Page:Pindar (Morice).djvu/24

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King of birds! His hooked head hath a darkling cloud o'ercast,

Sealing soft his eyes. In slumber his rippling back he heaves,

By thy sweet music fettered fast.

Ruthless Ares' self the muster of bristling lances leaves,

And gladdens awhile his soul with rest.

For the shafts of the Muses and Leto's son can melt an immortal's breast."

By "the shafts of the Muses and Leto's son" (i.e., Apollo), Pindar means the piercing strains of the lyre. Then in the Epode the measure changes—the dancers halt in solemn awe and expectancy, while the poet describes the opposite effect, the sense of horror and aggravated misery with which the music of the lyre strikes the ear of Zeus's enemies,—the foes of good, the vanquished giants of old, "dreeing their doom " in Tartarus, pinioned beneath the snows and fixes of Ætna.

But, whom Zeus loves not, back in fear all senseless cower, as in their ear

The sweet Pierian voices sound, in earth or monstrous Ocean's round.

So he. Heaven's foe, that in Tartarus lies,

The hundred-headed Typho, erst

In famed Cilician cavern nurst,—

Now, beyond Cumæ, pent below

Sea cliffs of Sicily, o'er his rough breast rise

Ætna's pillars, skyward soaring, nurse of year-long snow!"