Yob9yob

• Last seen on Mar 9 11:57 PM 2006. Member since March 9, 2006.

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• on Cargoes by John Masefield, on March 9, 2006

  Beautiful but dumb

  The poem, particularly the first verse, is lyrical and romantic. Unfortunately it's completely ridiculous.
  
  Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir
  
  Quinquireme of Nineveh? Nineveh was destroyed many centuries before any quinquiremes were built. Only the Romans and Carthaginians ever built them, to use in the Punic Wars. As to Ophir, no one now knows where it was, if it existed at all.
  
  Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine
  
  What would a Nineveh ship be doing rowing "home" to Palestine? Nineveh was in what is now Iraq, just across the Tigris from present-day Mosul. You can take a ferry over to see the ruins -- a long way from Palestine.
  
  With a cargo of apes and peacocks, etc.
  
  If you understand what a quinquireme was, you know it could not carry any cargo. It was a naval vessel, a fighting ship powered by five decks of oarsmen, hence the name. Obviously there's no room for cargo on such a ship. The rowing decks are completely taken up by the benches the rowers sat on; the top deck was crowded with soldiers ready to hurl spears or launch arrows at the enemy -- no place for cargo on a quinquireme!
  
  So the beautiful first verse is to giggle at. The other verses make sense, of course; it's just the first one that blows one up into gales of laughter.