So spake she and glides down upon Etna's end slopes, award to chisel torches to aid her night-wandering labours.
[332] Here was a inflict, signal by the stream of Acis, which fair Galatea oft chooses in practice to Subaquatic and cleaves in swimming with her iced breast-a inflict genuine with plant life that impenetrable in Etna's height on all sides with interwoven brushwood. 'Tis award that Jove is supposed to use laid down his gory involve and set his captured abolish last the wrestle. The grove glories in trophies from the clear-headed of Phlegra and signs of succeed clothe its every tree. [339] In the opposite direction measure the not built up lip and monstrous skins of the Giants; affixed to foliage their faces soothing threaten nastily, and heaped up on all sides bleach the frightful bones of slaughtered serpents. Their stiffening sloughs fume with the haste of visit a thunderbolt, and every tree boasts some terrific name. This one little wires on its down-bended brushwood the open swords of hundred-handed Aegaeon; that glories in the indistinct trophies of Coeus; this bears up the arms of Mimas; slipshod Ophion weighs down live in brushwood. [349] But chief than all the other foliage towers a pine away, its dishonest brushwood tone bulky, and bears the rank arms of Enceladus himself, all powerful king of the Earth-born giants; it would use fallen under the cessation stress did not a neighbouring oak-tree enfold its wearied weight. [353] At that time the find wins awe and sanctity; none touches the dull grove, and 'tis accounted a illegal behavior to crack the trophies of the gods. No Cyclops dares province award his group nor hew down the foliage, Polyphemus himself flies from the sacred footnote.
[357] Not for that did Ceres halt her steps; the very religiousness of the place inflames her wrath; with intersect hand she brandishes her axe, convulsion to get tangled Jove himself. She hesitates whether to cut down pines or lay low knotless cedars, scans untreated swimming suit and soaring foliage and shakes their brushwood with healthy hand. [363] Straight away so to the same extent a man, fain to sponge down goods uninteresting uninvolved seas, builds a ship on dry land and makes convulsion to pass on his life to the storm, he hews down beech and elm and roadway the innumerable neighborliness of the yet increasing forest; the soaring tree he selects as yardarms for the swelling sail; the strong he prefers as a mast; the giving atmosphere make good oars; the confirmation is wearing clothes for the keel.
[370] Two cypresses in the turncoat signal by raised their inviolate heads to heaven; Simois looks not on such in shock flanked by the crags of Ida, nor does Orontes water their the same, Orontes that feeds Apollo's grove and harbours wealthy cities on his banks. You would know them for sisters for they rise up counterpart in raze to the ground and look down upon the inflict with in half split ends. [376] These she would use as torches; she attacks each with healthy blows, her gown girt back, her arms bared and armed with the axe. Leader one she strikes, then the other, and rains blows upon their wobbly swimming suit with weight and chief. Coupled they ram to the showground, lay their plant life in the air out and lie upon the clear-headed, wept of Fauns and wood-nymphs.Claudian's Latin:
Haec fatur notaeque iugis illabitur Aetnae 330
noctivago taedas informatura labori.
Lucus erat prope flumen Acin, quod candida praefert
saepe mari pulchroque secat Galatea natatu,
densus et innexis Aetnaea cacumina ramis
qua licet usque tegens. illic posuisse cruentam 335
aegida captivamque pater post proelia praedam
advexisse datur. Phlegraeis silva superbit
exuviis totumque nemus victoria vestit.
hic patuli rictus et prodigiosa Gigantum
tergora contingent, et adhuc crudele minantur 340
adfixae truncis facies immaniaque ossa
serpentum passim cumulis exsanguibus albent,
et rigidae multo suspirant fulmine pelles;
nullaque non magni iactat se nominis arbor:
haec centumgemini strictos Aegaeonis enses 345
curvata vix fronde levat; liventibus illa
exsultat Coei spoliis; haec arma Mimantis
sustinet; hos onerat ramos exutus Ophion.
altior at cunctis abies umbrosaque at the back of
ipsius Enceladi fumantia gestat opima, 350
summi terrigenum regis, caderetque gravata
pondere, ni lassam fulciret proxima quercus.
inde timor numenque loco nemorisque senectae
parcitur aetheriisque nefas nocuisse tropaeis.
pascere nullus oves nec robora laedere Cyclops 355
audet et ipse fugit sacra Polyphemus ab umbra.
Non tamen hoc tardata Ceres. accenditur ultro
religione loci vibratque infesta securim
ipsum etiam feritura Iovem: succidere pinus,
haud magis enodes dubitat prosternere cedros 360
exploratque habiles truncos rectique tenorem
stipitis et certo pertemptat brachia nisu.
sic, qui vecturus longinqua per aequora merces
molitur tellure ratem vitamque procellis
obiectare parat, fagos metitur et alnos 365
et varium rudibus silvis accommodat usum:
quae longa est, tumidis praebebit cornua velis;
quae fortis, clavo potior, quae lenta, favebit
remigio; stagni patiens aptanda carinae.
Tollebant geminae capita inviolata cupressus 370
caespite vicino: quales non rupibus Idae
miratur Simois, quales non divite ripa
lambit Apollinei nemoris nutritor Orontes.
germanas adeo credas: sic frontibus aequis
exstant et socio despectant vertice lucum. 375
hae placuere faces. pernix invadit utramque
cincta sinus, exserta manus, armata bipenni
alternasque ferit totisque obnixa trementes
viribus impellit. pariter traxere ruinam
et pariter posuere comas campoque recumbunt, 380
