Kitap 10
To lavish, and his breast was shamed of war
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Waged with his son-in-law, from whose defeat
His spoils were meagre, and he longed to find
A cause of battle with the Pharian realm.
When of the banquet and of wine and feast
They wearied and their pleasure found an end,
Caesar drew out in colloquy the night
Thus with Achoreus, on the highest couch
With linen ephod as a priest begirt:
'O thou devoted to all sacred rites,
'Loved by the gods, as proves thy length of days,
'Tell, if thou wilt, whence sprang the Pharian race;
'How lie their lands, the manners of their tribes,
'The form and worship of their deities.
'Expound the sculptures on your ancient fanes:
'Reveal your gods if willing to be known:
'If to th' Athenian sage your fathers taught
'Their mysteries, who worthier than I
' To bear in trust the secrets of the world?
' True, by the rumour of my kinsman's flight
' Here was I drawn; yet also by your fame:
' And even in the midst of war's alarms
' The stars and heavenly spaces have I conned;
'Nor shall Eudoxus' year The calendar introduced by Caesar, in B.C. 45, was founded on the Egyptian or solar year. (See Herodotus, ii., 4.) Eudoxus seems to have dealt with this year and to have corrected it. He is probably alluded to by Virgil, 'Eclogue' iii., 41. excel mine own.
' But though such ardour burns within my breast,
' Such zeal to know the truth, yet my chief wish
' To learn the source of your mysterious flood
' Through ages hidden : give me certain hope
' To see the fount of Nile-and civil war
' I quit for ever.' He spake, and then the priest:
' The secrets, Caesar, of our mighty sires Herodotus was less fortunate. For he says, ' Concerning the nature of the river I was not able to gain any information either from the priests or from others.' (ii., 19.)
' Kept from the common people until now
' I hold it right to utter. Some may deem
' That silence on these wonders of the earth
' Were greater piety. But to the gods
' I hold it grateful that their handiwork
' And sacred edicts should be known to men.
' A different power by the primal law,
' Each star possesses: It was supposed that the Sun and Moon and the planets (Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, and Venus) were points which restrained the motion of the sky in its revolution. (See Book VI., 576.) these alone control
' The movement of the sky, with adverse force
