[Footnote 479: Thy poem onwards.--Ver. 1. Macer translated the Iliad of Homer into Latin verse, and composed an additional poem, commencing at the beginning of the Trojan war, and coming down to the wrath of Achilles, with which Homer begins.] [Footnote 480: I, Macer.--Ver. 3. Æmilius Macer is often mentioned by Ovid in his works. In the Tristia, Book iv. Ep. 10,1.41, he says, 'Macer, when stricken in years, many a time repeated to me his poem on birds, and each serpent that is deadly, each herb that is curative.' The Tenth Epistle of the Second Book of Pontic Epistles is also addressed to him, in which Ovid alludes to his work on the Trojan war, and the time when they visited Asia Minor and Sicily together. He speaks of him in the Sixteenth Epistle of the Fourth Book, as being then dead. Macer was a native of Verona, and was the intimate friend of Virgil, Ovid, and Tibullus. Some suppose that the poet who wrote on natural history, was not the same with him who wrote on the Trojan war; and, indeed, it does not seem likely, that he who was an old man in the youth of Ovid, should be the same person to whom he writes from Pontus, when about fifty-six years of age. The bard of Ilium died in Asia.] [Footnote 481: Tragedy grew apace.--Ver. 13. He alludes to his tragedy of Medea, which no longer exists. Quintilian thus speaks of it: 'The Medea of Ovid seems to me to prove how much he was capable of, if he had only preferred to curb his genius, rather than indulge it.'] [Footnote 482: Sabinus return.--Ver. 27. He represents his friend, Sabinus, here in the character of a 'tabellarius,' or 'letter carrier,' going with extreme speed (celer) to the various parts of the earth, and bringing back the answers of Ulysses to Penelope, Hippolytus to Phaedra, Æneas to Dido, Demophoôn to Phyllis, Jason to Hypsipyle, and Phaon to Sappho. All these works of Sabinus have perished, except the Epistle of Ulysses to Penelope, and Demophoôn to Phyllis. His Epistle from Paris to Oenonc, is not here mentioned. See the Pontic Epistles, Book iv. Ep. xvi. 1. 13, and the Note to the passage.] [Footnote 483: Bring back letters.--Ver. 28. As the ancients had no establishment corresponding to our posts, they employed special messengers called 'tabellarii,' for the conveyance of their letters.] [Footnote 484: Vowed to Phobus.--Ver. 34. Sappho says in her Epistle, that if Phaon should refuse to return, she will dedicate her lyre to Phobus, and throw herself from the Leucadian rock. This, he tells her, she may now-do, as by his answer Phaon declines to return.] [Footnote 485: Pain in her head.--Ver. 11. She pretended a head-ache, when nothing wras the matter with her; in order that too much familiarity, in the end, might not breed contempt.] [Footnote 486: A surfeit of love.--Ver. 25. 'l'inguis amor' seems here to mear a satisfied 'ora 'pampered passion;' one that meets with no repulse.] [Footnote 487: Enclosed Danaë.--Ver. 27. See the Metamorphoses, Book iv., 1.]