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Chapter 4
Mrs. Roper's Boarding-House

Apollos and hobbeldehoys
Trollope devotes the first pages of Chapter 4 to a description of Apollos and hobbledehoys.  Apollo is the god of prophecy, divination, music, and the arts and also is referred to as the god of light. Apollo is usually portrayed as the ideal of young male beauty.  Trollope describes Apollos as fruit that have had support in order to have ripened.  A hobbledehoy ripens at a slower pace.  Trollope describes John Eames as a man who is not constantly admired.  He contrasts John, a hobbledehoy, with Apollo, saying that hobbledehoys "do not come forth into the world as Apollos."  Apollos, according to Trollope, also are better socially and have "much social intercourse."  However, Trollope does acknowledge that John Eames has friends. Trollope is comparing John and Crosbie in this passage as the two suitors for Lily Dale. See commentary for Chapter 2 for Crosbie as Apollo.
Cassell's Dictionary of Classical Mythology  [KD]

Apollo, hobbledehoys, and the Dale girls
This passage refers to the Dale sisters "who are not themselves unaccustomed to the grace of Apollo."  Trollope points out that the Dale girls are dear friends of John Eames and that it is not unusual for pretty girls to befriend hobbledehoys.  Trollope, using litotes, also states that the girls are also used to the company of Apollos.  [KD]

John may be like Apollo
Shortly after Trollope's extended contrast of hobbledehoys and Apollos, the reader finds that John has been writing poetry about his love, Lily Dale.  Apollo is the god of music and arts, so perhaps Trollope is saying that Johnny Eames is a bit like Apollo after all.  [KD]

Apollos in their splendid cars
In this allusion, John acknowledges to himself that there are Apollos to take girls such as Lily Dale away in splendid cars, or rather chariots.  [KD]

Mr. and Mrs. Lupex
In Chapter 4 we are introduced to the Lupexes, whose name resembles the Latin word for wolf, lupis.  The feminine form of lupis, lupa, can also be used to describe a prostitute. Trollope is perhaps implying that the Lupexes are wolf-like and that Mrs. Lupex is not a respectable woman.  The association of wolfs and prostitutes hearkens back to myths about the founding of Rome, when Romulus and Remus supposedly were reared by a she-wolf or lupa.  Livy gives two explanations of the story of Romulus and Remus in Book 1 of the History of Rome.  He reported that an actual wolf could have nursed the infants or rather a man with an unchaste or lupa wife reared the brothers.
OED  [KD]

The divine Amelia Roper
Trollope describes Amelia as divine which implies she is goddess-like.  Trollope is being funny here in that, as we later learn, Amelia is anything but goddess-like. This notion is also fitting because she is able to control Johnny Eames much like a gods control humans.  [KD]

Chapter 5
About L.D.

Apollo Crosbie
Trollope has now begun to refer to Crosbie as "Apollo Crosbie."  See commentary for Chapter 2. [KD]

Platonic friendship
"Cradell, however, seemed to think that there was no danger.  His little affair with Mrs. Lupex was platonic and safe."  See commentary from Framley Parsonage Chapter 16.  [KD]

Chapter 6
Beautiful Days

Crosbie as Apollo
In this chapter, Trollope describes Crosbie as Apollo.  He enumerates Crosbie's characteristics that make him like Apollo:  "He was handsome, graceful, clever, self-confident, and always cheerful when [Lily] asked him to be cheerful."  Later in the passage, Trollope proclaims that Bell had almost fallen for this new Apollo, after convincing herself that she did not love Dr. Crofts.  [KD]

No first shadow of Love's wing thrown across pure tablets of her bosom
Trollope in this reference is talking about Lily Dale.  This quote means that Love or Cupid's wing had not entered her heart.  The phrase "tablets of the mind" comes from Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, line 856 which says: "write it in the tablets of your mind."  Prometheus says this to Io just before he prophesizes to her about her future adventures.  Therefore the tablets of one's mind is the place where one would keep important information.  Trollope changes the tablet's of the mind to tablet's of the heart for Lily Dale.
http://www.bartleby.com/8/4/3.html  [KD]

Paying Homage
In this reference, Trollope says that Apollo or Crosbie transferred his "distant homage" from the older Dale, Bell, to the younger, Lily. [KD]

The Dale girls know Crosbie is an Apollo
Lily Dale again compares Crosbie to Apollo.  See commentary for Chapter 2.  [KD]

Warmed by a generous god
After Amelia and Mrs. Lupex make punch, Johnny Eames is warmed by the "generous god."  This god is most likely Dionysus, the god of wine and intoxication.  He is also the god of ritual madness and the god who represented a transformed identity in theatre.  After Johnny is warmed, he declares his passion for Amelia Roper.  Trollope is showing John in a transformed state, altered by the god of impersonation.  [KD]

 A god or beast
After John Eames reveals his love to Lily, Trollope says that in that situation a man "shows himself either as a beast or as a god."  We can assume that the gentle John shows himself as a god in a classical sense.  [KD]

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