Page:The Pharsalia of Lucan; (IA cu31924026485809).pdf/78
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
54
PHARSALIA
Book II
Here of oldFled Cretan settlers when the dusky sail[1]Spread the false message of the hero dead; 690Here, where Hesperia, curving as a bow,Draws back her coast, a little tongue of landShuts in with bending horns the sounding main.Yet insecure the spot, unsafe in storm,Were it not sheltered by an isle on whichThe Adriatic billows dash and fall,And tempests lose their strength: on either handA craggy cliff opposing breaks the galeThat beats upon them, while the ships withinHeld by their trembling cables ride secure. 700Hence to the mariner the boundless deepLies open, whether for Corcyra's portHe shapes his sails, or for Illyria's shore,And Epidamnus facing to the mainIonian. Here, when raging in his mightFierce Adria whelms in foam Calabria's coast,When clouds tempestuous veil Ceraunus' height,The sailor finds a haven. When the chiefCould find no hope in battle on the soilHe now was quitting, and the lofty Alps 710Forbad Iberia, to his son he spake,The eldest scion of that noble stock:'Search out the far recesses of the earth,'Nile and Euphrates, wheresoe'er the fame'Of Magnus lives, where, through thy father's deeds,'The people tremble at the name of Rome.'Lead to the sea again the pirate bands;
- ↑ Theseus, on returning from his successful exploit in Crete, hoisted by mistake black sails instead of white, thus spreading false intelligence of disaster.