Book III
MASSILIA
69
Celænae's fields which mourned of yore the gift
Of Pallas,[1] and the vengeance of the god,
All draw the sword; and those from Marsyas' flood
First swift, then doubling backwards with the stream 240
Of sinuous Meander: and from where
Pactolus leaves his golden source and leaps
From Earth permitting; and with rival wealth
Rich Hermus parts the meads. Nor stayed the bands
Of Troy, but (doomed as in old time) they joined
Pompeius' fated camp: nor held them back
The fabled past, nor Cæsar's claimed descent
From their Iülus. Syrian peoples came
From palmy Idumea and the walls
Of Ninus great of yore; from windy plains 250
Of far Damascus and from Gaza's hold,
From Sidon's courts enriched with purple dye,
And Tyre oft trembling with the shaken earth.
All these led on by Cynosura's light[2]
Furrow their certain path to reach the war.
Phœnicians first (if story be believed)
Dared to record in characters; for yet
Papyrus was not fashioned, and the priests
Of Memphis, carving symbols upon walls
Of mystic sense (in shape of beast or fowl) 260
Preserved the secrets of their magic art.
Next Persean Tarsus and high Taurus' groves
Are left deserted, and Corycium's cave;
Of Pallas,[1] and the vengeance of the god,
All draw the sword; and those from Marsyas' flood
First swift, then doubling backwards with the stream 240
Of sinuous Meander: and from where
Pactolus leaves his golden source and leaps
From Earth permitting; and with rival wealth
Rich Hermus parts the meads. Nor stayed the bands
Of Troy, but (doomed as in old time) they joined
Pompeius' fated camp: nor held them back
The fabled past, nor Cæsar's claimed descent
From their Iülus. Syrian peoples came
From palmy Idumea and the walls
Of Ninus great of yore; from windy plains 250
Of far Damascus and from Gaza's hold,
From Sidon's courts enriched with purple dye,
And Tyre oft trembling with the shaken earth.
All these led on by Cynosura's light[2]
Furrow their certain path to reach the war.
Phœnicians first (if story be believed)
Dared to record in characters; for yet
Papyrus was not fashioned, and the priests
Of Memphis, carving symbols upon walls
Of mystic sense (in shape of beast or fowl) 260
Preserved the secrets of their magic art.
Next Persean Tarsus and high Taurus' groves
Are left deserted, and Corycium's cave;
- ↑ Probably the flute thrown away by Pallas, which Marsyas picked up when he challenged Apollo to a musical contest. For his presumption the god had him flayed alive.
- ↑ That is, the Little Bear, by which the Phœnicians steered, while the Greeks steered by the Great Bear. (See Sir G. Lewis's 'Astronomy of the Ancients,' p, 447.) In Book VIII., line 193, the pilot declares that he steers by the pole star itself, which is much nearer to the Little than to the Great Bear, and is (I believe) reckoned as one of the stars forming the group known by that name. He may have been a Phœnician.
