Note 408 — BOOK VI.

The description of Triton, who, as Fanshaw says—

is in the style of the classics. His parentage is differently related. Hesiod makes him the son of Neptune and Amphitrité. By Triton, in the physical sense of the fable, is meant the noise, and by Salacé, the mother by some ascribed to him, the salt of the ocean. The origin of the fable of Triton, it is probable, was founded on the appearance of a sea animal, which, according to some ancient naturalists, in the upward parts resembles the human figure. Pausanias relates a wonderful story of a monstrously large one, which often came ashore on the meadows of Bœotia. Over his head was a kind of finny cartilage, which, at a distance, appeared like hair; the body covered with brown scales; the nose and ears like the human; the mouth of a dreadful width, jagged with the teeth of a panther; the eyes of a greenish hue; the hands divided into fingers, the nails of which were crooked, and of a shelly substance. This monster, whose extremities ended in a tail like a dolphin's, devoured both men and beasts as they chanced in his way. The citizens of Tanagra, at last, contrived his destruction. They set a large vessel full of wine on the sea shore. Triton got drunk with it, and fell into a profound sleep, in which condition the Tanagrians beheaded him, and afterwards, with great propriety, hung up his body in the temple of Bacchus; where, says Pausanias, it continued a long time.