Brutus built his capital city, and called it Trojanova (New Troy),
changed in time to Trinovantus, now London;[39] and, having governed the
isle twenty-four years, died, leaving three sons, Locrine, Albanact and
Camber. Locrine had the middle part, Camber the west, called Cambria
from him, and Albanact Albania, now Scotland. Locrine was married to
Guendolen, the daughter of Corineus, but having seen a fair maid named
Estrildis, who had been brought captive from Germany, he became
enamoured of her, and had by her a daughter, whose name was Sabra. This
matter was kept secret while Corineus lived, but after his death Locrine
divorced Guendolen, and made Estrildis his queen. Guendolen, all in
rage, departed to Cornwall, where Madan, her son, lived, who had been
brought up by Corineus, his grandfather. Gathering an army of her
father’s friends and subjects, she gave battle to her husband’s forces
and Locrine was slain. Guendolen caused her rival, Estrildis, with her
daughter Sabra, to be thrown into the river, from which cause the river
thenceforth bore the maiden’s name, which by length of time is now
changed into Sabrina or Severn. Milton alludes to this in his address to
the rivers,—
“Severn swift, guilty of maiden’s death”;—
and in his “Comus” tells the story with a slight variation, thus:
“There is a gentle nymph not far from hence,
That with moist curb sways the smooth Severn stream;
Sabrina is her name, a virgin pure:
Whilom she was the daughter of Locrine,
That had the sceptre from his father, Brute,
She, guiltless damsel, flying the mad pursuit
Of her enragéd step-dame, Guendolen,
Commended her fair innocence to the flood,
That stayed her flight with his cross-flowing course
The water-nymphs that in the bottom played,
Held up their pearléd wrists and took her in,
Bearing her straight to aged Nereus’ hall,
Who, piteous of her woes, reared her lank head,
And gave her to his daughters to imbathe
In nectared lavers strewed with asphodel,
And through the porch and inlet of each sense
Dropped in ambrosial oils till she revived,
And underwent a quick, immortal change,
Made goddess of the river,” etc.
If our readers ask when all this took place, we must answer, in the
first place, that mythology is not careful of dates; and next, that, as
Brutus was the great-grandson of Æneas, it must have been not far from a
century subsequent to the Trojan war, or about eleven hundred years
before the invasion of the island by Julius Cæsar. This long interval is
filled with the names of princes whose chief occupation was in warring
with one another. Some few, whose names remain connected with places, or
embalmed in literature, we will mention.
BLADUD
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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