ch tempt
us for an instant to become shepherds; but Owen knew that the real
flocks would seem unreal to him who knew the visionary ones, so he
turned away from the coasts without a desire in his heart to trouble
the shepherds in the valley with an offer of his services, and
walked up and down the deck thinking how he might obtain a
translation of the idyls.

"Sicily, Sicily!"

It was unendurable that his skipper should come at such a moment to
ask him if he would like to land at Palermo; for why should he land
in Sicily unless to meet the goatherd who in order to beguile
Thyrsis to sing the song of Daphnis told him that "his song was
sweeter than the music of yonder water that is poured from the high
face of the rock"? It was in Sicily that rugged Polyphemus, peering
over some cliffs, sought to discern Galatea in the foam; but before
Owen had time to recall the myth an indenture in the coast line,
revealing a field, reminded him how Proserpine, while gathering
flowers on the plains of Enna with her maidens, had been raped into
the shadows by the dark god. And looking on these waves, he
remembered that it was over them that Jupiter in the form of a bull,
a garlanded bull with crested horns, had sped, bearing Europa away
for his pleasure. Venus had been washed up by these waves! Poseidon!
Sirens and Tritons had disported themselves in this sea, the bluest
and the beautifullest, the one sea that mattered, more important
than all the oceans; the oceans might dry up to-morrow for all he
cared so long as this sea remained; and with the story of Theseus
and "lonely Ariadne on the wharf at Naxos" ringing in his ears he
looked to the north-east, whither lay the Cyclades and Propontis.
Medea, too, had been deserted--"Medea deadlier than the sea." Helen!
All the stories of the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" had been lived
about these seas, from the coasts of Sicily to those of Asia Minor,
whence AEneas had made his way to Carthage. Dido, she, too, had been
deserted. All the great love stories of

William Babington Maxwell (18661938) was a British novelist. He was a son of novelist Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Though nearly 50 years old at the outbreak of the First World War, he was accepted as a lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers and served in France until 1917.

Cyrus Townsend Brady (December 20, 1861 January 24, 1920) was a journalist, historian and adventure writer. His most well-known work is Indian Fights and Fighters. He was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1883. He was also a deacon in the Episcopal church. His first wife was Clarissa Guthrie, who died in 1890. His second wife was Mary Barrett.

Rebecca Sophia Clarke (1833-1906), also known as Sophie May, was an American author of childrens fiction. Using her nieces and nephews as inspiration, she wrote realistic stories about children. She wrote 45 books between 1860 and 1903. The most popular being the Little Prudy books. She lived most of her life in her native town of Norridgewock, Maine, where she lived out her life with her sister, who was also a successful author.