Thymoetes had travelled over Libya to the country which
borders on the western ocean; there he saw the island of Nysa, and
learned from the inhabitants, that 'Ammon, King of Libya, was
married in former ages to Rhea, sister of Saturn and the Titans:
that he afterwards fell in love with a beautiful virgin whose name
was Amalthea; had by her a son, and gave her possession of a
neighbouring tract of land, wonderfully fertile; which in shape
nearly resembling the horn of an ox, was thence called the Hesperian
horn, and afterwards the horn of Amalthea: that fearing the jealousy
of Rhea, he concealed the young Bacchus in the island of Nysa;' the
beauty of which, Diodorus describes with great dignity and pomp of
style. This fable is one of the noblest in all the ancient mythology,
and seems to have made a particular impression on the imagination of
Milton; the only modern poet (unless perhaps it be necessary to
except Spenser) who, in these mysterious traditions of the poetic
story, had a heart to feel, and words to express, the simple and
solitary genius of antiquity. To raise the idea of his Paradise, he
prefers it even to--
'That Nysean isle
Girt by the river Triton, where old Cham
(Whom Gentiles Ammon call, and Libyan Jove)
Hid Amalthea and her florid son,
Young Bacchus, from his stepdame Rhea's eye.
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