Satire, Greek -- Translations into English; Voyages, Imaginary -- Early works to 1800
after the signal was given, and when the asses on either side had
brayed (for these are to them instead of trumpets), the fight began,
and the left wing of the Heliotans, or Sun soldiers, fled presently
and would not abide to receive the charge of the Hippogypians, but
turned their backs immediately, and many were put to the sword: but
the right wing of theirs were too hard for our left wing, and drove
them back till they came to our footmen, who joining with them, made
the enemies there also turn their backs and fly, especially when they
found their own left wing to be overthrown. Thus were they wholly
discomfited on all hands; many were taken prisoners, and many slain;
much blood was spilt; some fell upon the clouds, which made them look
of a red colour, as sometimes they appear to us about sun-setting;
some dropped down upon the earth, which made me suppose it was upon
some such occasion that Homer thought Jupiter rained blood for the
death of his son Sarpedon. Returning from the pursuit, we erected two
trophies: one for the fight on foot, which we placed upon the spiders'
web: the other for the fight in the air, which we set up upon the
clouds. As soon as this was done, news came to us by our scouts that
the Nephelocentaurs were coming on, which indeed should have come to
Phaethon before the fight. And when they drew so near unto us that we
could take full view of them, it was a strange sight to behold such
monsters, composed of flying horses and men: that part which resembled
mankind, which was from the waist upwards, did equal in greatness
the Rhodian Colossus, and that which was like a horse was as big as
a great ship of burden: and of such multitude that I was fearful to
set down their number lest it might be taken for a lie: and for their
leader they had the Sagittarius out of the Zodiac. When they heard that
their friends were foiled, they sent a messenger to Phaethon to renew
the fight: whereupon they set themselves in array, and fell upon the
Selenitans or the Moon soldiers that were troubled, and disordered in
following the chase, and scattered in gathering the spoils, and put
them all to flight, and pursued the king into his city, and killed the
greatest part of his birds, overturned the trophies he had set up, and
overcame the whole country that was spun by the spiders. Myself and
two of my companions were taken alive. When Phaethon himself was come
they set up other trophies in token of victory, and on the morrow we
were carried prisoners into the Sun, our arms bound behind us with a
piece of the cobweb: yet would they by no means lay any siege to the
city, but returned and built up a wall in the midst of the air to keep
the light of the Sun from falling upon the Moon, and they made it a
double wall, wholly compact of clouds, so that a manifest eclipse of
the Moon ensued, and all things detained in perpetual night: wherewith
Endymion was so much oppressed that he sent ambassadors to entreat
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