Note 26 (p. 192) "The pillars of Heaven and Earth upon his shoulders." If the reader is a curious person, he will ask how Atlas when standing on the Earth--in the extreme west of the Earth--could bear the pillars of _Heaven_ and _Earth?_ and the question will be a very proper one; for the fact is that, as Hesiod distinctly states the case, he bore the pillars of _Heaven only_ (Theog. 517). This is, indeed, the only possible idea that could be admitted into a mythology which proceeded on the old principle that the Earth was a flat solid platform in the centre of the Universe, round which the celestial pole (πόλος) wheeled. The phrase "_pillars of Heaven and Earth_" is, therefore, to a certain extent an improper one; for the Earth, being the stable base of all things, required no pillars to support it. In one sense it is true that the pillars of Atlas are the pillars of Heaven and Earth, viz., in so far as they have Heaven at one end and Earth at the other, which is what Homer means when he says (Odyssey I. 54), that these pillars "γᾶιάν τε καὶ ὀυρανὸν ἀμφὶς ἔχουσιν." And that this is the idea of Æschylus, also, is plain, both from the present passage, and from the Epode of the next following Chorus, where, unless we force in one conjecture of Schütz, or another of Hermann into the text, there is no mention of anything but the _celestial pole_. In all this I but express in my own words, {394} and with a very decided conviction, the substance of the admirable note in SCHOE. to v. 426, WELL. Note 27 (p. 192). ". . . Typhon." The idea of Typhon is that of a strong windy power, δεινόν ὑβριστήν τ ἄνεμον, according to the express statement of Hesiod (Theog. 307). The Greek word _Typhon_, with which our _typhus fever_ is identical, expresses the state of being _swollen_ or _blown up_; with this, the other idea of _heat_, which belongs also to Typhon (Sallust, περὶ θεῶν, c. 4), is naturally connected. According to the elementary or physical system of mythology, therefore, Typhon is neither more nor less than a _simoom_ or _hot wind_. Note 28 (p. 193). "Knowest thou not this, Prometheus, that mild words Are medicines of fierce wrath?" The reader may like to see Cicero's version of these four lines-- "_Oceanus_. Atqui Prometheu te hoc, tenere existimo Mederi posse rationem iracundiæ." "_Prom_. Si quidem qui tempestivam medicinam admovens Non ad gravescens vulnus illidat manus." TUSC. Q., III. 31. Note 29 (p. 194). ". . . holy Asia weep For thee, Prometheus."