Page:The Pharsalia of Lucan; (IA cu31924026485809).pdf/95
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Book III
MASSILIA
71
Low down the Pole star, and Bootes runsHasting to set, part seen, his nightly course;And Ethiopians from that southern landWhich lies without the circuit of the stars,Did not the Bull with curving hoof advancedO'erstep the limit. From that mountain zoneThey come, where rising from a common fountEuphrates flows and Tigris, and did earthPermit, were joined with either name; but now 300While like th' Egyptian flood Euphrates spreadsHis fertilising water, Tigris firstDrawn down by earth in covered depths is plungedAnd holds a secret course; then born againFlows on unhindered to the Persian sea.But warlike Parthia wavered 'twixt the chiefs,Content to have made them two;[1] while Scythia's hordesDipped fresh their darts in poison, whom the streamOf Bactros bounds and vast Hyrcanian woods.Hence springs that rugged nation swift and fierce, 310Descended from the Twins' great charioteer.[2]Nor failed Sarmatia, nor the tribes that dwellBy richest Phasis, and on Halys' banks,Which sealed the doom of Crœsus' king; nor whereFrom far Rhipæan ranges Tanais flows,On either hand a quarter of the world,Asia and Europe, and in winding courseCarves out a continent; nor where the straitIn boiling surge pours to the Pontic deepMæotis' waters, rivalling the pride 320Of those Herculean pillar-gates that guardThe entrance to an ocean. Thence with hair