Note 308 — CANTO THE FIFTH.[270]
Reading edition
["'But if my boy with virtue be endued, What harm will beauty do him?' Nay, what good? Say, what avail'd, of old, to Theseus' son, The stern resolve? what to Bellerophon?— O, then did Phaedra redden, then her pride Took fire to be so steadfastly denied! Then, too, did Sthenobaea glow with shame, And both burst forth with unextinguish'd flame!"
Gifford, Juvenal, Sat. x. 473-480.
The adventures of Hippolytus, the son of Theseus, and Bellerophon are well known. They were accused of incontinence, by the women whose inordinate passions they had refused to gratify at the expense of their duty, and sacrificed to the fatal credulity of the husbands of the disappointed fair ones. It is very probable that both the stories are founded on the Scripture account of Joseph and Potiphar's wife.—Footnote, ibid., ed. 1817, ii. pp. 49, 50.]