I.

“THULE,” POETICAL AND RHETORICAL.

The following are popular instances of Thule used in its first sense, the remotest part of the septentrional world, when it was a “fabulosa non minus quam famosa insula.” Virgil has only one allusion to it (Georg., i. 30, 31):

“Tibi serviat ultima Thule, Teque sibi generum Tethys emat omnibus undis;”

but his epithet has been consecrated by a bevy of succeeding poets.

Servius, commenting upon Virgil, explains:

“Thyle insula est oceani inter septentrionalem et occidentalem plagam, ultra Britanniam, Hiberniam, Orcadas;”

which is vague enough. He is afterwards more precise:

“At this island, when the sun is in Cancer, the days are said to be continuous without nights. Various marvels are related of it, both by Greek and later writers; by Ctesias and Diogenes among the former, and by Samnonicus among the latter.”

The work of Ctesias here referred to is little known: Thule would hardly enter into Persica and Indica (B.C. 400). Of Diogenes presently. Samnonicus Sorenus was a writer put to death by command of Caracalla (Notes and Queries, t. ii., v. 119, p. 301).

L. Annæus Seneca (ob. A.D. 65) first re-echoes Virgil in the celebrated “prophetic verses,” whose sense has been extended to the New World:

“Venient annis secula seris, Quibus Oceanus vincula rerum Laxet, et ingens pateat tellus, Tethysque novos detegat orbes, Nec sit terris ultima Thule.” --Medea, 375, et seq.

Ammianus Marcellinus (ob. circ. A.D. 390) uses (History, lib. xviii., 6, 31) the adage, “Etiamsi apud Thulen moraretur Ursicinus.”

Claudius Claudianus (flor. A.D. 395-408) sings:

“Et nostro procul axe remotam Insolito belli tremeficit murmure Thulen!” --De Bell. Getic., 203, _et seq._

And--

“Te vel Hyperboreo damnatam sidere Thulen, Te vel ad incensas Libyæ comitatur arenas.” --_In Rufin._, ii. 240.

Finally, we find in Aurelius Prudentius (nat. A.D. 348):

“Ultima littora Thules Transadigit.”