1. The Chaonian bird is a dove. Chaonia is part of Epirus , so called from the fate of Chaon, an Athenian. There wasa temple of Dodonian Jupiter, where doves dispensed the sacred oracles with human voices. In the forest of Dodona , in Epirus , not far from the temple, there were doves thatprophecied. From whence, says Servius, comes the fable that Peliades, in the Thessalian tongue, signifies prophet and dove. Pausanias says that these doves gave answers from the Dodonean oaks. But Herodotus, in his Euterpe, writes, that these doves were prophecying women.

2. That is, riches will do all things, and interest easily gains a woman's heart, because the sex is generally covetous.

3. It is certain, no creature is so stately and fierce as a lion who, when he is hunted by dogs and huntsmen in the open field, seems to despise his pursuers, and flies slowly from them; but when he is in the woods, and thinks his shame may be saved by flight, he runs with great speed to avoid them. The first that ever tamed a lion, was a noble Carthaginian, whose name was Hanno; and he was condemned for that very reason: the Carthaginians not thinking their liberty could be secure, while a person lived who was able to tame so fierce an animal.

4. Speaking of Hercules , who for the love of Omphale used the distaff and basket, according to the fashion of the Ionian damsels.

5. This fable of Hero and Leander is as well known as any in Ovid ; he treats of it in his epistles : we find it also in Musaeus's poem, and in Martial's epigrams.

6. This has allusion to a festival celebrated at Rome by the servants, in remembrance of a great piece of service their predecessors had done the Romans, soon after the invasion of the Gauls; the time of celebrating it was in July. It was done in honour of Juno Caprotina according to Macrobius, in his Saturnalia, book i. chap. 2. The free maidens and servants, says the same author, sacrificed on that day to Juno, under a wild fig-tree, called in Latin Caprilicus, in memory of that complaisant virtue which inspired the servant maids to expose themselves to the lust and revenge of the enemy for the preservation of the public honour. For after the Gauls had taken the city, and were driven out again, when things were restored to their former order, the neighbouring nations believing the Romans were very much weakened by the late invasion, siege, and sack, took hold of that opportunity to invade them, choosing Posthumius Livius of Fidenes for their chief, and demanded of the senate, that if they would preserve their city and authority, they should send them their wives and daughters. The senators taking the matter into consideration, could not tell what answer to return. They knew their own weakness and the strength of their enemies; and in this uncertainty a servant-maid called Tutelar, or Philotis. offered to go with some other maids of the same condition to the enemy. This proposal was generally liked, and accordingly the maids were dressed like the wives of the senators, and the daughters of free citizens, and went weeping to put themselves into the hands of the invaders. Livius ordered them to be dispersed into several quarters; and, as they had agreed among themselves, they tempted their new husbands to drink, pretending that day ought to be celebrated as a festival; and when they were almost dead drunk they gave the Romans a signal from the top of a fig-tree to fall on. The latter were encamped not far off; and at this signal they assautled and easily mastered the enemy's camp. putting most of them to the sword. The senate, to reward this important service, ordered that the servants should be made free, that they should have portions paid to them out of the public treasury, and allowed them to wear the ornaments they had taken. The day on which this happy expedition was executed, was called the Caprotine nones, from the wild fig-tree Caprificus, from whence the signa was given to the Romans to sally out and gain so glorious a victory; in remembrance of which action the servants sacrificed every year under this or some other fig-tree. Plutarch relates the same story in the life of Camillus .

7. We may perceive that either ladies were not so nice in managing their hair before their lovers in Ovid 's time, or that the ladies he speaks of were not the nicest. They curled their hair with a bodkin, and sometimes with a hot iron, as in our lays; but they showed more of it than is the fashion with the modern ladies.

8. This and the following similes are taken from country affairs, which have an agreeable effect on this occasion, when the poet speaks of the tendency of every living thing to love.

