Thus impartial Enyo held equal balance between the two sides, between Zeus and Typhon, while the thunderbolts with booming shots held revel like dancers of the sky. Cronides fought fully armed : in the fray, the thunder was his shield, the cloud his breastplate, he cast the lightning for a spear; Zeus let fly his thunderbolts from the air, his arrows barbed with fire, For already from the underground abyss a dry vapour. diffused around rose from the earth on high and compressed within the cloud was stifled In the fiery gullet, heating the pregnant cloud. For the lurking flame crushed within rushed about struggling to find a passage through; over the smoke the fire-breeding clouds rumble in their agony seeking the middle path; the fire dares not go upwards: for the lightning leaping up is kept back by the moist air bathed in rainy drops, which condenses the seething cloud above, but the lower part is parched and gapes and the fire runs through with a bound. As the female stone Is struck by the male stone, one stone on another brings flame to birth, while crushed and beaten it produces from itself a shower of sparks : so the heavenly fire vapour, drawn from the waters, which the sun shining full on them with fiery rays milks out and draws up dewy through the boiling track of air, This thickens and produces the cloudy veil ; then shaking the thick mass by means of the thinner vapour, it dissolves the fine cloud again into a fall of rain, and returns I to its natural condition of water. Such is the character of the fiery clouds, with their twin birth of lightnings and thunders together so Zeus the father fought on: raised and hurled his familiar fire against his adversary, piercing his loins, and sending a fiery whirlwind from heaven to strike the battalion of his innumerable necks with their babel of tongues, Zeus cast his bolt, and one blaze burnt the monster’s endless hands, one blaze consumed his numberless shoulders and the speckled tribes of his serpents; heaven’s blades cut off those countless heads ; a writhing comet met him front to front discharging a thick bush of sparks, and consumed the monster’s hair. Typhon’s heads were ablaze, the hair caught fire; with heaven’s sparks silence sealed the hissing tresses, the serpents shrivelled up, and in their throats the poison-spitting drops were dried. The Giant fought on: his eyes were burnt to ashes in the murky smoke, his cheeks were whitened with hoar-frost, his faces beaten with a shower of snow, He suffered the fourfold compulsion of the four winds. For if he turned flickering eyes to the sunrise, he received the fiery battle of neighbouring Euros. If he gazed towards the stormy clime of the Arcadian Bear, he was beaten by the chilly frost of wintry whirlwinds. If he shunned the cold blast of snow-beaten Boreas, he was shaken by the volleys of wet and hot together. If he looked to the sunset, opposite to the dawn of the grim east, he shivered before Enyo and her western tempests when he heard the noise of Zephyros cracking his Spring lash; and Notos, that hot wind, round about the southern foot of Capricorn flogged the aerial vaults, leading against Typhon a glowing blaze with steamy heat. If again Rainy Zeus poured down a watery torrent, Typhoeus bathed all his body in the troublesoothing showers, and refreshed his benumbed limbs after the stifling thunderbolts Now as the son was scourged with frozen volleys of jagged hailstones, his mother the dry Earth was beaten too; and seeing the stone bullets and embedded in the Giant’s flesh, the witness of fate, she prayed to Titan Helios with submissive : voice : she begged of him one red hot ray, that with, its heating fire she might melt the petrified water of Zeus, by pouring his kindred radiance over frozen Typhon. She herself melted along with his bruised, body ; and when she saw his legion of high-clambering hands burnt all round, she besought one of the tempestuous winter’s blasts to come for one morning, that he might quench Typhon’s overpowering thirst by his cool breezes,)
Then Cronion inclined the equally balanced beam of the fight. But Earth his Mother had thrown off her veil of forests with her hand, and just then was grieving to behold Typhaon’s smoking heads. While his faces were shrivelling, the Giant’s knees gave way beneath him; the trumpet of Zeus brayed, foretelling victory with a roll of thunder; down fell Typhoeus’s high-uplifted frame, drunk with the fiery bolt from heaven, stricken with a war-wound of something more than steel, and lay with his back upon Earth his mother, stretching his snaky limbs in the dust and belching flame. Cronides laughed aloud, and taunted him like this in a flood of words from his mocking throat :
“A fine ally has old Cronos found in you, Typhoeus! Earth could scarcely bring forth that great son for Iapetos ! A jolly champion of Titans ! The thunderbolts of Zeus soon their power against you, as I see! How long are you going to wait before taking up your quarters in the inaccessible heavens, you sceptred impostor The throne of Olympos awaits you : accept the robes and sceptre of Zeus, God-defying Typhoeus I Bring back Astraios to heaven ; if you wish, let Eurynome and Ophion return to the sky, and Cronos in the train of that! When you enter the dappleback vault of the stars, let crafty Prometheus leave his chains, and come with you : the bold bird who makes hearty meals off that rejuvenescent liver shall show) him the way to heaven. What did you want to gain by your riot, but to see Zeus and Earthshaker foot-) men behind your throne Well, here you have Zeus helpless, no longer sceptre-bearer of Olympos, Zeus stript of his thunders and his clouds, holding up no longer the lightning’s fire divine or the familiar thunderbolt, but a torch for Typhaon’s bower, groom of the chamber to Hera the bride of your spear, whom he eyes with wrath, jealous of your bed: Barynome and had ruled in Olympos before Bara A firmed here you have Earthshaker with him, torn from the sea for a new place instead of the deep as waiter at your table, no trident in his hand but a cup for you if you are thirsty! Here you have Ares for a menial, Apollo is your lackey ! Send round Maia’s son, King’s Messenger, to announce to the Titans your triumph and your glory in the skies. But I leave your smith Hephaistos to his regular work in Lemnos, and he can make a necklace to adorn your newly wedded bride, a real work of art, in dazzling colours, or a fine pair of brilliant shoes for your wife’s feet to delight her, or he can build another Olympian throne of shining gold, that your golden: throned Hera may laugh because she has a better throne than yours! And when you have the underground Cyclopes domiciled in Olympos, make a new spark for an improved thunderbolt. As for Eros, who bewitched your mind by delusive hopes of victory, chain him with golden Aphrodite in chains of gold, and clamp with chains of bronze Ares the governor of iron The lightnings try to escape, and will not abide Enyo! How was it you could not escape a harmless little flash of lightning? How was it with all those innumerable ears you were afraid to hear a little rainy thud of thunder? Who made you so big a coward ? Where are your weapons ? Where are your puppy-heads? Where are those gaping lions, where is the heavy bellowing of your throats like a rumbling earthquake ? Where is the far-flung poison of your snaky mane ? Do not you hiss any more with that coronet of serpentine bristles ? Where are the bellowings of your bull-mouths ? Where are your hands and their volleys of precipitous crags Do you flog no longer the mazy circles of the stars? Do the jutting tusks of your boars no longer whiten their chins, wet with a frill of foamy drippings ? Come now, where are the bristling grinning jaws of the mad bear ?
Clodhopper, give place to the sons of heaven! For with one hand I have vanquished your hands, two hundred strong. Let three-headland Sicily receive Typhon whole and entire, let her crush him all about under her steep and lofty hills, with the hair of his hundred heads miserably bedabbled in dust. Nevertheless, if you did have an over-violent mind, if you did assault Olympos itself in your impracticable ambitions, I will build you a cenotaph, presumptuous wretch, and I will engrave on your empty tomb, this last message: This is the barrow of Typhoeus son of Earth, who once lashed the sky with stones, and the fire of heaven burnt him up.’
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