Kitap 2
“Suppose destruction is my just award
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what have the waters and thy brother done?
Why should thy brother's cooling waves decrease
and thus recede so distant from the skies?
If not thy brother's good nor mine may touch
thy mercy, let the pity of thy Heaven,
for lo, the smoking poles on either side
attest, if flames consume them or destroy,
the ruin of thy palace. Atlas, huge,
with restive shoulders hardly can support
the burning heavens. If the seas and lands
together perish and thy palace fall,
the universe confused will plunge once more
to ancient Chaos. Save it from this wreck—
if anything survive the fury of the flames.”
So made the tortured Earth an end of speech;
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and she was fain to hide her countenance
in caves that border on the nether night.
But now the Almighty Father, having called
to witness all the Gods of Heaven, and him
who gave the car, that, else his power be shown,
must perish all in dire confusion, high
he mounted to the altitude from which
he spreads the mantling clouds, and fulminates
his dreadful thunders and swift lightning-bolts
terrific.—Clouds were none to find on the earth,
and the surrounding skies were void of rain.—
Jove, having reached that summit, stood and poised
in his almighty hand a flashing dart,
and, hurling it, deprived of life and seat
the youthful charioteer, and struck with fire
the raging flames— and by the same great force
those flames enveloping the earth were quenched,
and he who caused their fury lost his life.
Frantic in their affright the horses sprang
across the bounded way and cast their yokes,
and through the tangled harness lightly leaped.
And here the scattered harness lay, and there
the shattered axle, wrenched from off the pole,
and various portions of the broken car;