Nurtured of old in famed Cilicia's cave,
Now whelm'd in black Tartarean darkness lies. 30
Cumæ's sea-girdled shores below,
And where Sicilia's waters flow,
Crush'd by the island's weight, impress'd
Upon the rebel's shaggy breast,
Ætna his giant form restrains, 35
Whose towering height the cloud sustains,
Nurse of the sharp perennial snow. [1] 39
Forth from her inmost caverns urge their way
Fountains of pure and unapproached fire,
Rivers of smoke that blot the face of day, 40
And from their source of lurid flame aspire.
But flashes of bright hue illume
The horrors of nocturnal gloom;
And hurl the rocks with thundering sound,
Whelm'd in the watery gulf profound. 45
The restless monster from his burning seat
Sends up to heaven the springs of direst heat;
And strikes with mute surprise their eye and ear
Who see the wondrous fire, and sounds prodigious hear. 50
So close his pinion'd form is bound 50
Beneath dark Ætna's leafy head;
Supported on the rugged ground,
While all his back is torn, reclining on that bed.
- ↑ See Theocritus, (Id. xi. 47,) where the Cyclop, describing the delights of his Ætnaean residence, says,
There, from deep-shaded Ætna's melting snows
The cooling spring's ambrosial beverage flows.
Polwhele.
Olympic]] and the eighth Pythian, compare Callimachus, (in Del. 141,) who, like Pindar, appears anxious to clothe so vast an image with appropriate magnificence of language:—
Ὡς δ᾽ δποτ᾽ Αιτναιου ορεος πυρι τυφομενοιο
Σειονται μυχα παντα, κατουδαιοιο γιγαντος.
