Ginn & Co. from other of their publications, have, with the kind consent of the authors of those works, in some instances been adapted by me to suit the present purpose. […] 49 But the theory advanced by Lachmann is still of great value: that the poem consists of a number of ancient ballads of various age and uneven worth; and that, about 1210, a collector, mending some of the ballads to suit himself, strung them together on a thread of his own invention. […] But his suit was frequently of no avail, for though good-natured, he was not prepossessing; his hoofs and horns did not enhance his comeliness.

First he told his passion to her nurse, and begged her as she loved her foster-child to favor his suit. […] Thetis, the daughter of Nereus and Doris, was so beautiful that Jupiter himself sought her in marriage; but having learned from Prometheus the Titan that Thetis should bear a son who should be greater than his father, Jupiter desisted from his suit and decreed that Thetis should be the wife of a mortal.