Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Italy: Vols. XI–XIII. 1876–79. | | | | Etna (Ætna), the Mountain | | Etna | | Pindar (c. 522–433 B.C.) |
| | (From Pythian I)
Translated by Henry Francis Cary
BUT whomsoever Jove | |
| Hath looked on without love, | |
| Are anguished when they hear the voiceful sound; | |
| Whether on land they be, | |
| Or in the raging sea; | 5 |
| With him, outstretched on dread Tartarian bound, | |
| Hundred-headed Typhon; erst | |
| In famed Cilicia’s cavern nurst; | |
| Foe of the gods; whose shaggy breast, | |
| By Cuma’s sea-beat mound, is prest; | 10 |
| Pent by plains of Sicily, | |
| And that snowed pillar heavenly high, | |
| Ætna, nurse of ceaseless frost; | |
| From whose caverned depths aspire, | |
| In purest folds upwreathing, tost, | 15 |
| Fountains of approachless fire. | |
| By day, a flood of smouldering smoke, | |
| With sullen gleam the torrents pour; | |
| But in darkness, many a rock, | |
| Crimson flame, along the shore, | 20 |
| Hurls to the deep with deafening roar. | |
| From that worm aloft are thrown | |
| The wells of Vulcan, full of fear; | |
| A marvel strange to look upon, | |
| And, for the passing mariner, | 25 |
| As marvellous to hear; | |
| How Ætna’s tops with umbrage black, | |
| And soil do hold him bound, | |
| And by that pallet all his back | |
| Is scored with many a wound. | 30 | | | |
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