What is between Abyla and Calpe?

Heaves up huge Abyla on Afric's sand
Crowns with high Calpe Europes salient strand
Crests with opposing towers the splendid scene
And pours from urns immense the sea between

Right. The Strait of Gibraltar.

I've never heard of "Abyla and Calpe." Do most people know about Abyla and Calpe? Is this a black hole in my education?

Dear WW: just to tease you, look up "The Pillars of Hercules".

We had a couple posts about this. Where is Mt. Serendib?

Pillars of Hercules? I've heard of the labors of Hercules. There's a terrific Agatha Christie mystery based on the labors of Hercules I read decades ago. But, yes, wwh, I will go off now and google the Pillars of Hercules. And what you could do is devise a mnemonic device for remembering those two places that I now don't have the foggiest of recalling.

Back later...

OK. Here's some google stuff:

This monument, situated just passing the control post in Gibraltar's Upper Rock Nature Reserve, looks out over Europa Point, the Mosque and the Lighthouse.

The plaque reads "To the ancient world, Gibraltar was known as Mons Calpe, one of the legendary pillars created by Hercules as a religious shrine and as an entrance to the Mediterranean. To many it signified the non plus ultra, the end of the then known world".


http://www.gibnet.gi/~dparody/gibmap/pillars.htm

So that's one of the pillars, huh? How many pillars did Hercules build? The ones shown in the picture on the above url look like Corinthian columns to me. Please correct me if I'm in error here.

wwh, I gotta go look at my mother's daylilies, but I promise I'll research this subject more deeply on google later.

ha, ha, i got it and all you clever people didn't. oh, this is so great, liccle dodyskin who left school at twelve got it! ps, not really, i typed in the two words on bartleby.

Well, congratualtions to you, Dody, sincerely. I'd never heard of "Abyla and Calpe"--and I'm more mystified than ever. Not by Gibraltar, although it is a good thing to know that Abyla is the ancient word for it, I suppose, but I'll tell you one thing:

Try googling "Abyla and Calpe" and hitting "I'm Feeling Lucky" and you'll pull up answers to a quiz that shows no questions. That is, if you pull up the search in a cache.

Wish I didn't have a country ball game to go tonight. I'd much rather figure out this Hercules and the pillars thing. Was it Hercules who was chained to those columns or Sampson?

ooh, thats naughty
http://members.tripod.com/~bugaev/labors04.html

ha, ha, i got it and all you clever people didn't. oh, this is so great, liccle dodyskin who left school at twelve got it! ps, not really, i typed in the two words on bartleby.

how I roared! okay liccle dodyskin, now I want you to come and be my house elf (enjoyed your profile!) and keep me entertained like this all the time!

Let us go in peace to love and serve the board.

Samson was chained to pillars, not Hercules (read all about that in the Book of Judges, chapter 13 and following - in the Bible!). Hercules had a lot of issues, but not like Samson's...

i too had never heard of Abyla and Calpe, but I feel better for knowing =]

As well, I have no idea where Mt Serendip is, or even where to begin looking... I must go and hang my head in shame.

Thanks for setting up Sampson in my head correctly, Alexis!

Wordwind

Serendipitously, Mt. Serendip was in the land of the princes of serendip, who discovered serendipity. Later called Ceylong, now Sri Lanka.