1. The lines are a translation of Ronsard’s poem that begins ‘Vulcan! En faveur de moi […]’, which is itself based on two Anacreon Odes (XVII and XVIII).

2. In the Iliad, XI, 631–6 (translated by Richard Lattimore), Nestor’s cup was described as ‘beautifully wrought […] set with golden nails’. Nestor was the grandson of Neptune.

3. Rochester refers to the capture of Maastricht, capital of the province of Limburg in Holland, by the French after a siege that lasted almost a month. ‘Yarmouth Leaguer’ (a leaguer in the seventeenth century was a military camp) refers to another operation against the Dutch in 1673, during which Prince Rupert decided to disembark the English sailors on board his ship at Yarmouth, and go on to tackle the Dutch fleet without them.

4. Sir Sidrophel was the silly astrologer in Butler’s Hudibras, Part II, canto 3 (1664).