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119 i.e. the distilled sea water. 1 to live without. 2 spa (pronounced ‘spaw’ in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries). 3 road = any way from one place to another; it refers, here, to the sea over which the ship 4 passes. The Hon. Robert Boyle (1627–91), son of the great earl of Cork and the most famous 5 Irish scientist of his day, who gave the invention his blessing. EDMUND ARWAKER (c.1655 – 1686–c.1710) Edmund Arwaker was educated at Kilkenny College and Trinity College Dublin, and was ordained into the Church of Ireland. He was chaplain to the Duke of Ormond and, later, archdeacon of Armagh. Arwaker was not only the most prolific Irish poet of his age but probably the worst. One of the less absurd offerings from his pen is a poem of enthusiastic greeting for the invention of a device for distilling sea water and so making it drinkable – an invention which, it was thought, would greatly improve life on board ship, and so enable the British to conquer the most distant nations. The poem exudes the frightening optimism that often accompanies man’s attempts to ‘correct’ nature (line 12). from: Fons Perennis: A poem on the excellent and useful invention of making sea-water fresh … You1 the Twin-Charms of Youth and Beauty give, A Bliss that few are willing to out-live.2 In those soft Streams, distilling from the Sea, To whose first Knowledge you prepar’d the Way, The Rough-dull Skin grows smooth and clear as they. The Sea thus happily improv’d by you, Does ev’ry day a rising Venus shew. … No more our Ladies to the Spaw3 shall go, Who to your Streams may greater Blessings owe. … … The Sailer now to farthest Shores may go, 10 Since in his Road4 these lasting Fountains flow; The Sea, corrected by this wondrous Pow’r, Preserves those now whom it destroy’d before: No more with Thirst the Feav’rish Sea-man dyes, The Briny Waves afford him fresh Supplies. The mighty Boyle5 does by his pow’rful Art, } 120 The Ocean to a Well of Life convert; Whose fame had Israel’s thirsty Monarch heard, He had these Springs to Bethel’s Well preferr’d; And their Diviner Vertue had (if known) 20 Excus’d the Risque he made three Worthies run:6 Had these in Naaman’s Days been understood, Jordan’s famed Stream had scarce been thought so Good; Nor wou’d their Influence, more truely Great, Require he shou’d the Healing Bath repeat.7 Boyle, our good Angel, stirs the Sov’reign Pool, That makes the Hydropic-Leprous8 Seamen whole, And now, who first shall put to Sea, they strive, Since safer there, than on the Shore they live; And, when to Coasts remote they boldly steer, 30 Proclaim the Worth of their Preserver there. … II Samuel 23 tells the story of three mighty men who broke through the ranks of the 6 encircling Philistines to bring King David water from the well of Bethlehem. He did not drink the water but offered it to God saying: ‘Is not this the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives?’ The prophet Elisha instructed Naaman, who wanted to be cured of his leprosy, to bathe 7 himself seven times in the river Jordan. Naaman did so and was healed. II Kings 5. having an insatiable thirst and afflicted with leprosy. 8 ...

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