Page:Prometheus Bound (Bevan 1902).djvu/134

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

NOTES

to think of an upright pillar being supported by any one's shoulders; (2) the representations of earlier and contemporary art; (3) the words of Aeschylus himself in lines 424 f. Whether the existing text in lines 349 f. can be reconciled with this meaning, or requires emendation, this is not the place to discuss.


Lines 351 f. Typhon or Typhōeus, as he is called in Hesiod, is, of course, simply the volcano-fiend. The myth therefore connects him both with the volcanic country of Cilicia and Northern Syria, and with Etna. In the case of Etna an alternative explanation of the volcanic phenomena—that it is Hephaistos at his forge-work—is here superimposed. The description of Typhon follows closely that in Hesiod, Theog. 820 f.


Line 367. The eruption of Etna referred to is that of B.C. 479/8.


Line 420. It seems ingenuity misplaced to emend this passage to bring it into closer conformity with real geography. There was a great mountain called Caucasus in the East, there were people called Arabs in the East; that was quite enough for Aeschylus. As a matter of fact, we must remember that the uncultivated land to the South of the Armenian mountain-system (whose foot-hills constitute Mesopotamia) was part of the Arab domain, and that the term Caucasus might easily have been extended over Armenia.

88