This celebrated Latin verse, which has become proverbial, has a very
obscure authority, probably not known to many of your readers. It is
from Gualtier de Lille, as has been remarked by Galeottus Martius and
Paquier in their researches. This Gualtier flourished in the thirteenth
century. The verse is extracted from a poem in ten books, called the
"Alexandriad," and it is the 301st of the 5th book; it relates to the
fate of Darius, who, flying from Alexander, fell into the hands of
Bessus. It runs thus:--
"-- Quo flectis inertem
Rex periture, fugam? Nescis, heu perdite, nescis,
Quem fugias; hostes incurris dum fugis hostem;
_Incidis in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim_"
As honest JOHN BUNYAN, to his only bit of Latin which he quotes, places
a marginal note: "The Latin which I borrow,"--a very honest way; so I I
beg to say that I never saw this "Alexandriad," and that the above is an
excerpt from _Menagiana_, pub. 1715, edited by Bertrand de la Monnoie,
wherein may also be found much curious reading and research.