o reported to have been able to change himself into any animal or tree he pleased (Eustathius, on Hom. Od. xi.285, pp. 1685ff.; Scholiast on Hom. Od. xi.286).
158. According to Homer (Hom. Od. 3.452), the wife of Nestor was Eurydice, daughter of Clymenus.
159. Compare Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 175.
160. Compare Hom. Od. 11.258ff.; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 175.
161. As to the mode in which Melampus learned the language of birds, and with it the art of divination, from serpents in return for the kindness which he had shown to their species, see Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.118; compare Eustathius on Hom. Od. xi.292, p. 1685; Pliny, Nat. Hist. x.137. Helenus and Cassandra are said to have acquired their prophetic power in like manner. As children they were left overnight in a temple of Apollo, and in the morning serpents were found licking their ears. See Scholiast on Hom. Il. vii.44; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron, Introd. vol. i. pp. 266ff., ed. C. G. Müller. Polybius said that perhaps we and all men might have understood the language of all animals if a serpent had washed our ears (Porphyry, De abstinentia iii.4). In the folk-tales of many lands, men are said to have obtained a knowledge of the language of animals from serpents, either by eating the flesh of serpents or in other ways. See Frazer, “The Language of Animals,” The Archaeological Review, i. (1888), pp. 166ff.
162. The following romantic tale of the wooing of Pero is told also by the Scholiast on Hom. Od. xi.287. It is repeated also in substantially the same form by Eustathius on Hom. Od. 11.292, p. 1685. Compare Scholiast on Theocritus iii.43; Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.118; Prop. ii.3.51ff. A summary of the story, shorn of its miraculous elements, is given by Homer (Hom. Od. 11.287-297, Hom. Od. 15.225-238) and Paus. 4.36.3). See Frazer's Appendix to Apollodorus, “Melampus and the kine of Phylacus.”
163. According to the Scholiast on Hom. Od. xi.287, 290 and Eustathius on Hom. Od. xi.292, p. 1685, the tree was not an oak but a wild pear-tree (acherdos).
164. Compare Apollod. E.3.20, with the note.
165. See below, Apollod. 2.2.2; Diod. 2.68.4; Paus. 2.18.4.
166. Compare below, Apollod. 3.7.2.
167. See Hom. Il. 2.565ff.
168. See below, Apollod. 3.6.4.
169. See below, Apollod. 3.10.4.
170. Compare Hyginus, Fab. 50, 51.
171. That is, Persephone.
172. This pathetic story is immortalized by Euripides in his noble tragedy Alcestis, happily still extant. Compare Zenobius, Cent. i.18, which to a certain extent agrees verbally with this passage of Apollodorus. The tale of Admetus and Alcestis has its parallel in history. Once when Philip II of Spain had fallen ill and seemed like to die, his fourth wife, Anne of Austria, “in her distress, implored the Almighty to spare a life so important to the welfare of the kingdom and of the church, and instead of it to accept the sacrifice of her own. Heaven, says the chronicler, as the result showed, listened to her prayer. The king recovered; and the queen fell ill of a disorder which in a few days terminated fatally.” So they laid the dead queen to her last rest, with the kings of Spain, in the gloomy pile of the Escurial among the wild and barren mountains of Castile; but there was no Herakles to complete the parallel with the Greek legend by restoring her in the bloom of life and beauty to the arms of her husband. See W. H. Prescott, History of the Reign of Philip the Second, bk. vi. chap. 2, at the end.
173. For the story of Pelias and Jason, see Pind. P. 4.73(129)ff., with the Scholia; Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.5ff.; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron i.175; Hyginus, Fab. 12, 13; Serv. Verg. Ecl. 4.34; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. iii.516. The present passage of Apollodorus is copied almost literally, but as usual without acknowledgment, by Zenobius, Cent. iv.92. It was the regular custom of Aetolian warriors to go with the left foot shod and the right foot unshod. See Macrobius, Sat. v.18- 21, quoting Euripides and Aristotle; Scholiast on Pind. P. 4.133. So the two hundred men who broke through the