Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides, So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes. ...

De magis et veneficis, &c. Nereides.

But the same tone runs through Goethe's classical "Walpurgis Night," where the old human "twelve gods," the antitypes and the friends of men, in whom our forefathers delighted, have vanished utterly, and given place to semi-physical Nereides, Tritons, Telchines, Psylli, and Seismos himself.

Her ladies and gentlewomen also, the fairest of them were apparelled like the Nymphs Nereides (which are the Myrmaids of the waters) and like the Graces; some steering the helm, others tending the tackle and ropes of the barge, out of the which there came a wonderful passing sweet savour of perfumes, that perfumed the wharf's side, pestered with innumerable multitudes of people.

NEREIDES, nymphs of the Mediterranean Sea, daughters of Nereus, 60 in number, and attendant on Poseidon.

NEREUS, the god of the Mediterranean Sea, the son of Pontus and Gaia, the husband of Doris, and father of the Nereides, represented as a sage, venerable old man.