Le Clerc supposes an opinion to have existed, that a person wrongfully accused might securely drink the water of Styx: and conceives Hesiod to mean that the gods drank of the water at the same time that they made a libation, and if they took a false oath, were convicted by the lethargic properties of this noxious stream. [224] _Jove sends Iris down._] To this covenant (with Noah) Hesiod alludes: he calls it the great oath. He says that this oath was Iris, or the bow in the heavens; to which the deity appealed when any of the inferior divinities were guilty of an untruth. On such an occasion the great oath of the gods was appointed to fetch water from the extremities of the ocean, with which those were tried who had falsified their word. BRYANT. The words will certainly admit of this construction; but the context directs that the great oath be connected with the Stygian water. The employment of Iris on the mission is still a remarkable coincidence with the diluvian covenant. [225] _The sacred river-head._] That is, the ocean; which probably received this title from the Nile, a river highly venerated, being of old called the Oceanus. Styx is said to be a horn, or branch of the ocean, from the ancient idea that all rivers sprang from it: Homer Il. 21: Therefore not kingly Acheloius, Nor yet the strength of ocean’s vast profound: Although from him all rivers and all seas, All fountains and all wells proceed, can boast Comparison with Jove. COWPER. The rivers of Earth and Orcus were believed to communicate; thus Virgil, Æn. vi. 658, of the Elysian fields: In fragrant laurel groves, where Po’s vast flood From upper earth rolls copious through the wood. [226] _Libation pours_ _And is forsworn._] It was customary to pour a libation, while taking a solemn oath. Thus in the third Iliad: Then pouring from the beaker to the cups They fill’d them. All-glorious Jove, and ye, the powers of heaven! Whoso shall violate this contract first, So be their blood, their children’s and their own, Pour’d out, as this libation on the ground. COWPER.