The History of Egypt Under the Ptolemies

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Edward Moxon, 1838 - Egypt - 220 pages

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Page 200 - The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne, Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold; Purple the sails, and so perfumed that The winds were love-sick with them...
Page 200 - Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides, So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes, And made their bends adornings ; at the helm A seeming mermaid steers ; the silken tackle Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands, That yarely frame the oflice.
Page 200 - So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes, And made their bends adornings ; at the helm A seeming mermaid steers ; the silken tackle Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands, That yarely frame the office. From the barge A strange invisible perfume hits the sense Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast Her people out upon her, and Antony, Enthron'd i...
Page 200 - Purple the sails, and so perfumed that The winds were lovesick ; with them the oars were silver, Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made The water, which they beat, to follow faster, As amorous of their strokes. For her own person, It beggar'd all description: she did lie In her pavilion, (cloth of gold, of tissue,) O'er-picturing that Venus where we see The fancy outwork Nature...
Page 92 - Diana, and begged it of Antiochus as an ornament for Alexandria. But as soon as the statue reached Egypt, Arsinoe fell dangerously ill, and she dreamed that the goddess came by night, and told her that the illness was sent to her for the wrong done to the statue by her husband; and accordingly it was sent back with many gifts to the temple from which it had been brought.
Page 95 - The trade down the Nile was larger than it had ever been before; the coasting trade on the Mediterranean was new ; the people were rich and happy ; justice was administered to the Egyptians according to their own laws, and to the Greeks of Alexandria according to the Macedonian laws; the navy commanded the whole of the eastern half of the Mediterranean ; the schools and library had risen to a great height upon the wise plans of Ptolemy Soter ; in every point of view Alexandria was the chief city...
Page 144 - In that day shall there be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof to the Lord.
Page 48 - Loose and highly-coloured accounts of the wealth of Thebes had reached Greece even before the time of Homer, and again through Herodotus and other travellers in the Delta ; but nothing was certainly known of it till it was visited by Hecataeus of Abdera...
Page 50 - Hecatseus measured its rooms, its courtyards, and its avenue of sphinxes ; and by his measurements we can now distinguish its ruins from those of the other palaces of Thebes. One of its rooms, perhaps after the days of its builder, had been fitted up as a library, and held the histories and records of the priests ; but the golden zodiac or circle, on which were engraved the days of the year, with the stars...
Page 116 - J^e"IE£f> banks of oars. The longest oars were fifty-seven feet long, and weighted with lead at the handles that they might be the more easily moved. This huge ship was to be rowed by four thousand rowers, its sails were to be shifted by four hundred sailors, and three thousand soldiers were to stand in ranks upon deck. There were seven beaks in front, by which it was to strike and sink the ships of the enemy. The royal barge in "which the king and court moved on the quiet waters of the Nile, was...

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