Gleanings of antiquities / By John Beaumont, Gent.

  • Beaumont, John, -1731.
Date:
1724
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Gleanings of antiquities / By John Beaumont, Gent. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    170/226 (page 156)
    Who yields to what he cant avoid, Shews he has a right Senfe of God, And is by Men accounted wife. And fo the Poet Epi charm us wifely fays, A Man is made, and then unmade, All things return to what they were : the Soul to Heaven, and Earth to Earth, What Harm in this ? does Nature err ? So far Plutarch. There is a Fable concerning Delphos, which may be worth noting: They fay that Jupiter, having a mind to find the Middle of the Earth, let fly two Eagles, of equal Swiftnefs in their Flight; fome fay they were Crows, fome Swans, and perhaps they were black ones, one from the Eafl, the other from the Weft, which both met at Delphos; whence Del¬ phos is called the Middle of the Earth, and the Na¬ vel of the World. And in the Temple there, a Na¬ vel of white Marble wras fhown in memory of this Faff, and two Golden Eagles were there placed near the tripod : but many other Places alfo being called the Navel of the Earth, I fhall here give you fome Notes which I drew together, many Years fince, concerning it. Grotius tells us. That, in the Scripture, Judea is called by the name of the Univerfe, and it's in this Senfe we muft underftand that ancient Expreflion of the Jews, when they fay Jerufalem was feated in the middle of the Earth ; that is to fay, in the midft of '1 Judea : as Delphos, which was in the middle of Greece, was called the Navel of the World by the Greeks. The Muffelmen tell us, That, in the place where Mecha was built, there was always, from the Begin-