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Virgil
The Aeneid, like the Iliad and the Odyssey, was an icon, a mountain top, a
Pantheon that all poets worshipped, and Coleridge's classical training would
have included the book in school, as well.
Publius Virgilius Maro
When he died, he felt the work was not finished, and he asked his friends to burn the manuscript, but they refused. The story of the founding of Rome is dramatic history, and effective propaganda for Augustus, as the prince of peace. Lowes assumes that Coleridge recalls Virgil's reference to the river Alpheus going under the ground, and under the sea, to rise up in a fountain called Arethusa. In Dryden's view, this was a love story. For Lowes, who prefers a more literal translation, the tale is a geography lesson. So here is another story of Alph, running hidden under the sea, and coming up elsewhere. Aeneid, Book III, lines 694-696. |
 Other sources
William Bartram |