landed in Egypt, take Helen away from him; and he returned to Troy empty-handed, or as the text has it, having touched Helen only with the tip of his finger.
Ὀ dέ κενᾶις ὐπέστρεφε χὲρσι πρὁς τἠν πάτριδα Τῆς ἠδονῆς γευσάμενος ἄκρψ δακτὐλψ μόνψ
So also the Antehom. of Tzetzes, v. 148, p. 23, ed. Jacobs. Helen had five other husbands whom Lycophron enumerates. Achilles, however, who was one, wedded her in the Elysian fields.
Τῆς πενταλέκτρου θυάδος πλευρονίας
Pausanias (lib. iii. c. 16.) says, that in the temple of Hilaira and Phœbe, an egg was suspended from the roof, bound with fillets, which was, they say, the egg that Leda brought forth. The lamentation of Hermione for the loss of her mother Helen, is the only poetical passage in the poem of Coluthus, which is little else than a cento of scraps from Homer, Q. Smyrnæus, and Musæus, v. 333, et seq. Gray, in the concluding lines of his Agrippina, says,
———so Helen look'd, So her white neck reclined, so was she borne By the young Trojan to his gilded bark.
This is expressed with his usual knowledge and precision of language. See Const. Manas, ed. Meurs. vii. p. 390.
Δειρὴ μακρἀ, κατάλενκος, ὅθεν έμεν εμυθουργήθη, Κυκνογενῆ τὴν έυόπτον Έλένην χρηματίζειν.
and Antehom. of Tzetzes, ed. Jacobs. 115. For an account of a modern rape of a Grecian virgin from Mycenæ, conducted in the approved ancient manner, see Wheler's Travels in Greece, p. 63.
Page xvii. Her damask'd.]Malala, in his Chronicle, lib. v. p. 114. describes Helen as ἔνστολος, handsomely drest. Beautiful as she was, Philostratus says, that Hiera, the wife of Telephus, king of Mysia, was reckoned handsomer; Το σᾶυτον äυτην φήσι πλεονεκτεῖν τῆς Ελένης ὅσονκἀκέινη τῶν Τροἀδων. v. ed. Olearii, p. 691. and the author of Τῶν Τροικῶν, joins in this assertion, p. 679. J. Tzetzes, in his Antehom. follows them, v. 285.
῍H γἀρ και Εκενὴν άπεκἀινυτο καλλει πόλλον.
Arintheus was the greatest male beauty whom history has recorded; he is celebrated even by St. Basil, who supposes that God had created him as an inimitable model of the human species. The painters and sculptors could not express his figure. The historians appeared fabulous when they related his exploits, v. Am. Marcell. Hist. xxvi. and the note of Valesius.
Page xvii. Then o'er the deep.]When Mr. Anson, Lord Anson's brother, was on his travels in the East, he hired a vessel to visit the isle of Tenedos; his pilot, an old Greek, as they were sailing along, said, with some satisfaction—There 'twas our fleet lay.—Mr. Anson demanded, What fleet? What fleet? replied the old man, a little piqued with the question, why our Grecian fleet to be sure, at the siege of Troy. See Harris's Philol. Enq. p. 320.
Page xvii. Breathing revenge.]After the death of Hector, says Constantine Manasses, p. 397, ed. Meursii, Priam sent to the Amazons to assist him, and when they were slain, he sent to David, king of Juda:
Είς τόν Δαβιδ τὸν äνακτα, τὴς Ἰουδαίας πέμπει Παλάμην έξαιτούμενος συμμαχικὴν έκεῖθεν.
but David had battles of his own to fight. So Priam sent to ​Tantares, or Pantares, king of the East Indies, who sent his General Memnon, and some wild beasts to help him. An anecdote is told of Priam, by Lydgate, which perhaps is not mentioned in older histories. See Life and Death of Hector, c. vii. p. 104.
No favor, nor no love made him decline, Nor leave unto the greatest, or the least, His manner was full soon in morn to dine, And of all kings he was the worthiest.
Mr. Bryant in his Observ. on the Brit. Critic, p. 86, compares the extent of Priam's empire to ‘’Glamorganshire’’, See also Wood on Homer, p. 268, and Blackwell's Life of Homer, p. 286.
Page xvi. The battle bled.] Pausanias (lib. x. c. 25, &c.) gives a minute analysis of a very interesting picture by Polygnotus, representing the destruction of Troy, and the Greeks just preparing to sail to their native land. He observes that it differs considerably from the account of Homer. Among the figures, Hector is seen with both hands on his left knee, looking like a man weighed down with sorrow. Next to him, Memnon is sitting on a stone; and close to him, Sarpedon, leaning with his face on both his hands, but one of Memnon's hands is placed on the shoulder of Sarpedon. Penthesilea, with a bow in her hand, and a leopard's skin on her shoulder, is looking on Paris, and by her countenance seems to despise him. Menelaus is represented on board his ship preparing to depart from Troy; in the ship, boys and men are seen standing together; and the pilot Phrontes is distributing the oars. Nestor is painted with a hat on his head, and a spear in his hand; a horse rolling on the sand is seen near him. Palamedes and Thersites are represented playing at dice; the Oilean Ajax is looking at the play; his colour is that of a seafaring man, and his body is wet with the foam of the sea. In the second Excurs. to the Æn. iii. p. 426. Heyné has a Dissertation on the year or month in which Troy was taken. See also Dodwell de Cyclis, p. 803. 4to.
Page xx. Gentle companions.] Bees were called by the Greeks, to το ποίμνιον άπομαντον, the flock without a shepherd. Pausan. Ant. lib. i. c. xxxii. says, that the Halyonian bees were so gentle that they would go out foraging along with the men in the fields.
Page xxvi. Brutus' colours.] In the beginning of the last century the learned Camden was obliged to undermine ​with respectful scepticism the Romance of Brutus, the Trojan; who is now buried in silent oblivion with Scota, the daughter of Pharaoh, and her numerous progeny, v. Gibbon's Rom. Hist. ii. p. 526. In Henry VIII.'s famous Manifesto against James IV. he insisted at great length on the superiority of the kings of England over the kingdom of Scotland, which he derived from his illustrious predecessor, Brute, the Trojan, v. Henry's Hist. of Eng. xi. p.526. As Henry claimed kindred, he should have added his ancestor's name to his own. Henry the Brute would have well preserved the recollection of the illustrious lineage.
Poem, p. xxviii, Tables.]Sir William Forrest, chaplain to Queen Catherine, speaking of her when young, says,
With stoole and needle she was not to seeke, And other practyseinges for ladyes meete To pastyme, at Tables, tick-tack, or gleeke, Cardys, dice—
See Andrews' Hist. of Gt. Brit. i. 419.