27. _O'er Idalia's velvet-green_. _Idalia_ appears to be used for _Idalium_, which was a town in Cyprus, and a favourite seat of Venus, who was sometimes called _Idalia_. Pope likewise uses _Idalia_ for the place, in his _First Pastoral_, 65: "Celestial Venus haunts Idalia's groves." Dr. Johnson finds fault with _velvet-green_, apparently supposing it to be a compound of Gray's own making. But Young had used it in his _Love of Fame_: "She rears her flowers, and spreads her velvet-green." It is also among the expressions of Pope which are ridiculed in the _Alexandriad_. 29. _Cytherea_ was a name of Venus, derived from _Cythera_, an island in the Ægean Sea, one of the favourite residences of Aphrodite, or Venus. Cf. Virgil, _Æn._ i. 680: "super alta Cythera Aut super Idalium, sacrata sede," etc. 30. _With antic Sports_. This is the reading of the 1st ed. and also of the ed. of 1768. Some eds. have "sport." _Antic_ is the same word as _antique_. The association between what is old or old-fashioned and what is odd, fantastic, or grotesque is obvious enough. Cf. Milton, _Il Pens._ 158: "With antick pillars massy-proof." In _S. A._ 1325 he uses the word as a noun: "Jugglers and dancers, anticks, mummers, mimicks." Shakes. makes it a verb in _A. and C._ ii. 7: "the wild disguise hath almost Antick'd us all." 31. Cf. Thomson, _Spring_, 835: "In friskful glee Their frolics play." 32, 33. Cf. Virgil, _Æn._ v. 580 foll. 35. Gray quotes Homer, _Od._ ix. 265: [Greek: marmarugas thêeito podôn thaumaze de thumôi]. Cf. Catullus's "fulgentem plantam." See also Thomson, _Spring_, 158: "the many-twinkling leaves Of aspin tall." 36. _Slow-melting strains_, etc. Cf. a poem by Barton Booth, published in 1733: "Now to a slow and melting air she moves, So like in air, in shape, in mien, She passes for the Paphian queen; The Graces all around her play, The wondering gazers die away; Whether her easy body bend, Or her fair bosom heave with sighs; Whether her graceful arms extend, Or gently fall, or slowly rise; Or returning or advancing, Swimming round, or sidelong glancing, Strange force of motion that subdues the soul." 37. Cf. Dryden, _Flower and Leaf_, 191: "For wheresoe'er she turn'd her face, they bow'd." 39. Cf. Virgil, _Æn._ i. 405: "Incessu patuit dea." The gods were represented as gliding or sailing along without moving their feet. 41. _Purple light of love_. Cf. Virgil, _Æn._ i. 590: "lumenque juventae Purpureum." Gray quotes Phrynichus, _apud_ Athenæum: [Greek: lampei d' epi porphureêisi pareiêisi phôs erôtos.] See also Dryden, _Brit. Red._ 133: "and her own purple light." 42. "To compensate the real and imaginary ills of life, the Muse was given to mankind by the same Providence that sends the day by its cheerful presence to dispel the gloom and terrors of the night" (Gray). 43 foll. See on _Eton Coll._ 83. Cf. Horace, _Od._ i. 3, 29-33.