Rudder nor helm which other barks obey.
These, ruled by reason, their own course essay
Sharing men's mind. Cities and climes they know,
And through the deep sea-gorges cleaving way,
Wrapt in an ambient vapour, to and fro
Sail in a fearless scorn of scathe or overthrow."
The wondrous art of navigation might well seem nothing less than miraculous in an age when all the forces of nature were personified as gods. So, when the great ship Argo carried out her crew of ancient heroes on what was the first voyage of discovery, the fable ran that in her prow was set a beam cut from the oak of Dodona, which had the gift of speech, and gave the voyagers oracles in their distress. Our English Spenser must have had these Phæacian ships in mind when he describes the "gondelay" which bears the enchantress Phædria:—
More swift than swallow sheres the liquid sky,
Withouten oar or pilot it to guide,
Or winged canvass with the wind to fly;
Only she turned a pin, and by-and-by
It cut a way upon the yielding wave,
(Ne cared she her course for to apply)
For it was taught the way which she would have,
And both from rocks and flats itself could wisely save."
As the men of Phæacia excel all others in seamanship, so also do the women in the feminine accomplishments of weaving and embroidery. But they are not, as they freely confess, a nation of warriors: they love the feast and the dance and the song, and care little for what other men call glory. The palace of Alcinous
