The Cruise of the Branwen

THE CRUISE OF THE BRANWEN before 6.30 P.M. They forget that the stars had changed in their aspect since Hesiod wrote (Op. et Di. 504-7) early in the eighth century B.c. ; and they evidently did not realise why Homer, writing before Hesiod, applied the epithet'' late-setting'' to Arcturus (or Bootes) in the passage I have just quoted from Od. v. 272. The late time when this brilliant star set in the spring of Odysseus's Mediterranean was quite unmistakable, and the wily mariner is therefore rightly described as having kept his eye fixed on it as carefully as he kept the Bear on his left, to determine his voyage eastwards from the Pillars of Hercules to Corfu.* One more example I must quote from the Phre– nician log-books, which have been passed on so carefully from one thalassocracy to another that many of Homer's descriptions can be followed in every detail from the " Mediterranean Pilot " in every English eaptain's chart-room. And this instance shows in a very curious manner that if it is advisable for Homeric editors to take their work occasionally into the open air, it is no less essential for Admiralty compilers to have an occasional knowledge of the Greek in which their far-off originals were written. Scala Nova, on the coast of Asia Minor, is the modern port for Ephesus, and from it a camel-track leads up to the railway by which the city of Diana can be ap– proached from the mainland. The captain who desires to make the harhour, if he reads his official advice will find he is warned to sail for the hill • Paley's "Hesiod," ed. 1883, reprints Dr. Pearson's paper on this point in his Appendix. 46