Note 217 — THE THEOGONY.
George Chapman translation
But him the whirls of vexing hurricanes Toss to and fro.]
Dante, Inferno, canto quinto:
I venn’ in luogo d’ogni luce muto: Che mughia, come fa mar per tempesta, Se da contrarii venti se combattuto: La bufera infernale, che mai non resta, Mena gli spiriti con la sua rapina, Voltando et percuotendo gli molesta. They reach a spot, void of all ray of light, Which howls as seas in storms, where winds opposing fight: The hellish whirlwind, never resting, hurls The hovering spirits snatch’d upon its whirls: And vexing smites, and eddying turns them round.
Milton seems to have conceived from this passage of Hesiod his idea of Satan falling down the chaotic void, book ii.:
A vast vacuity: all unawares, Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb down he drops Ten thousand fathoms deep: and to this hour Down had been falling, had not, by ill chance, The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud Instinct with fire and nitre hurried him As many miles aloft.