Euboic Sea

P. L. 2. 546. The water between Euboea and the mainland, at the foot of Mount CEta, The aly. Euphrates (A yrian Flood). 384, 436. P. L. 1. 420; 12. 114; P. R. 3. 272, (See also As syria, Balsara, Tigris.) A great river of Asia, rising in the mountains of Armenia, and flowing southward until it unites with the Tigris to empty It forms the western boundary of Mesopointo the Persian Gulf. Milton twice mentions the Euphrates as the northeastern tamia. limit of the realm of the Jews (P. L. 1. 419-421; P. R. 3. 384). Both pa ages suggest the verse: “Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates.” (Genesis 15. 18.) The adjective “old,” which Milton applies to Euphrates, is probably equivalent to the “great” of this and other verses. Spenser calls the Euphrates “immortal.” (P. Q. 4. 11. 21.) Compare “that ancient river, the river Kishon.” (Judges 5. 21.) The Euphrates is one of (Genesis 2. 14; P. L. 4. 231-5.) The the four rivers of Eden. two rivers of P. R. 3. 255 are the Tigris and Euphrates. In describing them as flowing from the side of one mountain Milton suggests the tradition recorded by Dante in the words: ” In front of them meseemed I saw Euphrates and Tigris i ue from one fount, and, like friends, separate slowly.” {Purgatory Z2>. 112-114.) Strabo describes them as having their origin in the same mountain, by which he means, not a single peak, but the range of Taurus, for the sources of the streams are, he says, 2500 stades distant from one another. (11.12.3.) Healso tells of the winding course of the Euphrates, as do Solinus, and Mela; the latter says that if it were not for the mountains in its way it would flow into the Mediterranean. (3. 8.) The picture given by Milton of Me so pot am i a, the “Fair Champaign with le rivers interveind” {P. R. 3. 257), is a composite of many descriptions, the chief of which among the ancients, addition in to the geographers already named, are the Bible, Hero dot us (1. 178200, etc.), Xenophon {Anabasis 1 and 2), Diodorus (2 and 17), and Pliny (6. 26, 27). The “le rivers interveind” are the canals of which Pliny writes, and the ” barren desert fountainle and dry” is described in the Anabasis 1.5. One may also compare with P. R. 3. 259-60, and with the descriptions of the rivers, the following from Dionysius Periegetes: “Eastward from the craggy mountains the stream of the huge Euphrates River appears, which indeed from the Armenian mountain first goes far southward, but again having bent its spirals and having pa ed eastward through the midst of Babylon, disgorges into the swelling of the Persian Gulf its swift foam, pa ing by Teredon at Tigris, its Beyond very mouth. fair-flowing, swiftest of all this to rivers, the east, the hurries along in equal stream, distant as great a space as in journeying seven days a strong and agile traveler would accomplish. … It goes down in a sharper current than Euphrates, its course its and no other river seems swifter than it. All the land between Surely Tigris and Euphrates the inhabitants call Me so pot am i a. a herdsman of cattle would not blame that country, nor he who, celebrating with the syrinx goat-footed Pan, follows sheep which dwell in the open, nor would a gardener contemn the material of every kind which it offers for crops; of such sort is the corn-land of it, in fostering gra , and fiowry pastures, and (LI. 976-1000.) of men a race most beautiful and like the gods.” ch119.xhtml w 134