Upon pillars, whereon is every bourne and all the ways {280}
Of the watery waste and the land, as ye journey on all sides round.
Now a river, the uttermost horn of the Ocean, therein is found,
Wide and exceeding deep, that a dromond may sail the same.
Far on their chart have they traced it, and Ister they named its name.
And awhile through the boundless tilthland it cleaveth its way afar
As but one; for beyond the North-wind’s blasts its fountains are,
Where midst the Rhipaian mountains it bursteth forth in thunder:
But so soon as it parteth the Thracian and Scythian marches asunder,
There is it cleft in twain, and the half of its flood it sendeth