Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica
Zeus, and he lived in the country about Lycaeum. After Zeus had seduced
Callisto, Lycaon, pretending not to know of the matter, entertained
Zeus, as Hesiod says, and set before him on the table the babe which he
had cut up.
Fragment #4—Pseudo-Eratosthenes, Catast. fr. xxxii: Orion.]—Hesiod says
that he was the son of Euryale, the daughter of Minos, and of Poseidon,
and that there was given him as a gift the power of walking upon the
waves as though upon land. When he was come to Chios, he outraged
Merope, the daughter of Oenopion, being drunken; but Oenopion when he
learned of it was greatly vexed at the outrage and blinded him and cast
him out of the country. Then he came to Lemnos as a beggar and there
met Hephaestus who took pity on him and gave him Cedalion his own
servant to guide him. So Orion took Cedalion upon his shoulders and
used to carry him about while he pointed out the roads. Then he came to
the east and appears to have met Helius (the Sun) and to have been
healed, and so returned back again to Oenopion to punish him; but
Oenopion was hidden away by his people underground. Being disappointed,
then, in his search for the king, Orion went away to Crete and spent
his time hunting in company with Artemis and Leto. It seems that he
threatened to kill every beast there was on earth; whereupon, in her
anger, Earth sent up against him a scorpion of very great size by which
he was stung and so perished. After this Zeus, at one prayer of Artemis
and Leto, put him among the stars, because of his manliness, and the
scorpion also as a memorial of him and of what had occurred.
Fragment #5—Diodorus iv. 85: Some say that great earthquakes occurred,
which broke through the neck of land and formed the straits 1403, the
sea parting the mainland from the island. But Hesiod, the poet, says
just the opposite: that the sea was open, but Orion piled up the
promontory by Peloris, and founded the close of Poseidon which is
especially esteemed by the people thereabouts. When he had finished
this, he went away to Euboea and settled there, and because of his
renown was taken into the number of the stars in heaven, and won
undying remembrance.
THE PRECEPTS OF CHIRON
Fragment #1—Scholiast on Pindar, Pyth. vi. 19: ‘And now, pray, mark all
these things well in a wise heart. First, whenever you come to your
house, offer good sacrifices to the eternal gods.’
Fragment #2—Plutarch Mor. 1034 E: ‘Decide no suit until you have heard
both sides speak.’
Fragment #3—Plutarch de Orac. defectu ii. 415 C: ‘A chattering crow
lives out nine generations of aged men, but a stag’s life is four times
a crow’s, and a raven’s life makes three stags old, while the phoenix
outlives nine ravens, but we, the rich-haired Nymphs, daughters of Zeus
the aegis-holder, outlive ten phoenixes.’
Fragment #4—Quintilian, i. 15: Some consider that children under the
age of seven should not receive a literary education... That Hesiod was
of this opinion very many writers affirm who were earlier than the
critic Aristophanes; for he was the first to reject the _Precepts_, in
which book this maxim occurs, as a work of that poet.
THE GREAT WORKS
Fragment #1—Comm. on Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. v. 8: The verse,
however (the slaying of Rhadamanthys), is in Hesiod in the _Great
Works_ and is as follows: ‘If a man sow evil, he shall reap evil
increase; if men do to him as he has done, it will be true justice.’
Fragment #2—Proclus on Hesiod, Works and Days, 126: Some believe that
the Silver Race (is to be attributed to) the earth, declaring that in
the _Great Works_ Hesiod makes silver to be of the family of Earth.
THE IDAEAN DACTYLS
Fragment #1—Pliny, Natural History vii. 56, 197: Hesiod says that those
who are called the Idaean Dactyls taught the smelting and tempering of
iron in Crete.
Fragment #2—Clement, Stromateis i. 16. 75: Celmis, again, and
Damnameneus, the first of the Idaean Dactyls, discovered iron in
Cyprus; but bronze smelting was discovered by Delas, another Idaean,
though Hesiod calls him Scythes 1501.
THE THEOGONY
(ll. 1-25) From the Heliconian Muses let us begin to sing, who hold the
great and holy mount of Helicon, and dance on soft feet about the
deep-blue spring and the altar of the almighty son of Cronos, and, when
they have washed their tender bodies in Permessus or in the Horse’s
Spring or Olmeius, make their fair, lovely dances upon highest Helicon
and move with vigorous feet. Thence they arise and go abroad by night,
veiled in thick mist, and utter their song with lovely voice, praising
Zeus the aegis-holder and queenly Hera of Argos who walks on golden
sandals and the daughter of Zeus the aegis-holder bright-eyed Athene,
and Phoebus Apollo, and Artemis who delights in arrows, and Poseidon
the earth-holder who shakes the earth, and reverend Themis and
quick-glancing 1601 Aphrodite, and Hebe with the crown of gold, and
fair Dione, Leto, Iapetus, and Cronos the crafty counsellor, Eos and
great Helius and bright Selene, Earth too, and great Oceanus, and dark
Night, and the holy race of all the other deathless ones that are for
ever. And one day they taught Hesiod glorious song while he was
shepherding his lambs under holy Helicon, and this word first the
goddesses said to me—the Muses of Olympus, daughters of Zeus who holds
the aegis:
(ll. 26-28) ‘Shepherds of the wilderness, wretched things of shame,
mere bellies, we know how to speak many false things as though they
were true; but we know, when we will, to utter true things.’
