procession go, In hopes to reconcile their heav'nly foe: They weep; they beat their breasts; they rend their hair, And rich embroider'd vests for presents bear." Dryden's Virgil, i. 670 167 The manner in which this episode is introduced, is well illustrated by the following remarks of Mure, vol. i. p.298: "The poet's method of introducing his episode, also, illustrates in a curious manner his tact in the dramatic department of his art. Where, for example, one or more heroes are despatched on some commission, to be executed at a certain distance of time or place, the fulfilment of this task is not, as a general rule, immediately described. A certain interval is allowed them for reaching the appointed scene of action, which interval is dramatised, as it were, either by a temporary continuation of the previous narrative, or by fixing attention for a while on some new transaction, at the close of which the further account of the mission is resumed." 168 --_With tablets sealed._ These probably were only devices of a hieroglyphical character. Whether writing was known in the Homeric times is utterly uncertain. See Grote, vol ii. p. 192, sqq. 169 --_Solymaean crew,_ a people of Lycia. 170 From this "melancholy madness" of Bellerophon, hypochondria received the name of "Morbus Bellerophonteus." See my notes in my prose translation, p. 112. The "Aleian field," _i.e._ "the plain of wandering," was situated between the rivers Pyramus and Pinarus, in Cilicia. 171 --_His own, of gold._ This bad bargain has passed into a common proverb. See Aulus Gellius, ii, 23. 172 --_Scaean, i e._ left hand. 173 --_In fifty chambers._ "The fifty nuptial beds, (such hopes had he, So large a promise of a progeny,) The ports of plated gold, and hung with spoils."