17. On Thracia's hills. Thrace was one of the chief seats of the worship of Mars. Cf. Ovid, Ars Am. ii. 588: "Mars Thracen occupat." See also Virgil, Æn. iii. 35, etc.

19. His thirsty lance. Cf. Spenser, F. Q. i. 5, 15: "his thristy [thirsty] blade."

20. Gray says, "This is a weak imitation of some beautiful lines in the same ode;" that is, in "the first Pythian of Pindar," referred to in the note on 13. The passage is an address to the lyre, and is translated by Wakefield thus:

21. The feather'd king. Cf. Shakes. Phoenix and Turtle:

23. Dark clouds. The first reading of MS. was "black clouds."

24. The terror. This is the reading of the first ed. and also of that of 1768. Most of the modern eds. have "terrors."

25. "Power of harmony to produce all the graces of motion in the body" (Gray).

 

26. Temper'd. Modulated, "set." Cf. Lycidas, 33: "Tempered to the oaten flute;" Fletcher, Purple Island: "Tempering their sweetest notes unto thy lay," etc.

 

27. O'er Idalia's velvet-green. Idalia appears to be used for Idalium, which was a town in Cyprus, and a favourite seat of Venus, who was sometimes called Idalia. Pope likewise uses Idalia for the place, in his First Pastoral, 65: "Celestial Venus haunts Idalia's groves."

Dr. Johnson finds fault with velvet-green, apparently supposing it to be a compound of Gray's own making. But Young had used it in his Love of Fame: "She rears her flowers, and spreads her velvet-green." It is also among the expressions of Pope which are ridiculed in the Alexandriad.

 

29. Cytherea was a name of Venus, derived from Cythera, an island in the Ægean Sea, one of the favourite residences of Aphrodite, or Venus. Cf. Virgil, Æn. i. 680: "super alta Cythera Aut super Idalium, sacrata sede," etc.

 

30. With antic Sports. This is the reading of the 1st ed. and also of the ed. of 1768. Some eds. have "sport."

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