(ll. 29-35) So said the ready-voiced daughters of great Zeus, and they
plucked and gave me a rod, a shoot of sturdy laurel, a marvellous
thing, and breathed into me a divine voice to celebrate things that
shall be and things there were aforetime; and they bade me sing of the
race of the blessed gods that are eternally, but ever to sing of
themselves both first and last. But why all this about oak or stone?
1602
(ll. 36-52) Come thou, let us begin with the Muses who gladden the
great spirit of their father Zeus in Olympus with their songs, telling
of things that are and that shall be and that were aforetime with
consenting voice. Unwearying flows the sweet sound from their lips, and
the house of their father Zeus the loud-thunderer is glad at the
lily-like voice of the goddesses as it spread abroad, and the peaks of
snowy Olympus resound, and the homes of the immortals. And they
uttering their immortal voice, celebrate in song first of all the
reverend race of the gods from the beginning, those whom Earth and wide
Heaven begot, and the gods sprung of these, givers of good things.
Then, next, the goddesses sing of Zeus, the father of gods and men, as
they begin and end their strain, how much he is the most excellent
among the gods and supreme in power. And again, they chant the race of
men and strong giants, and gladden the heart of Zeus within
Olympus,—the Olympian Muses, daughters of Zeus the aegis-holder.
(ll. 53-74) Them in Pieria did Mnemosyne (Memory), who reigns over the
hills of Eleuther, bear of union with the father, the son of Cronos, a
forgetting of ills and a rest from sorrow. For nine nights did wise
Zeus lie with her, entering her holy bed remote from the immortals. And
when a year was passed and the seasons came round as the months waned,
and many days were accomplished, she bare nine daughters, all of one
mind, whose hearts are set upon song and their spirit free from care, a
little way from the topmost peak of snowy Olympus. There are their
bright dancing-places and beautiful homes, and beside them the Graces
and Himerus (Desire) live in delight. And they, uttering through their
lips a lovely voice, sing the laws of all and the goodly ways of the
immortals, uttering their lovely voice. Then went they to Olympus,
delighting in their sweet voice, with heavenly song, and the dark earth
resounded about them as they chanted, and a lovely sound rose up
beneath their feet as they went to their father. And he was reigning in
heaven, himself holding the lightning and glowing thunderbolt, when he
had overcome by might his father Cronos; and he distributed fairly to
the immortals their portions and declared their privileges.
(ll. 75-103) These things, then, the Muses sang who dwell on Olympus,
nine daughters begotten by great Zeus, Cleio and Euterpe, Thaleia,
Melpomene and Terpsichore, and Erato and Polyhymnia and Urania and
Calliope 1603, who is the chiefest of them all, for she attends on
worshipful princes: whomsoever of heaven-nourished princes the
daughters of great Zeus honour, and behold him at his birth, they pour
sweet dew upon his tongue, and from his lips flow gracious words. All
the people look towards him while he settles causes with true
judgements: and he, speaking surely, would soon make wise end even of a
great quarrel; for therefore are there princes wise in heart, because
when the people are being misguided in their assembly, they set right
the matter again with ease, persuading them with gentle words. And when
he passes through a gathering, they greet him as a god with gentle
reverence, and he is conspicuous amongst the assembled: such is the
holy gift of the Muses to men. For it is through the Muses and
far-shooting Apollo that there are singers and harpers upon the earth;
but princes are of Zeus, and happy is he whom the Muses love: sweet
flows speech from his mouth. For though a man have sorrow and grief in
his newly-troubled soul and live in dread because his heart is
distressed, yet, when a singer, the servant of the Muses, chants the
glorious deeds of men of old and the blessed gods who inhabit Olympus,
at once he forgets his heaviness and remembers not his sorrows at all;
but the gifts of the goddesses soon turn him away from these.
(ll. 104-115) Hail, children of Zeus! Grant lovely song and celebrate
the holy race of the deathless gods who are for ever, those that were
born of Earth and starry Heaven and gloomy Night and them that briny
Sea did rear. Tell how at the first gods and earth came to be, and
rivers, and the boundless sea with its raging swell, and the gleaming
stars, and the wide heaven above, and the gods who were born of them,
givers of good things, and how they divided their wealth, and how they
shared their honours amongst them, and also how at the first they took
many-folded Olympus. These things declare to me from the beginning, ye
Muses who dwell in the house of Olympus, and tell me which of them
first came to be.
(ll. 116-138) Verily at the first Chaos came to be, but next
wide-bosomed Earth, the ever-sure foundations of all 1604 the deathless
ones who hold the peaks of snowy Olympus, and dim Tartarus in the depth
of the wide-pathed Earth, and Eros (Love), fairest among the deathless
gods, who unnerves the limbs and overcomes the mind and wise counsels
of all gods and all men within them. From Chaos came forth Erebus and
black Night; but of Night were born Aether 1605 and Day, whom she
conceived and bare from union in love with Erebus. And Earth first bare
starry Heaven, equal to herself, to cover her on every side, and to be
an ever-sure abiding-place for the blessed gods. And she brought forth
long Hills, graceful haunts of the goddess-Nymphs who dwell amongst the
glens of the hills. She bare also the fruitless deep with his raging
swell, Pontus, without sweet union of love. But afterwards she lay with
Heaven and bare deep-swirling Oceanus, Coeus and Crius and Hyperion and
Iapetus, Theia and Rhea, Themis and Mnemosyne and gold-crowned Phoebe
and lovely Tethys. After them was born Cronos the wily, youngest and
most terrible of her children, and he hated his lusty sire.
(ll. 139-146) And again, she bare the Cyclopes, overbearing in spirit,