Chapter 30

“Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides, So many _mermaids_, tended her i’ th’ eyes, And made their bends adornings. At the helm A seeming mermaid steers.”

I have the greatest difficulty in believing that Shakespeare wrote the first “mermaids.” He never, I think, would have so weakened by useless anticipation the fine image immediately following. The epithet “seeming” becomes so extremely improper after the whole number had been positively called “so many mermaids.”

“Timon Of Athens.”