[22] The story of Idomeneus, according to the old annotators upon Virgil, has a curious similarity to that of Jephthah. He had vowed that if he escaped from a storm at sea, he would offer in sacrifice the first thing that met him on landing. It was his son. A plague followed, and his subjects expelled him. [23] There is a fine description of these hags in Morris’s ‘Jason,’ where the voyagers “Beheld the daughters of the Earth and Sea, The dreadful Snatchers, who like women were Down to the breast, with scanty close black hair About their heads, and dim eyes ringed with red, And bestial mouths set round with lips of lead. But from their gnarled necks there ’gan to spring Half hair, half feathers, and a sweeping wing Grew out instead of arm on either side, And thick plumes underneath the breast did hide The place where joined the fearful natures twain. [24] See Homer’s Odyssey, p. 69. [25] “To the which place a poor sequestered stag, That from the hunter’s aim had ta’en a hurt, Had come to languish.” --SHAKESPEARE, ‘As you Like it,’ ii. 1. [26] This was the dye procured from the shell-fish called murex--especially costly, because each fish contained but a single drop of the precious tincture. [27] Delille’s fine translation of this passage is so little known to English readers that it may well find room in a note:-- “Non--tu n’es point le fils de la mère d’Amour; Au sang de Dardanus tu ne dois point le jour; N’impute point aux dieux la naissance d’un traitre-- Non, du sang d’héros un monstre n’a pu naître; Non.--Le Caucase affreux, t’engendrant en fureur, De ses plus durs rochers fit ton barbare cœur, Et du tigre inhumain la compagne sauvage, Cruel! avec son lait t’a fait sucer sa rage. Car enfin qui m’arrête? Après ses durs refus, Après tant de mépris, qu’attendrais-je de plus? S’est-il laissé flechir à mes cris douloureux? A-t-il au moins daigné tourner vers moi les yeux Prosternée a ses pieds, plaintive, suppliante, N’a-t-il pas d’un front calme ecouté son amante? * * * * *