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So when Zeus had raised up his might and seized his arms, thunder and lightning and lurid thunderbolt, [855] he leaped from Olympus and struck him, and burned all the marvellous heads of the monster about him. But when Zeus had conquered him and lashed him with strokes, Typhoeus was hurled down, a maimed wreck, so that the huge earth groaned. And flame shot forth from the thunderstricken lord [860] in the dim rugged glens of the mount,1when he was smitten. A great part of huge earth was scorched by the terrible vapor and melted as tin melts when heated by men's art in channelled2crucibles; or as iron, which is hardest of all things, is shortened [865] by glowing fire in mountain glens and melts in the divine earth through the strength of Hephaestus.3Even so, then, the earth melted in the glow of the blazing fire. And in the bitterness of his anger Zeus cast him into wide Tartarus. And from Typhoeus come boisterous winds which blow damply, [870] except Notus and Boreas and clear Zephyr. These are a god-sent kind, and a great blessing to men; but the others blow fitfully upon the sea. Some rush upon the misty sea and work great havoc among men with their evil, raging blasts; [875] for varying with the season they blow, scattering ships and destroying sailors. And men who meet these upon the sea have no help against the mischief. Others again over the boundless, flowering earth spoil the fair fields of men who dwell below, [880] filling them with dust and cruel uproar. But when the blessed gods had finished their toil, and settled by force their struggle for honors with the Titans, they pressed far-seeing Olympian Zeus to reign and to rule over them, by Earth's prompting. So he divided their dignities amongst them.

1 According to Homer Typhoeus was overwhelmed by Zeus amongst the Arimi in Cilicia. Pindar represents him as buried under Aetna, and Tzetzes read Aetna in this passage.

2 The epithet (which means literallywell-bored) seems to refer to the spout of the crucible.

3 The fire god. There is no reference to volcanic action: iron was smelted on Mount Ida; cp.Epigrams of Homer,ix. 2-4.

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