Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 2.djvu/173

 B. x. c. ii. 12. ITHACA. 165 " a rocky way through a woody spot," l and again, " for there is not any island in th3 sea exposed to the western sun, 2 and with good pastures, least of all Ithaca." 3 The expression does imply contradictions, which admit how- ever of some explanation. They do not understand ^fla^uaX?) to signify in that place " low," but its contiguity to the con- tinent, to which it approaches very close ; nor by TravvTrepraTr] great elevation, but the farthest advance towards darkness, (jrpoQ 60o>',) that is, placed towards the north more than all the other islands, for this is what the poet means by " towards darkness," the contrary to which is towards the south, (TT^UQ " the rest far off (avevOe) towards the morning, and the sun." 4 For the word avevde denotes " at a distance," and " apart," as if the other islands lay to the south, and more distant from the continent, but Ithaca near the continent and towards the north. That the poet designates the southern part (of the heavens) in this manner appears from these words, " whether they go to the right hand, towards the morning and the sun, or to the left, towards cloudy darkness;" 5 and still more evidently in these lines, " my friends, we know not where darkness nor where morning lie, nor where sets nor where rises the sun which brings light to man." 6 We may here understand the four climates, 7 and suppose the morning to denote the southern part (of the heavens), and this has some probability ; but it is better to consider what is near to the path of the sun to be opposite to the northern part (of the heavens). For the speech in Homer is intended to indicate some great change in the celestial appearances, not a mere obscuration of the climates. For this must happen 1 Od. xiv. 1. 2 ti}$eito is the reading of the text, but the reading in Homer is iTTTr^Xaroe, adapted for horses, and thus translated by Horace, Epist. lib. I. vii. 41, Non est aptus equis Ithacae locus. 3 Od. iv. 607. 4 Od. ix. 26. 5 II. xii. 239. Od. x. 190. 7 For the explanation of climate, see book ii. ch. i. 20, but in this passage the word has a different sense, and implies the division of the heavens into north, south, east, and west. The idea of Strabo seems to be that of a straight line drawn from east to west, dividing the celes- tial horizon into two parts, the one northern, (or arctic,) the other southern. The sun in its course from east to west continues always as regards us in the southern portion. Gossellin.