On the Theogony. 1 27 



lost, for we find many evident signs of disarrangement, and four whole 

 lines, 736 to 739, are repeated verbatim, 807 to 810, and the last of these 

 lines also occurs in the Homeric poems. 



A new subject is now introduced ; a description of the monstrous pro- 

 geny of the embraces of Tartarus and Earth — Typhceus, fearful with an 

 hundred serpent heads, while to borrow the words which Milton seems 

 himself to have derived from this passage : 



" Every eye glar'd lightning, and shot forth pernicious fire,"* 

 and every throat sent forth every possible variety of horrid utterance — the 

 lowing of the incensed bull, the roar of the lion, and the screams of whelps. 



This monster, it seems, had employed all his mighty powers in rebellion 

 against Jupiter, and had nearly succeeded in expelling him from his throne j 

 but the victory ultimately remained with the latter. Their conflict and all 

 its accompaniments of tumult and terror are described, though with con- 

 siderable variety of expression, yet with such a general similarity of ideas 

 to the former pictures of the Titan war, that to translate would scarcely 

 afford any new illustration of the poet's style ; we may except however 

 a few lines, very remarkable in themselves and still more so from their 

 close coincidence with a passage in the Iliad, Y. 65, where Homer repre- 

 sents the gods who aided tlie hostile ranks of the Grecians and Trojans as 

 themselves joining in the fight. The agreement of the two poets is such 

 that it seems perfectly clear that one must have copied the other, and as 

 the passage in Hesiod is much the shorter and simpler, and appears to 

 contain the first germ of the ideas expanded, amplified, and ornamented in 

 Homer; this has been very plausibly adduced as an argument, establishing 

 a presumption in favour of the higher antiquity of the Ascraean bard. His 

 passage is as follows. 



ESte ct x^<»v naaa, &c. 848. 



Boil'd the whole earth and heaven, the mighty sea 

 Lash'd its wide shores and roU'd its swelling waves. 

 Such inextinguishable tumult rose, 

 Beneath the shock of warring deities. 

 Pluto, dread monarch of the shadowy dead, 

 Trembled, and Saturn with his Titan band 

 Deep in Tartarian gulphs ; so loud prevail'd 

 Th" inextinguish'd shout, and conflict dire. 



The passage in Homer may be thus translated : 



^tivov S' tjipovTTjci, &c. II. V. 65. 



The sire of gods and men from heav'n above 



Loud thundcr'd, Neptune shook th' unbounded plain 



• <K ct 'oi onaix>v 



QtairiaiijQ KtipaKijaiv vtt' oippvaiv nvp nfiapvacre 



Haaidtv S' (K K((pa\ioiv irvp icaiero ^ipKofifvuio. 829. 



