Note 48 — PROMETHEUS CHAINED.

The ghost of Argus was doubtless whimsically represented, but probably without the waste of flour that is peculiar to modern stage spectres. Perhaps, as Burges describes, "a mute in a dress resembling a peacock's tail expanded, and with a Pan's pipe slung to his side, which ever and anon he seems to sound; and with a goad in his hand, mounted at one end with a representation of a hornet or gad-fly." But this phantom, like Macbeth's dagger, is supposed to be in the mind only. With a similar idea Apuleius, Apol. p. 315, ed. Elm. invokes upon Æmilianus in the following mild terms: "At ... semper obvias species mortuorum, quidquid umbrarum est usquam, quidquid lemurum, quidquid manium, quidquid larvarum oculis tuis oggerat: omnia noctium occursacula, omnia bustorum formidamina, omnia sepulchrorum terriculamenta, a quibus tamen ævo emerito haud longe abes."