34 PROPHECY OF SENECA. 



LIB. i. they p asse( ^ the Hands of the Canaries, which he calleth 

 Fortunate ; the principal whereof is sayd to be called 

 Canarie, for the multitude of dogs which are in it. But 

 there is scarce any mention in ancient books of the voyages 

 which are made at this day beyond the Canaries, by the 

 Gulph which with reason they call great. Yet many hold 

 opinion that Seneca the Tragedian did prophecie of the 

 West Indies, in his Tragedie of Medea, which translated, 

 saith thus : 

 Senec. in u An age shall come, ere ages ende, 



Med. Act., , . , . 



ii, in ain. Blessedly strange and strangely blest, 



When our Sea farre and neere or prest, 

 His shoare shall farther yet extend. 



&quot; Descryed then shall a large Land be, 

 By this profound Seas navigation, 

 An other World, an other nation, 

 All men shall then discovered see. 



u Thule accounted heretofore 

 The worldes extreme, the Northcrne bound, 

 Shall be when Southwest parts be found, 

 A neerer Isle, a neighbour shoare.&quot; 



This, Seneca reports in these verses ; and we cannot wel 

 deny, but (vnderstanding it litterally) it is very true ; for if 

 we reckon the many yeeres he speakes of, beginning from 

 the time of the Tragedian, it is above a thousand and foure 

 hundred yeeres past ; and if it were from the time of Medea, 

 it is above two thousand yeeres, the which we see plainely 

 now accomplished ; seeing the passage of the Ocean so long 

 time hidden, hath beene found out, and that they have dis 

 covered a great land and a new world inhabited, more 

 spatious then all the Continent of Europe and Asia. But 

 therein may a question with reason be made, whether 

 Seneca spake this by divination, or poetically and by chance. 

 And to speeke my opinion, I beleeve hee did divine, after 

 the manner of wise men and well advised ; for that in his 

 time they vndertooke newe voyages and navigations by sea, 



