band these towers of strength and muscularity against Cronus and his Titans; and so the battle was set in array, and a fierce war ensued—
Ten years and more the furious battle joined
Unintermitted; nor to either host
Was issue of stern strife nor end; alike
Did either stretch the limit of the war."
—E. 846-850.
Hesiod's description of the contest, which has been justly held to constitute his title to a rank near Homer as an epic poet, is prefaced by a feast at which Zeus addresses his allies, and receives in turn the assurance of their support. The speeches are not wanting in dignity, though briefer than those which, in his great epic, Milton has moulded on their model. Our English poet had bathed his spirit in Hesiod before he essayed the sixth book of his 'Paradise Lost;' and it was well and wisely done by the translator of the following description of the war betwixt Zeus and the Titans to aim at a Miltonic style and speech:—
Female and male; the Titan deities,
The gods from Cronus sprang, and those whom Zeus
From subterranean gloom released to light:
Terrible, strong, of force enormous; burst
A hundred arms from all their shoulders huge:
From all their shoulders fifty heads upsprang
O'er limbs of sinewy mould. They then arrayed
Against the Titans in fell combat stood,
And in their nervous grasp wielded aloft
Precipitous rocks. On the other side alert
