And driving from his heart each bloody care,
His pointed lance consigns to peaceful rest.
Nor less enraptur'd each immortal mind 25
Owns the soft influence of enchanting song,
When, in melodious symphony combin'd,
Thy son,[1] Latona, and the tuneful throng
Of muses, skill'd in wisdom's deepest lore,
The subtle pow'rs of verse and harmony explore. 30
But they, on earth, or the devouring main,
Whom righteous Jove with detestation views,
With envious horror hear the heav'nly strain,
Exil'd from praise, from virtue, and the muse.
Such is Typhoeus,[2] impious foe of gods, 35
Whose hundred headed form Cilicia's cave
Once foster'd in her infamous abodes;
Till daring with presumptuous arms to brave
The might of thund'ring Jove, subdued he fell,
Plung'd in the horrid dungeons of profoundest hell. 40
Now under sulph'rous Cumae's sea-bound coast,
And vast Sicilia lies his shaggy breast;
By snowy Aetna, nurse of endless frost,
The pillar'd prop of heav'n, for ever press'd:
Forth from whose nitrous caverns issuing rise 45
Pure liquid fountains of tempestuous fire,
And veil in ruddy mists the noon-day skies,
While wrapt in smoke the eddying flames aspire,
- ↑ Apollo.
- ↑ Typhoeus or Typhon, an enemy of Zeus, is supposed by Homer to lie beneath the Cilician plain, in the "earthquake belt" of Asia Minor. But now that Mt. Aetna is an active volcano, Pindar transfers him thither, and he is said to extend from Cumae's coast (i. e. Mt. Vesuvius) to Sicily (Mt. Aetna).
