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Theogony
By Hesiod
Translated by H.G. Eveyln-White
Part 10 (901-1022)
(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 (29), 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) (30) 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 (31)
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 Alemena 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
Alemena, 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 dying gods, untroubled and unaging 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 from Aeetes the daughter of Aeetes the heaven-nurtured king,
when he had finished the many grievous labours which the great
king, over bearing Pelias, that outrageous and presumptuous doer
of violence, put upon him. But when the son of Aeson had
finished them, he came to Iolcus after long toil bringing the
coy-eyed girl with him on his swift ship, and made her his buxom
wife. And she was subject to Iason, shepherd of the people, and
bare a son Medeus whom Cheiron the son of Philyra brought up in
the mountains. And the will of great Zeus was fulfilled.
(ll. 1003-1007) But of the daughters of Nereus, the Old man of
the Sea, Psamathe the fair goddess, was loved by Aeacus through
golden Aphrodite and bare Phocus. And the silver-shod goddess
Thetis was subject to Peleus and brought forth lion-hearted
Achilles, the destroyer of men.
(ll. 1008-1010) And Cytherea with the beautiful crown was joined
in sweet love with the hero Anchises and bare Aeneas on the peaks
of Ida with its many wooded glens.
(ll. 1011-1016) And Circe the daughter of Helius, Hyperion's son,
loved steadfast Odysseus and bare Agrius and Latinus who was
faultless and strong: also she brought forth Telegonus by the
will of golden Aphrodite. And they ruled over the famous
Tyrenians, very far off in a recess of the holy islands.
(ll. 1017-1018) And the bright goddess Calypso was joined to
Odysseus in sweet love, and bare him Nausithous and Nausinous.
(ll. 1019-1020) These are the immortal goddesses who lay with
mortal men and bare them children like unto gods.
(ll. 1021-1022) But now, sweet-voiced Muses of Olympus, daughters
of Zeus who holds the aegis, sing of the company of women.
ENDNOTES:
(1) The epithet probably indicates coquettishness.
(2) A proverbial saying meaning, `why enlarge on irrelevant
topics?'
(3) `She of the noble voice': Calliope is queen of Epic poetry.
(4) Earth, in the cosmology of Hesiod, is a disk surrounded by
the river Oceanus and floating upon a waste of waters. It
is called the foundation of all (the qualification `the
deathless ones...' etc. is an interpolation), because not
only trees, men, and animals, but even the hills and seas
(ll. 129, 131) are supported by it.
(5) Aether is the bright, untainted upper atmosphere, as
distinguished from Aer, the lower atmosphere of the earth.
(6) Brontes is the Thunderer; Steropes, the Lightener; and
Arges, the Vivid One.
(7) The myth accounts for the separation of Heaven and Earth.
In Egyptian cosmology Nut (the Sky) is thrust and held apart
from her brother Geb (the Earth) by their father Shu, who
corresponds to the Greek Atlas.
(8) Nymphs of the ash-trees, as Dryads are nymphs of the oak-
trees. Cp. note on "Works and Days", l. 145.
(9) `Member-loving': the title is perhaps only a perversion of
the regular PHILOMEIDES (laughter-loving).
(10) Cletho (the Spinner) is she who spins the thread of man's
life; Lachesis (the Disposer of Lots) assigns to each man
his destiny; Atropos (She who cannot be turned) is the `Fury
with the abhorred shears.'
(11) Many of the names which follow express various qualities or
aspects of the sea: thus Galene is `Calm', Cymothoe is the
`Wave-swift', Pherusa and Dynamene are `She who speeds
(ships)' and `She who has power'.
(12) The `Wave-receiver' and the `Wave-stiller'.
(13) `The Unerring' or `Truthful'; cp. l. 235.
(14) i.e. Poseidon.
(15) Goettling notes that some of these nymphs derive their names
from lands over which they preside, as Europa, Asia, Doris,
Ianeira (`Lady of the Ionians'), but that most are called
after some quality which their streams possessed: thus
Xanthe is the `Brown' or `Turbid', Amphirho is the
`Surrounding' river, Ianthe is `She who delights', and
Ocyrrhoe is the `Swift-flowing'.
(16) i.e. Eos, the `Early-born'.
(17) Van Lennep explains that Hecate, having no brothers to
support her claim, might have been slighted.
(18) The goddess of the hearth (the Roman "Vesta"), and so of the
house. Cp. "Homeric Hymns" v.22 ff.; xxxix.1 ff.
(19) The variant reading `of his father' (sc. Heaven) rests on
inferior MS. authority and is probably an alteration due to
the difficulty stated by a Scholiast: `How could Zeus, being
not yet begotten, plot against his father?' The phrase is,
however, part of the prophecy. The whole line may well be
spurious, and is rejected by Heyne, Wolf, Gaisford and
Guyet.
(20) Pausanias (x. 24.6) saw near the tomb of Neoptolemus `a
stone of no great size', which the Delphians anointed every
day with oil, and which he says was supposed to be the stone
given to Cronos.
(21) A Scholiast explains: `Either because they (men) sprang from
the Melian nymphs (cp. l. 187); or because, when they were
born (?), they cast themselves under the ash-trees, that is,
the trees.' The reference may be to the origin of men from
ash-trees: cp. "Works and Days", l. 145 and note.
(22) sc. Atlas, the Shu of Egyptian mythology: cp. note on line
177.
(23) Oceanus is here regarded as a continuous stream enclosing
the earth and the seas, and so as flowing back upon himself.
(24) The conception of Oceanus is here different: he has nine
streams which encircle the earth and the flow out into the
`main' which appears to be the waste of waters on which,
according to early Greek and Hebrew cosmology, the disk-like
earth floated.
(25) i.e. the threshold is of `native' metal, and not artificial.
(26) According to Homer Typhoeus was overwhelmed by Zeus amongst
the Arimi in Cilicia. Pindar represents him as buried under
Aetna, and Tzetzes reads Aetna in this passage.
(27) The epithet (which means literally `well-bored') seems to
refer to the spout of the crucible.
(28) The fire god. There is no reference to volcanic action:
iron was smelted on Mount Ida; cp. "Epigrams of Homer", ix.
2-4.
(29) i.e. Athena, who was born `on the banks of the river Trito'
(cp. l. 929l)
(30) Restored by Peppmuller. The nineteen following lines from
another recension of lines 889-900, 924-9 are quoted by
Chrysippus (in Galen).
(31) sc. the aegis. Line 929s is probably spurious, since it
disagrees with l. 929q and contains a suspicious reference
to Athens.
Hesiod - Theogony Table of Contents
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