as far beneath the earth as heaven is above earth; for so
 far is it from earth to Tartarus. For a brazen anvil falling down from
 heaven nine nights and days would reach the earth upon the tenth: and
 again, a brazen anvil falling from earth nine nights and
 days would reach Tartarus
 upon the tenth. Round it runs a fence of bronze, and night spreads in
 triple line all about it like a neck-circlet, while above grow the
 roots of the earth and unfruitful sea. 
 

 
 There by the counsel of Zeus who drives the clouds the Titan
 gods are hidden under misty
 gloom, in a dank place where are the ends of the huge earth. And they
 may not go out; for Poseidon fixed gates of bronze upon it, and a wall
 runs all round it on every side. There Gyes and Cottus and
 great-souled Obriareus live,
 trusty warders of Zeus who holds the aegis. And there, all in their
 order, are the sources and ends of gloomy earth and misty Tartarus and
 the unfruitful sea and starry heaven, loathsome and dank, which even
 the gods abhor. It is a great
 gulf, and if once a man were within the gates, he would not reach the
 floor until a whole year had reached its end, but cruel blast upon
 blast would carry him this way and that. And this marvel is awful even
 to the deathless gods. There stands the awful home of murky
 Night