[22] See Linwood's Lexicon, s. v. ἀμείβω, whose construing I have followed.
[23] Cf. Virg. Æn. I. 167, "Intus aquæ dulces, vivoque sedilia saxo."
"The rudest habitation, ye might think That it had sprung from earth self-raised, or grown Out of the living rock."—Wordsworth's Excursion, Book vi.
Compare a most picturesque description of Diana's cave, in Apul. Met. II. p. 116; Elm. Telemachus, Book I.; Undine, ch. viii.; Lane's Arabian Nights, vol. iii. p. 385.
[24] Although Dindorf has left ΩΚΕΑΝΟΣ before the lines beginning with οὐ δῆτα, yet as he in his notes, p. 54, approves of the opinion of Elmsley (to which the majority of critics assent), I have continued them to Prometheus. Dindorf (after Burges) remarks that the particles οὐ δῆτα deceived the copyists, who thought that they pointed to the commencement of a new speaker's address. He quotes Soph. Œd. C. 433; Eur. Alcest. 555; Heracl. 507, sqq., where it is used as a continuation of a previous argument, as in the present passage.
[25] It has been remarked that Æschylus had Pindar in mind, see Pyth. I. 31, and VIII. 20. On this fate of Enceladus cf. Philostrat. de V. Apoll. V. 6; Apollodorus I.; Hygin. Fab. 152; and for poetical descriptions, Cornel. Severus Ætna, 70, "Gurgite Trinacrio morientem Jupiter Ætna Obruit Enceladum, vasti qui pondere montis Æstuat, et patulis exspirat faucibus ignes." Virg. Æn. III. 578; Valer. Flacc. II. 24; Ovid. Met. V. Fab. V. 6; Claudian, de raptu Pros. I. 155; Orph. Arg. 1256. Strabo, I. p. 42, makes Hesiod acquainted with these eruptions. (See Goettling on Theog. 821.) But Prometheus here utters a prophecy concerning an eruption that really took place during the life of Æschylus, Ol. 75, 2, B.C. 479. Cf. Thucydides III. 116; Cluver, Sicil. Antig. p. 104, and Dindorf's clear and learned note. There can be little doubt but Enceladus and Typhon are only different names for the same monster. Burges has well remarked the resemblance between the Egyptian Typho and the Grecian, and considers them both as "two outward forms of one internal idea, representing the destructive principle of matter opposed to the creative." I shall refer the reader to Plutarch's entertaining treatise on Isis and Osiris; but to quote authorities from Herodotus down to the Apologetic Fathers, would be endless.
[26] I think, notwithstanding the arguments of Dindorf, that ὀργῆς νοσούσης means "a mind distempered," and that λόγοι mean "arguments, reasonings." Boyes, who always shows a poetical appreciation of his author, aptly quotes Spenser's Fairy Queen, b. 2, c. 8, st. 26.
"Words well dispost, Have secrete powre t' appease inflamed rage."
And Samson Agonistes:
"Apt words have power to swage The tumors of a troubled mind."