Milton alludes to all these deities in the song at the conclusion of “Comus”:
“... Sabrina fair, Listen and appear to us, In name of great Oceanus; By the earth-shaking Neptune’s mace, And Tethys’ grave, majestic pace, By hoary Nereus’ wrinkled look, And the Carpathian wizard’s hook, [Footnote: Proteus] By scaly Triton’s winding shell, And old soothsaying Glaucus’ spell, By Leucothea’s lovely hands, And her son who rules the strands. By Thetis’ tinsel-slippered feet, And the songs of Sirens sweet;” etc.
Armstrong, the poet of the “Art of preserving Health,” under the inspiration of Hygeia, the goddess of health, thus celebrates the Naiads. Paeon is a name both of Apollo and Aesculapius.
“Come, ye Naiads! to
the fountains lead!
Propitious maids! the
task remains to sing
Your gifts (so Paeon,
so the powers of Health
Command), to praise
your crystal element.
O comfortable streams!
with eager lips
And trembling hands
the languid thirsty quaff
New life in you; fresh
vigor fills their veins.
No warmer cups the rural
ages knew,
None warmer sought the
sires of humankind;
Happy in temperate peace
their equal days
Felt not the alternate
fits of feverish mirth
And sick dejection;
still serene and pleased,
Blessed with divine
immunity from ills,
Long centuries they
lived; their only fate
Was ripe old age, and
rather sleep than death.”
THE CAMENAE
By this name the Latins designated the Muses, but included under it also some other deities, principally nymphs of fountains. Egeria was one of them, whose fountain and grotto are still shown. It was said that Numa, the second king of Rome, was favored by this nymph with secret interviews, in which she taught him those lessons of wisdom and of law which he imbodied in the institutions of his rising nation. After the death of Numa the nymph pined away and was changed into a fountain.
Byron, in “Childe Harold,” Canto iv., thus alludes to Egeria and her grotto:
“Here didst thou dwell,
in this enchanted cover,
Egeria! all thy heavenly
bosom beating
For the far footsteps
of thy mortal lover;
The purple midnight
veiled that mystic meeting
With her most starry
canopy;” etc.
Tennyson, also, in his “Palace of Art,” gives us a glimpse of the royal lover expecting the interview:
“Holding one hand against
his ear,
To
list a footfall ere he saw
The wood-nymph, stayed
the Tuscan king to hear
Of
wisdom and of law.”