it; these γνῶμαι are of the Delphian prophet rather than of the man. We note that, while the sense of beauty which possesses his mind is normally Greek, as finding its full satisfaction in human splendour of every kind, it differs from the ordinary Greek type in a deeper sympathy with external nature. He delights in the season when, after dark winter, "the chamber of the Hours is opened, and delicate plants perceive the fragrant spring" (frag. 45—where οἰχθέντος Ὡρᾶν θαλάμου recalls the modern Greek ἄνοιξις): he compares joy following sorrow to the bursting of the vernal earth into bloom (Pyth. iv. 64, Isthm. iii. 36). When Iamus prays to Apollo beneath the clear night sky (νυκτὸς ὑπαίθριος, Ol. vi. 61); when Jason, about to sail with the Argonauts, invokes "the rushing strength of waves and winds, and the nights, and the paths of the deep" (Pyth. iv. 194),—the Greek words are chosen with a magic which seems to place us under the stars or on the waters of the South. Both Aeschylus and Pindar speak of Etna in volcanic eruption. But Aeschylus—thoroughly Greek in this—fixes our thought on the scathe done to man's labour: "rivers of fire shall burst forth, rending with fierce fangs the level meads of fruitful Sicily." Pindar gives a picture of natural grandeur and terror: when Etna, "pillar of the sky, nurse of keen snow all the year," from secret depths hurls forth "pure springs of fire unapproachable; and in the daytime those rivers pour out a stream of lurid smoke; but in the darkness a red rolling flame bears rocks with a roar to the
