from whence all things arise and are made, is not the effect of chance, or some necessity, rather than the work of reason and a divine mind. According to them, Archimedes shows more knowledge in representing the motions of the celestial globe than nature does in causing them, though the copy is so infinitely beneath the original. The shepherd in Attius,[1] who had never seen a ship, when he perceived from a mountain afar off the divine vessel of the Argonauts, surprised and frighted at this new object, expressed himself in this manner:
What horrid bulk is that before my eyes,
Which o'er the deep with noise and vigor flies?
It turns the whirlpools up, its force so strong,
And drives the billows as it rolls along.
The ocean's violence it fiercely braves;
Runs furious on, and throws about the waves.
Swiftly impetuous in its course, and loud,
Like the dire bursting of a show'ry cloud;
Or, like a rock, forced by the winds and rain,
Now whirl'd aloft, then plunged into the main.
But hold! perhaps the Earth and Neptune jar,
And fiercely wage an elemental war;
Or Triton with his trident has o'erthrown
His den, and loosen'd from the roots the stone;
The rocky fragment, from the bottom torn,
Is lifted up, and on the surface borne.
At first he is in suspense at the sight of this unknown object; but on seeing the young mariners, and hearing their singing, he says,
Like sportive dolphins, with their snouts they roar;[2]
and afterward goes on,
Loud in my ears methinks their voices ring,
As if I heard the God Sylvanus sing.
As at first view the shepherd thinks he sees something inanimate and insensible, but afterward, judging by more
- ↑ An old Latin poet, commended by Quintilian for the gravity of his sense and his loftiness of style.
- ↑ The shepherd is here supposed to take the stem or beak of the ship for the mouth, from which the roaring voices of the sailors came. Rostrum is here a lucky word to put in the mouth of one who never saw a ship before, as it is used for the beak of a bird, the snout of a beast or fish, and for the stem of a ship.
