COWPER. [102] _Like aged men._] In the original, τριποδι βροτᾶ, a three-footed mortal: that is, a man with a crutch: a metaphor suggested, probably, by the ænigma of the Sphinx. “What is that, which is two-footed, three-footed, and four-footed, yet one and the same? Œdipus declared that the thing propounded to him was man: for that a man, while an infant, went on four: when grown up, on two; and when old, on three: as using a staff through feebleness.” DIODORUS, Bibl. 4. [103] _On a scant warp._] The nap is formed by the threads of the woof: Hesiod therefore directs the woof to be thick and strong, that the nap may the better exclude wet. [104] _A strong-dying ox._] This expression is borrowed from Chapman. Thus we find in Homer, “a thong from a slaughtered ox.” This is illustrated by Plutarch in his Symposiacs, 2. by the fact that the skins of slaughtered beasts are tougher, less flaccid, and less liable to be broken than those of animals which have died of age or distemper. The ancients, says Grævius, made their shoes of the raw hide. Πιλοι, in Latin _udones_, were woollen socks; worn, when abroad, inside the shoes; or as substitutes for shoes, in the manner of slippers, when within doors and in the bed-chamber. LE CLERC. [105] _And kid-skins ’gainst the rigid season sew._] This was a sort of rough cloak of skins common to the country people of Greece. Stripp’d of my garberdine of skins, at once I will from high leap down into the waves. THEOCRITUS, _Idyl._ iii. 25. Grævius quotes Varro as authority for a similar covering being worn among the Romans: by soldiers in camp, by mariners, and poor people. [106] _A well-wrought-cap._] In very ancient times the cap answered no other purpose for the head than the sock, which was worn inside the shoe, did for the foot. The helmets were lined with it. Of this kind was that of the helmet which Ulysses, Odys. x. received from Merion: Without it was secured With boar’s-teeth ivory-white, inserted thick On all sides, and with woollen head-piece lined. COWPER. Eustathius tells us, that in after-times they gave the same term, πιλος, to any covering for the head, and thus they ascribed to Ulysses a cap such as they then used. Thus as the club is the badge of Hercules, so is the cap of Ulysses: as appears from coins and other antiques. The ancient Greeks did not use any covering for the head: and it was from them that the Romans borrowed the custom of going bare-headed. They used caps only on journeys; in excessive heat or cold; or in rainy weather. These caps the Latins called _petasos_: they were a kind of broad-brimmed hat, like that which is observed in the figures of Mercury. Otherwise, when in the city, they merely wrapped their heads in the lappet of the gown. GRÆVIUS.