But all other mountain scenes in Pindar, whether adorned with glaciers or not, pale before the description of the eruption of Ætna:—
τᾶς ἐρεύγονται μὲν ἀπλάτου πυρὸς ἁγνόταται
ἐκ μυχῶν παγαί· ποταμοὶ δ’ ἁμέραισιν μὲν προχέοντι ῥόον καπνοῦ
αἴθων’, ἀλλ’ ἐν ὄρφναισιν πέτρας
φοίνισσα κυλινδομένα φλὸξ ἐς βαθεῖαν φέρει πόντου πλάκα σὺν πατάγῳ.
κεῖνο δ’ Ἁφαίστοιο κρουνοὺς ἑρπετὸν
δεινοτάτους ἀναπέμπει· τέρας μὲν θαυμάσιον προσιδέσθαι, θαῦμα δὲ καὶ παρεόντων ἀκοῦσαι.[42]
Pind. Pyth. i. 15.
We need not enjoy this description any the less for feeling that Pindar is not thinking of Ætna the mountain, nor even of Ætna the volcano, but only of the eruption, which is not in his eyes an eruption of Ætna but of the monstrous breath of Typhoeus. The mountain is dismissed with little more than the usual trite epithets—κίων οὐρανία, νιφοέσσα, πάνετες χιόνος ὀξείας τιθήνα,[43] of which the last phrase conveys an even more false suggestion than the similar χιονοτρόφος κιθαίρων.[44]
Although references to the mountains are even more rare in drama, this particular eruption is ‘foretold’ by Prometheus:—
ἐκραγήσονταί ποτε
ποταμοὶ πυρὸς δάπτοντες ἀγρίαις γνάθοις
τῆς καλλικάρπου Σικελίας λευροὺς γύας·
τοιόνδε Τυφὼς ἐξαναζέσει χόλον
θερμῆς ἀπλήστου βέλεσι πυρπνόου ζάλης
καίπερ κεραυνῷ Ζηνὸς ἠνθρακωμένος.[45]
Æsch. P.V. 367.
Here Ætna has neither part nor lot in the eruption: Typhoeus is made responsible for the whole, in spite of the fact that he has already been reduced to ashes.
The mountains which form the setting of the Prometheus Vinctus are regarded solely as a bleak, inhospitable, and, above all, inhuman, background for the sufferings of the Titan. It is amazing to us that when he is left alone and calls upon the forms of nature around, only the mountains have no place in the circle of silent witnesses to whom he cries:—
ὦ δῖος αἰθὴρ καὶ ταχύπτεροι πνοαί,
ποταμῶν τε πηγαί, ποντίων τε κυμάτων
ἀνήριθμον γέλασμα, παμμῆτόρ τε Γῆ
καὶ τὸν πανόπτην κύκλον Ἡλίου καλῶ.
The rushing of winged winds, the sources of the rivers, the multitudinous laughter of the distant sea, Earth, the Mother of All, and the all-seeing orb of the Sun—all these are to look upon his torments; but the mountains are degraded by their omission below the very springs which rise upon them.
It may be suggested, as an explanation, that motion formed an essential part of the Greek idea of beauty; for motion is the outward and visible sign of life. We may observe that the words δῖος αἴθηρ make the air for a moment the medium of thought, expressed in which ‘wind’ is the pure and abstract idea of motion.