[Footnote 100: Calydon, of which his father Oeneus was king.]
[Footnote 101: The mode in which the two fugitives became known to the king and gained admission to the palace, is not told by Pope, who has left upwards of seventy lines untranslated, and by the mutilation rendered the incidents improbable. Polynices reaches the palace first and lies down, worn out, on the pavement of the vestibule. Tydeus arrives at the same spot, and Polynices is unwilling that he should share the shelter. A quarrel ensues, and from words they proceed to blows. The king is disturbed by the uproar; he issues forth from the palace with attendants and torches to ascertain the cause; explanations follow, and these result in Tydeus and Polynices becoming the guests of Adrastus. "There is an odd account," Pope says to Cromwell, "of an unmannerly battle at fisty-cuffs between the two Princes on a very slight occasion, and at a time when, one would think, the fatigue of their journey, in so tempestuous a night, might have rendered them very unfit for such a scuffle. This I had actually translated, but was very ill satisfied with it, even in my own words, to which an author cannot but be partial enough of conscience."]
[Footnote 102: Before the victory of Hercules over the Nemean lion, he is said by Statius to have worn the skin of a lion which he slew in the neighbourhood of Mount Temessus.]
[Footnote 103: "Horror" at the thought of the dreadful forebodings which had been suggested by the literal language of the oracle; "glad" because of the manner in which the prediction was verified. Jortin, in a note on another passage of the Thebais, says, "Statius could not help falling into his beloved fault of joining contraries together. He is too apt to seek this opposition in his words. He never indeed misses this favourite figure when he can bring it in."]
[Footnote 104: "Firm" for confirm was sanctioned by the frequent example of Dryden, from whose translation of Virg. Æn. viii. 107, Pope has borrowed the entire couplet:
But oh! be present to thy people's aid, And firm the gracious promise thou hast made.]
[Footnote 105: In the first edition this verse was an Alexandrine, ending with "and wake the sleeping fires," which Pope took from Dryden, Virg. Æn. viii, 720: