[1] Panegyris; pl., panegyreis,—from the Greek [], —signifies the meeting of a whole people to worship at a common sanctuary or participate in a national religious festival. The assemblies at the Olympic, Pythian, Nemean, or Isthmian games were in this sense panegyreis. See Smith's Dict. Antiq.—(Trans.)
[2] Conculcatrice des peuples. From the Latin conculcare, to trample under foot: therefore, the epithet literally signifies the "Trampler of nations." (Trans.)
[3] The Greeks and Romans usually termed such figures Hermæ or Termini. Caryatides were, strictly, entire figures of women.—(Trans.)
[4] Does not this suggest the lines which DeQuincey so much admired?—
"A wilderness of building, sinking far,
And self-withdrawn into a wondrous depth
Far sinking into splendor, without end.
Fabric it seemed of diamond, and of gold,
With alabaster domes and silver spires,
And blazing terrace upon terrace, high
Uplifted. Here serene pavilions bright,
In avenues disposed; their towers begirt
With battlements that on their restless fronts
Bore stars."
[5] John Martin, the English painter, whose creations were unparalleled in breadth and depth of composition. His pictures seem to have made a powerful impression upon the highly imaginative author of these Romances. There is something in these descriptions of antique architecture that suggests the influence of such pictured fantasies as Martin's "Seventh Plague;" "The Heavenly City;" and perhaps, especially, the famous "Pandemonium," with its infernal splendor, in Martin's illustrations to "Paradise Lost."—(Trans.)
[6] Antique castanets.—(Trans.)
[7] "La Morte Amoureuse."
[8] Ici gît Clarimonde
Qui fut de son vivant
La plus belle du monde.
The broken beauty of the lines is unavoidably lost in the translation.
[9] Beauty-spot.