furias agitantur equae spatioque remota/Per loca dividuos amne sequuntur equos.’
263, 264. Cf. Marlowe, Hero and Leander: ‘For as a hot proud horse highly disdains/To have his head controll’d, but breaks the reins,/Spits forth the ringled bit, and with his hoves/Checks the submissive ground.’
279. Curvets. A term of the manege or science of equitation. A ‘curvet’ is a movement made by a horse, when he raises his fore legs together, and then, while he is bringing them down, raises his hind legs without touching the ground.
286. Caparisons or trapping. Richly embroidered dresses and embellishments used in decorating horses, especially in tourneys and jousts.
289–292. Possibly an allusion to Nicon, ‘the famous painter of Greece, who, according to Topsell (Four-footed Beasts, 222), ‘when he had most curiously limbed a horses perfection, and failed in no part of nature or art, but only in placing hairs under his eye, for that only fault he received a disgraceful blame.’ (Quoted by Pooler.)
295–298. Round-hoofed, etc. Several sources have been proposed for the description of the points of a fine horse: Sylvester’s translation of Du Bartas, Blundevill’s Arte of Ryding, Googe’s Foure Bookes of Husbandry, Topsell’s Four-footed Beasts. Prof. Carleton Brown (The Library, 3rd Ser., No. 10, vol. III, 182 ff.) has shown that for such descriptions there was a long literary tradition going back to Roman and Greek times. Cf. Dodge (Neil), Modern Philology, IX, 211 ff.; Law (R. A.) Modern Lang. Notes, XXVIII, 93.
303. To bid the wind a base. He prepares to challenge the wind to strive for superiority in speed. From the game ‘base’ or ‘prisoner’s base.’ ‘To bid base’ was a frequent locution. Cf. Two Gentlemen of Verona, I. ii. 97.
329–336. Cf. Lodge, Glaucus and Scylla: ‘Themis
