The End of the Fifth Book
1 This simile likewise Virgil learns of him.
2 How far a heavenly horse took at one reach or stroke in galloping or running; wherein Homer’s mind is far from being expressed in his interpreters, all taking it for how far Deities were borne from the earth, when instantly they came down to earth: τόσσον ἐπιθρώσκουσι, etc. tantun uno saltu conficiunt, vel, tantum subsultim progrediuntur, deorum altizoni equi, etc. uno being understood, and the horse’s swiftness highly expressed. The sense, otherwise, is senseless and contradictory.
3 ᾽Αμβροσίην is the original word, which Scaliger taxeth very learnedly, asking how the horse came by it on those banks, when the text tells him Simois produced it; being willing to express by hyperbole the delicacy of that soil. If not, I hope the Deities could ever command it.