Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/427

Rh Their earth-born tenant, hostile prodigy,

The hundred-headed, curb'd by violence;

Raging Typhôeus, all the gods who braved,

Hissing out slaughter from his horrid jaws.

Forth from his eyeballs flash'd a hideous glare,

As though by force the reign of heaven to storm.

But on him fell the sleepless dart of Zeus,

The thunder-bolt down-rushing, breathing flame,

Which him from his high-worded boasting hurl'd

Prostrate; for, smitten to his inmost reins,

With strength burnt out, he lightning-blasted fell.

And now his frame, helpless and sprawling lies

Hard by the salt-sea narrows, sorely prest

Beneath the roots of Ætna. Seated there,

Upon the topmost peaks, Hephæstos smites

The molten masses, whence one day shall burst

Torrents of fire, devouring with fierce jaws

The level fields of fruitful Sicily.

Such rage Typhôeus shall anew belch forth

With scorching missiles of fire-breathing storm

Insatiate; by the fierce bolt of Zeus

Blasted, but unconsum'd. No tiro thou,

Nor dost my teaching need. Save thou thyself

As best thou knowest how. But be assured

I to the dregs my present doom will drain,

Until the heart of Zeus relax its ire.

Know'st thou not this, Prometheus, that wise words

To a distemper'd mind physicians are?