I. “THULE,” POETICAL AND RHETORICAL.
Reading edition
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.”