9. Aonia is taken here for Boeotia , of which Thebes was the capital, where Bacchus was born; and the fury that transports people when they are drunk, is very well compared to that of wild beasts and vipers.

10. Progne, the wife of Tereus, king of Thrace , killed her own daughters and presented them to her husband, because he had ravished her sister Philumela.

11. Especially hens and partridges, which, as Almansor teaches, are wonderfully provocative. Pliny says they are very nourishing if not eaten to excess.

12. The sun sees all things, and nothing can avoid being seen by it, any more than it can dispense with being warmed by it.

13. He means intercepting a rival's letter, and discovering the contents. To intercept letters, and divulge a secret, was a crime punishable by the laws, by banishment, or interdiction of fire and water, by which was understood exile.

14. This is a simile, and shows us it was not lawful to reveal the mysteries of Ceres . Macrobius in the 11th chapter of his first book upon Scipio's dream, writes that the philosopher Numenius, being too curious to know the secrets of hidden things, incurred the wrath of the gods by divulging the Eleusinian mysteries, which were the same with those of Ceres .

15. He proves by the example of Tantalus, that no man should reveal secrets. Tantalus, so Diodorus tells us, was the son of Jupiter and the nymph Plota, equally rich and renowned. He dwelt in Paphlagonia , and was favoured by the gods for the dignity of his birth ; but having been told some of their secrets, and divulging them to mortals, he was thrown into hell for his crime, where his punishment was what Ovid tells us.

16. And who is there so ignorant as not to know that the fops of our age are exactly like those of Ovid's?

17. That is, as this poet elsewhere says, she was swarthy, or had not a good skin and complexion, yet Perseus liked her, delivered her from a sea-monster and married her.

18. The poet means she was very tall; so much so, that it was rather a disadvantage than a beauty, yet Hector thought she was of a moderate height. This princess was the daughtor of Aetion king of Thebes , and Hector's wife. Ovid is not the only author who takes notice of her tallness. Juvenal, in his sixth satire, wherein he rallies a lady of his time, who dressed her head very high, says she affected to have the air of Andromache.

19. Blacker than Illyrian pitch, says Ovid. by which we find Illyria was famous for it. The Greeks called the people who lived above Macedonia and Thrace , as far as Chaonia and Thesprotus to the Danube , Illyrians, according to Appian.

20. He speaks of obscene pictures representing nudities, and different postures, such as Carraccio's and Aretin's in latter days. For there was as bad in old times composed by Elephantis, from which Tiberius took the figures that were painted in his bed-chamber and closet.

21. From this we may perceive our poet abhorred the gallantry too much practiced among the Romans then, and Italians now, as well as in the eastern countries. Indeed, we can find nothing like it in all his writings, which can hardly be said of any of his contemporary poets, or scarcely in one of their authors at all, before or after him, until the Romans embraced Christianity. He says it is true, he is only less touched with that beastly passion; and by that is to be understood he was not touched at all.

22. Ovid , who was advanced a little too far, checks his muse, and bids her give back. It is certain, he ought to have stopped here: but he could not forbear telling what he had in his head. He, however, says but a little, and it is not necessary to explain it: the subject is too well known already. If our moralizing was convenient at any time, it must be now, for fear our imagination should out-run the poet's. As Ovid tells his muse here, so every man should tell himself, even in the most excellent things: when we are arrived at a certain point, we should abstain from saying any more, we should enioy the charms of philosophy retired. and by ourselves : for as the way of the world is now. it is scandalous in some companies to talk of it: and there are men even so stupid, as a ways to turn it in into ridicule. I shall be glad if my author's arguments have the effect he pretends to on this occasion.

23. As he could observe the flights of birds, or the entrails of beasts. Calchas was the son of Thestor, as Homer writes in his lst Iliad, famous for his skill in the art of divination, which he learnt of Apollo.

24. This he speaks by way of metaphor for some lady hard overcome, as if all lovers were warriors.