• The Theban soothsayer. Ovid, Metamorphoses , III , Addison’s Tr. :⁠— “It happen’d once, within a shady wood, Two twisted snakes he in conjunction view’d, When with his staff their slimy folds he broke, And lost his manhood at the fatal stroke. But, after seven revolving years, he view’d The self-same serpents in the self-same wood: ‘And if,’ says he, ‘such virtue in you lie, That he who dares your slimy folds untie Must change his kind, a second stroke I’ll try.’ Again he struck the snakes, and stood again New-sex’d, and straight recovered into man. ⋮ When Juno fired, More than so trivial an affair required, Deprived him, in her fury, of his sight, And left him groping round in sudden night. But Jove (for so it is in heav’n decreed That no one god repeal another’s deed) Irradiates all his soul with inward light, And with the prophet’s art relieves the want of sight.” ↩
• His beard. The word “plumes” is used by old English writers in this sense. Ford, Lady’s Trial :⁠— “Now the down Of softness is exchanged for plumes of age.” See also Purgatorio I 42. ↩