) 26 On the Theogony. 



Th' immortal gods themselves 'mth awe regard 

 The fearful region — there the dread abode 

 Of gloomy night is veil'd with dusky clouds. 

 There, with unwearied arms and bending head, 

 Atlas the weight of heav'n sustains ; and there 

 Meet day and night, and cross each other's path, 

 Treading with course opposed the brazen road. 



In these lines we have evidently the traces of a rude physical system, 

 invented to explain the most obvious of the astronomical phsenomena, the 

 interchange of day and night ; after the luminaries had traversed their vast 

 arch, extending over the earth and ocean, (considered as constituting a 

 vast plain,) it was necessary to suppose a vast vacuity, extending beneath 

 that plain, through which they might return from their western goal to 

 their eastern starting post : hence the idea of Tartarus. Atlas, the moun- 

 tain chain whose cloud-capt summits line the extreme horizon to the 

 navigators of the Mediterranean, as we have already seen, became natu- 

 rally represented as the support of the heavens j — its situation, in the 

 extreme west, the point of descent to all the heavenly bodies, further as- 

 sociated with it the idea of descent to the infernal regions. 



The next inhabitants of Tartarus, to whom we are introduced, are my- 

 thological personifications conceived with much power. 



EvOa St vvKTOQ TraiSeg 758. 



Here Sleep and Death, offspring of gloomy Night, 

 Hold their dark dwelling-place, dread deities, 

 Whom ne'er the Sun beholds with cheerful ray, 

 Or when he climbs or when he stoops from heav'n. 

 All mild the one o'er earth and the broad waves 

 Of ocean speeds, sweet soother of mankind ; 

 His brother's heart is steel, his soul of brass ; 

 Each wretched mortal whom he once may grasp 

 He ever holds, and e'en the heav'nly train 

 Hate, though they fear it not, his power accurst. 



The sovereigns and the dog of hell are next enumerated, but with little 

 of poetical ornament ; and the description concludes with the infernal river 

 Styx, whose mansion is overhung by mighty rocks, and supported by silver 

 columns, and whose streams contain a tenth part of all the waters of ocean. 

 We have here a curious piece of mythology, as to the punishment of perjured 

 deities, when Iris sent by Jove has brought to present to them these chill 

 waters in her golden chalice as the sanction of their oaths. Should they 

 violate it they must lay for an entire year, breathless and speechless, in a 

 deep swoon, and pass nine more years in a succession of penal labours, 

 before they can be restored to their place in the assembly and banquets 

 of the immortals. 



Here closes the description of Tartarus, as still preserved in this poem; 

 but it is probable that many portions of the original composition may be 



