The Digital Ark: Early Modern Collections of Curiosities in England and Scotland, 1580-1700
Phaethon/Phaëton ( - )
Dictionary of National Biography entry: http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100321282 Other biography: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pha%C3%ABton References in Documents:18th-c coin catalogue (Canterbury Cathedral Lit MS E 16d)
No.
1
Head of Hercules.
Rev: The Tale of Phaethon
from the Chariot of the Sun
incircled with the 12 signs of
the Zodiac.
Inscription
ΑΔΥΝΑΤΑ
ΖΗΤΩΝ
wt dw gr
1 Bargrave
1
from the Chariot of the Sun
incircled with the 12 signs of
the Zodiac.
1
oz: 3 : 9¼
Inventarie of the Gabions, in M. George his Cabinet (1638)
Many such stratagems declare I might,
Which Perth hath acted in defence of right:
How Ruthvens place, and Duplins , in one day
The battell
of the bridge
ofTay its
event.
Were burn'd, or battell of the bridge of Tay ,
With manly courage fought, where, kil'd were many,
Vpon the day sacred to Magdalené ,
47
Five hundreth fourtie foure, for which she mournes,
And many times her cristall teares she turnes
In flouds of woes, remembring how these men
Were justly by their own ambition slaine,
Thinking to sack a town, some through despaire
Did overleap the bridge, and perish there:
Some borne on spears, by chance did swim a land.
And some lay swelting in the slykie sand,
Agruif lay some, others with eyes to skyes,
These yeelding dying sobs, these mournfull cryes.
Some by their fall were fixed on their spears,
Some swatring in the floud the streame down bears,
By chance some got a boat, What needs more words?
They make them oars of their two handed swords:
Some doubting what to do, to leap or stay,
Were trampled under foot as mirie clay;
Confusedly to fight and flee they thrimble,
The shifring spears thurst through their bodies tremble,
And strongly brangled in splents do quicklie flee,
The glistring sword is changed in crimson dye;
To wrak they go; even as the raging thunder,
Rumbling and rolling roundly, breaks asunder
A thick and dampish cloud, making a showre
Of crystall gems, on Earths dry bosome powre,
So broken was that cloud, the purpure bloud
In drops distilling, rather as a floud,
The dry and dustie ground doth warmely draine;
And dying bodies in their own blood staine,
Or as the comets, or such meteors driven
Or stars which do appear to fall from heaven:
48
So tumbling headlong spears in hand they traile;
As firie dragons, seeme to have a taile;
Or Phaëton , or some sulphureous ball,
So from the bridge in river do they fall.
of the bridge
of
event.