“From high Maeonia’s rocky shores I came, Of poor descent, Acoetes is my name. My sire was meanly born; no oxen plough’d His fruitful fields, nor in his pastures low’d; His whole estate within the waters lay, With lines and hooks he caught the finny prey; His art was all his livelihood, which he Thus with his dying lips bequeathed to me: ‘In streams, my boy, and rivers, take thy chance, There swims,’ said he, ‘thy whole inheritance.’ Long did I live on this poor legacy, Till, tired with rocks and my old native sky, To arts of navigation I inclined, Observed the turns and changes of the wind, Learn’d the fit havens, and began to note The stormy Hyades, the rainy Goat, The bright Taygete, and the shining Bears, With all the sailors’ catalogue of stars. Once, as by chance for Delos I design’d, My vessel, driven by a strong gust of wind, Moor’d in a Chian creek; ashore I went, And all the following night in Chios spent. When morning rose, I sent my mates to bring Supplies of water from a neighb’ring spring,