"I pray, no trouble for me: all in vain
Thy trouble, nothing helping, e'en if thou
Shouldst care to take this trouble. Nay, be still;
Keep out of harm's way: sufferer though I be
I would not therefore wish to give my woes
A wider range o'er others. No, not so:
For lo! my mind is wearied with the grief
Of that my kinsman Atlas, who doth stand
In the far west, supporting on his shoulders
The pillars of the earth and heaven, a burden
His arms but ill can hold: I pity too
The giant dweller of Kilikian caves,
Dread portent, with his hundred hands, subdued
By force, the mighty Typhon, who arose
'Gainst all the gods, with sharp and dreadful jaws
Hissing out slaughter, and from out his eyes
There flashed the terrible brightness as of one
Who would make havoc of the might of Zeus.
But the unsleeping dart of Zeus came on him,
Down-swooping thunderbolt that breathes out flame,
Which from his lofty boastings startled him,
For he i' the heart was struck, to ashes burnt,
His strength all thunder-shattered; and he lies
A helpless, powerless carcass, near the strait
Of the great sea, fast pressed beneath the roots
Of ancient Etna, where on the highest peak
Hephæstos sits and smites his iron red-hot,
From whence hereafter streams of fire shall burst,[1]
Devouring with fierce jaws the golden plains
Of fruitful fair Sikelia. Such the wrath
That Typhon shall belch forth with bursts of storm,
Hot, breathing fire, and unapproachable,
- ↑ The words point probably to an eruption, then fresh in men's memories, which had happened B.C. 476.—(P.)
