Page:Hesiod, and Theognis.djvu/114

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HESIOD.
Descend; and through the flesh that wastes awayBeneath the parching Sun, their whitening bones Start forth and moulder in the sable dust."—E. 200-208.

Around this central image are grouped the appropriate forms of "Rout," "Rallying," "Terror," "Tumult," "Carnage," and "Discord;" but in close proximity to the dragon's head came twelve serpent-heads, freezing with dread all mortal combatants, and endowed, it should seem, with properties not inherent in the metal of the shield. The translation is as follows:—

"Oft as he Moved to the battle, from their clashing fangs A sound was heard. Such miracles displayed The buckler's field with living blazonry Resplendent; and those fearful snakes were streaked O'er their cerulean backs with streaks of jet, And their jaws blackened with a jetty dye."—E. 224-230.

But the original seems to imply that the rows of teeth, with which each serpent was finished, actually gnashed and clashed while Hercules was fighting. This, as Mr Paley suggests, may have been a mechanical device like that in the Theban Shields mentioned in the 'Phœnissæ' of Euripides, v. 11-26; or a bit of the marvellous—a "Munchausenism," such as ancient poets affect in enhancing the wonder of some work of the gods. Whichever it was, a like demand on our credulity is made in two other passages; one, where in another compartment Perseus is represented as seeming to hover over the shield's surface, like a man flying low in air, and to flit like a thought:—

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