Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica
but lies spiritless and voiceless on a strewn bed: and a heavy trance
overshadows him. But when he has spent a long year in his sickness,
another penance and an harder follows after the first. For nine years
he is cut off from the eternal gods and never joins their councils of
their feasts, nine full years. But in the tenth year he comes again to
join the assemblies of the deathless gods who live in the house of
Olympus. Such an oath, then, did the gods appoint the eternal and
primaeval water of Styx to be: and it spouts through a rugged place.
(ll. 807-819) And there, all in their order, are the sources and ends
of the dark earth and misty Tartarus and the unfruitful sea and starry
heaven, loathsome and dank, which even the gods abhor.
And there are shining gates and an immoveable threshold of bronze
having unending roots and it is grown of itself 1625. And beyond, away
from all the gods, live the Titans, beyond gloomy Chaos. But the
glorious allies of loud-crashing Zeus have their dwelling upon Ocean’s
foundations, even Cottus and Gyes; but Briareos, being goodly, the
deep-roaring Earth-Shaker made his son-in-law, giving him Cymopolea his
daughter to wed.
(ll. 820-868) But when Zeus had driven the Titans from heaven, huge
Earth bare her youngest child Typhoeus of the love of Tartarus, by the
aid of golden Aphrodite. Strength was with his hands in all that he did
and the feet of the strong god were untiring. From his shoulders grew
an hundred heads of a snake, a fearful dragon, with dark, flickering
tongues, and from under the brows of his eyes in his marvellous heads
flashed fire, and fire burned from his heads as he glared. And there
were voices in all his dreadful heads which uttered every kind of sound
unspeakable; for at one time they made sounds such that the gods
understood, but at another, the noise of a bull bellowing aloud in
proud ungovernable fury; and at another, the sound of a lion,
relentless of heart; and at another, sounds like whelps, wonderful to
hear; and again, at another, he would hiss, so that the high mountains
re-echoed. And truly a thing past help would have happened on that day,
and he would have come to reign over mortals and immortals, had not the
father of men and gods been quick to perceive it. But he thundered hard
and mightily: and the earth around resounded terribly and the wide
heaven above, and the sea and Ocean’s streams and the nether parts of
the earth. Great Olympus reeled beneath the divine feet of the king as
he arose and earth groaned thereat. And through the two of them heat
took hold on the dark-blue sea, through the thunder and lightning, and
through the fire from the monster, and the scorching winds and blazing
thunderbolt. The whole earth seethed, and sky and sea: and the long
waves raged along the beaches round and about, at the rush of the
deathless gods: and there arose an endless shaking. Hades trembled
where he rules over the dead below, and the Titans under Tartarus who
live with Cronos, because of the unending clamour and the fearful
strife. So when Zeus had raised up his might and seized his arms,
thunder and lightning and lurid thunderbolt, he leaped from Olympus and
struck him, and burned all the marvellous heads of the monster about
him. But when Zeus had conquered him and lashed him with strokes,
Typhoeus was hurled down, a maimed wreck, so that the huge earth
groaned. And flame shot forth from the thunder-stricken lord in the dim
rugged glens of the mount 1626, when he was smitten. A great part of
huge earth was scorched by the terrible vapour and melted as tin melts
when heated by men’s art in channelled 1627 crucibles; or as iron,
which is hardest of all things, is softened by glowing fire in mountain
glens and melts in the divine earth through the strength of Hephaestus
1628. Even so, then, the earth melted in the glow of the blazing fire.
And in the bitterness of his anger Zeus cast him into wide Tartarus.
(ll. 869-880) And from Typhoeus come boisterous winds which blow
damply, except Notus and Boreas and clear Zephyr. These are a god-sent
kind, and a great blessing to men; but the others blow fitfully upon
the seas. Some rush upon the misty sea and work great havoc among men
with their evil, raging blasts; for varying with the season they blow,
scattering ships and destroying sailors. And men who meet these upon
the sea have no help against the mischief. Others again over the
boundless, flowering earth spoil the fair fields of men who dwell
below, filling them with dust and cruel uproar.
(ll. 881-885) But when the blessed gods had finished their toil, and
settled by force their struggle for honours with the Titans, they
pressed far-seeing Olympian Zeus to reign and to rule over them, by
Earth’s prompting. So he divided their dignities amongst them.
(ll. 886-900) Now Zeus, king of the gods, made Metis his wife first,
and she was wisest among gods and mortal men. But when she was about to
bring forth the goddess bright-eyed Athene, Zeus craftily deceived her
with cunning words and put her in his own belly, as Earth and starry
Heaven advised. For they advised him so, to the end that no other
should hold royal sway over the eternal gods in place of Zeus; for very
wise children were destined to be born of her, first the maiden
bright-eyed Tritogeneia, equal to her father in strength and in wise
understanding; but afterwards she was to bear a son of overbearing
spirit, king of gods and men. But Zeus put her into his own belly
first, that the goddess might devise for him both good and evil.
(ll. 901-906) Next he married bright Themis who bare the Horae (Hours),
and Eunomia (Order), Dike (Justice), and blooming Eirene (Peace), who
mind the works of mortal men, and the Moerae (Fates) to whom wise Zeus
gave the greatest honour, Clotho, and Lachesis, and Atropos who give
mortal men evil and good to have.
(ll. 907-911) And Eurynome, the daughter of Ocean, beautiful in form,
bare him three fair-cheeked Charites (Graces), Aglaea, and Euphrosyne,
and lovely Thaleia, from whose eyes as they glanced flowed love that
unnerves the limbs: and beautiful is their glance beneath their brows.
