The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies (49 page)

7
. Tyre was the most important city in Phoenicia, located in modern-day Lebanon. It was settled as early as the thirteenth century
BCE
and was sacked by Alexander the Great in
332
BCE
.

8
. For Asmodai, see note
9
to “The Holiness of Azédarac.” Set is, in Egyptian myth, an animal-headed god, the god of darkness, night, and evil, and the brother, opponent, and slayer of Osiris.

9
. Ombos is Greek for thunderstorm.

10
. See note
3
above.

11
. Hecatompylos means hundred-gated in Greek; it is usually an attribute of the city of Thebes.

12
. Achernar is the brightest star in the constellation Eridanus.

13
. Narcissus, in Greek myth, is a lovely boy who, as punishment for the rejection of the love of Echo, fell in love with his own image as seen in a pool of water and wasted away.

14
. In Greek myth, Typhon is a monster with a hundred serpent heads; he was defeated by Zeus and cast into Tartarus; Enceladus was a giant who battled with the Olympian gods.

15
. Aidennic is the adjectival form of Aidenn, the Arabic equivalent of Eden.

16
. Antenora refers to a section of Cocytus (line
365
), the ninth and lowest circle of Hell in Dante's
Inferno,
where traitors to there are found (it is named after Antenor, an elder in Homer's
Iliad
who recommended that Helen be returned to the Greeks; later tradition made him a traitor to the Trojans). Cocytus was, in Greek myth, one of the rivers of the Greek underworld.

17
. Babel is a city in the valley of Shinar where, according to the Bible, the descendants of Noah built a tower that sought to reach the heavens. God, angered by this temerity, created a confusion of languages so that the builders could not understand one another (see Genesis
9
:
1
–
9
).

18
. An Afrit is a devil in the Islamic religion.

19
. Rutilicus is a variable star in the constellation Hercules.

20
. Alioth is a star in the constellation Ursa Major.

21
. Saiph is a third-magnitude star in Orion. A Kobold (line
20
) (usually not capitalized) is, in Germanic myth, a familiar spirit of a tricky disposition.

22
. Paphian refers to Paphos, a city on the coast of Cyprus where Aphrodite was reputed to have been born from the sea-foam; it is also the site of a noted temple to Aphrodite. Proserpine is an Italian goddess whom the Romans identified with the Greek goddess Persephone, queen of the underworld.

23
. Cythera is an island off the coast of Greece in the Aegean Sea, where Aphrodite (the goddess of love) is said to have landed after being born from the sea-foam (for that reason Aphrodite is sometimes referred to as Cytherea).

24
. Polaris is a double or triple star in the constellation Ursa Major situated near the north pole of the heavens. It is currently the star around which all the other stars in the heavens appear to revolve.

25
. Lar is the tutelar deity of a household in ancient Rome (almost always in the plural,
Lares
).

26
. Providence, Rhode Island, was HPL's home for most of his life.

27
. Arkham was a fictitious town in New England first mentioned in “The Picture in the House” (
1920
) and featured in many other tales.

28
. A reference to the story “The Silver Key” (
1926
), where Randolph Carter finds such a key and uses it to return to his childhood.

29
. Ulthar is a city invented in “The Cats of Ulthar” (
1920
); Pnath is a realm invented in the story “The Doom That Came to Sarnath” (
1919
) and used in several later stories.

30
. Kadath is a realm first cited in “The Other Gods” (
1921
) and used in several later tales, notably
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
(
1926
–
27
), although CAS had not yet read the short novel at the time he wrote this poem.

31
. See note
1
to “Ubbo-Sathla.”

32
. See note
3
to “The Holiness of Azédarac.”

33
. Anteros refers to a god, cited only rarely in extant Greek literature, who either avenged slighted love (
eros
) or struggled against Eros, the god of love. CAS appears to use the name here in the latter sense. See his poem “Anteros” (
CPT
2
.
450
).

34
. Polarian is an adjectival form of Polaris (see note
24
above).

35
. Canopic is an adjectival form of Canopus (see note
1
to “Xeethra”).