{41} έσχατα. This is taken by some to mean _algam infimam_, ‘the bottom weeds of the deepest seas’, by others, the sea-weed highest on the shore, at high watermark. {42} Comatas was a goatherd who devoutly served the Muses, and sacrificed to them his masters goats. His master therefore shut him up in a cedar chest, opening which at the year’s end he found Comatas alive, by miracle, the bees having fed him with honey. Thus, in a mediaeval legend, the Blessed Virgin took the place, for a year, of the frail nun who had devoutly served her. {43} Sneezing in Sicily, as in most countries, was a happy omen. {50} A superfluous and apocryphal line is here omitted. {53} An allusion to the common superstition (cf. Idyl xii. 24) that perjurers and liars were punished by pimples and blotches. The old Irish held that blotches showed themselves on the faces of Brehons who gave unjust judgments. {54} Spring in the south, like Night in the tropics, comes ‘at one stride’; but Wordsworth finds the rendering distasteful ‘neque sic redditum valde placet.’ {57} ‘Quant à ta manière, je ne puis la rendre.’—SAINTE-BEUVE. {61} Reading μηνοφόρως. {70} Cf. Wordsworth’s proposed conjecture— μετάρσι’, έτων παρεόντων. Meineke observes ‘tota haec carminis pars luxata et foedissime depravata est’. There seems to be a rude early pun in lines 73, 74. {72} The reading— ού φθεγξη; λύκον εΐδες; επαιξέ τις, ως σοφός, εΐπε,—makes good sense. ως σοφός is put in the mouth of the girl, and would mean ‘a good guess’! The allusion of a guest to the superstition that the wolf struck people dumb is taken by Cynisca for a reference to young Wolf, her secret lover. {73} Or, as Wordsworth suggests, reading δάκρυσι, ‘for him your cheeks are wet with tears.’ {74a} Shaving in the bronze, and still more, of course, in the stone age, was an uncomfortable and difficult process. The backward and barbarous Thracians were therefore trimmed in the roughest way, like Aeschines, with his long gnawed moustache. {74b} The Megarians having inquired of the Delphic oracle as to their rank among Greek cities, were told that they were absolute last, and not in the reckoning at all. {77} Our Lady, here, is Persephone. The ejaculation served for the old as well as for the new religion of Sicily. The dialogue is here arranged as in Fritzsche’s text, and in line 8 his punctuation is followed. {78a} If cats are meant, the proverb is probably Alexandrian. Common as cats were in Egypt, they were late comers in Greece. {78b} Most of the dialogue has been distributed as in the text of Fritzsche. {82} Reading πέρυσιν. {89} _I.e._ Syracuse, a colony of the Ephyraeans or Corinthians. The Maiden is Persephone, the Mother Demeter. {93} Deipyle, daughter of Adrastus. {98} Reading—πιείρα ατε λαον ανέδραμε κόσμος αρούρα. See also Wordsworth’s note on line 26.