(ll. 912-914) Also he came to the bed of all-nourishing Demeter, and
she bare white-armed Persephone whom Aidoneus carried off from her
mother; but wise Zeus gave her to him.
(ll. 915-917) And again, he loved Mnemosyne with the beautiful hair:
and of her the nine gold-crowned Muses were born who delight in feasts
and the pleasures of song.
(ll. 918-920) And Leto was joined in love with Zeus who holds the
aegis, and bare Apollo and Artemis delighting in arrows, children
lovely above all the sons of Heaven.
(ll. 921-923) Lastly, he made Hera his blooming wife: and she was
joined in love with the king of gods and men, and brought forth Hebe
and Ares and Eileithyia.
(ll. 924-929) But Zeus himself gave birth from his own head to
bright-eyed Tritogeneia 1629, the awful, the strife-stirring, the
host-leader, the unwearying, the queen, who delights in tumults and
wars and battles. But Hera without union with Zeus—for she was very
angry and quarrelled with her mate—bare famous Hephaestus, who is
skilled in crafts more than all the sons of Heaven.
(ll. 929a-929t) 1630 But Hera was very angry and quarrelled with her
mate. And because of this strife she bare without union with Zeus who
holds the aegis a glorious son, Hephaestus, who excelled all the sons
of Heaven in crafts. But Zeus lay with the fair-cheeked daughter of
Ocean and Tethys apart from Hera.... ((LACUNA)) ....deceiving Metis
(Thought) although she was full wise. But he seized her with his hands
and put her in his belly, for fear that she might bring forth something
stronger than his thunderbolt: therefore did Zeus, who sits on high and
dwells in the aether, swallow her down suddenly. But she straightway
conceived Pallas Athene: and the father of men and gods gave her birth
by way of his head on the banks of the river Trito. And she remained
hidden beneath the inward parts of Zeus, even Metis, Athena’s mother,
worker of righteousness, who was wiser than gods and mortal men. There
the goddess (Athena) received that 1631 whereby she excelled in
strength all the deathless ones who dwell in Olympus, she who made the
host-scaring weapon of Athena. And with it (Zeus) gave her birth,
arrayed in arms of war.
(ll. 930-933) And of Amphitrite and the loud-roaring Earth-Shaker was
born great, wide-ruling Triton, and he owns the depths of the sea,
living with his dear mother and the lord his father in their golden
house, an awful god.
(ll. 933-937) Also Cytherea bare to Ares the shield-piercer Panic and
Fear, terrible gods who drive in disorder the close ranks of men in
numbing war, with the help of Ares, sacker of towns: and Harmonia whom
high-spirited Cadmus made his wife.
(ll. 938-939) And Maia, the daughter of Atlas, bare to Zeus glorious
Hermes, the herald of the deathless gods, for she went up into his holy
bed.
(ll. 940-942) And Semele, daughter of Cadmus was joined with him in
love and bare him a splendid son, joyous Dionysus,—a mortal woman an
immortal son. And now they both are gods.
(ll. 943-944) And Alcmena was joined in love with Zeus who drives the
clouds and bare mighty Heracles.
(ll. 945-946) And Hephaestus, the famous Lame One, made Aglaea,
youngest of the Graces, his buxom wife.
(ll. 947-949) And golden-haired Dionysus made brown-haired Ariadne, the
daughter of Minos, his buxom wife: and the son of Cronos made her
deathless and unageing for him.
(ll. 950-955) And mighty Heracles, the valiant son of neat-ankled
Alcmena, when he had finished his grievous toils, made Hebe the child
of great Zeus and gold-shod Hera his shy wife in snowy Olympus. Happy
he! For he has finished his great works and lives amongst the undying
gods, untroubled and unageing all his days.
(ll. 956-962) And Perseis, the daughter of Ocean, bare to unwearying
Helios Circe and Aeetes the king. And Aeetes, the son of Helios who
shows light to men, took to wife fair-cheeked Idyia, daughter of Ocean
the perfect stream, by the will of the gods: and she was subject to him
in love through golden Aphrodite and bare him neat-ankled Medea.
(ll. 963-968) And now farewell, you dwellers on Olympus and you islands
and continents and thou briny sea within. Now sing the company of
goddesses, sweet-voiced Muses of Olympus, daughter of Zeus who holds
the aegis,—even those deathless one who lay with mortal men and bare
children like unto gods.
(ll. 969-974) Demeter, bright goddess, was joined in sweet love with
the hero Iasion in a thrice-ploughed fallow in the rich land of Crete,
and bare Plutus, a kindly god who goes everywhere over land and the
sea’s wide back, and him who finds him and into whose hands he comes he
makes rich, bestowing great wealth upon him.
(ll. 975-978) And Harmonia, the daughter of golden Aphrodite, bare to
Cadmus Ino and Semele and fair-cheeked Agave and Autonoe whom long
haired Aristaeus wedded, and Polydorus also in rich-crowned Thebe.
(ll. 979-983) And the daughter of Ocean, Callirrhoe was joined in the
love of rich Aphrodite with stout hearted Chrysaor and bare a son who
was the strongest of all men, Geryones, whom mighty Heracles killed in
sea-girt Erythea for the sake of his shambling oxen.
(ll. 984-991) And Eos bare to Tithonus brazen-crested Memnon, king of
the Ethiopians, and the Lord Emathion. And to Cephalus she bare a
splendid son, strong Phaethon, a man like the gods, whom, when he was a
young boy in the tender flower of glorious youth with childish
thoughts, laughter-loving Aphrodite seized and caught up and made a
keeper of her shrine by night, a divine spirit.
(ll. 993-1002) And the son of Aeson by the will of the gods led away