COMMENTARY NOTES

Castalides I. e., the Muses, who used to haunt the fountain of Castalia on Mt. Parnassus.
19 As Romans used white stones to mark lucky days on their calendars.
36 If I am right and this poem was written as a performance-piece, nudo no doubt means “unadorned.”
61 Palinurus (uncapitalized in the printed text) looks problematic: may have to do with the use of this adjective in its Greek form at Martial III.lxxviii.2, where it means “pissing again,” in which case might mean “rainy.” But this kind of humor seems otherwise foreign to Leland’s poetry, so more likely it refers to Aeneas’ helmsmen Palinurus, who went to sleep and fell overboard, in which case it means “sleepy, sluggish.” For this reason I have capitalized the word.
83 When the Romans encountered the Celtic Britons, the Atrebates were occupying the region of Hampshire, West Sussex and Surrey, and the Cateuchlani (or Cattivellauni) occupied a territory which approximately corresponded to the later kingdom of South Mercia, between the Thames and the Nene.
98 Napaeae A kind of Nymph who occupied secluded vallies.
143 Itiner is an archaic form of iter, used by such early Roman writers as Ennius and Plautus.
157 Tithon was Aurora’s aged consort in mythology.