The Poems of Hesiod

by Hesiod

  the holy race of the deathless ones , who last forever, who came forth

  from Earth and starry Sky, and dark Night, and those whom salty Sea

  nourished. Tell us how the gods and Earth first came into being,

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  and the rivers and the endless sea raging with swells, and the shining

  stars, and the broad heaven up above. And tell which gods came from them,

  the bestowers of good things, and how they divided their wealth,

  and how they divided their spheres of influence, and how they first took

  possession of Olympos with its many valleys.95

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  Sing to me these things,

  Muses who live on Olympos! From the beginning, tell me which

  gods first came into being!

  First of all Chaos came into being,

  then broad-breasted Earth, the ever-safe foundation of all the deathless ones,

  who live on the peaks of snowy Olympos, and shadowy Tartaros

  in a hiding place of the earth with its wide ways, and Eros, who is the most

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  beautiful of all the deathless gods, who relaxes the limbs and overwhelms

  the mind and wise counsel in the breasts of all the gods and men.102

  From Chaos came Darkness and black Night, and from Night came

  Brightness and Day, whom Night conceived and bore by uniting in love

  with Darkness.105 Earth bore starry Sky first, like to her in size, so that

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  he covered her all around, everywhere, so that there might always

  be a secure seat for the blessed gods. And Earth gave birth to the blessed

  Mountains, the pleasant halls of the gods, the nymphs who live in the wooded

  hills. She bore the barren waters, raging with its swell, Sea, without making

  delightful love.

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  But then, uniting with Sky, Earth bore deep-swirling Ocean,

  and Koios, and Kreios, and Hyperion, and Iapetos, and Theia, and Rhea,

  and Themis, and Mnemosynê, and golden-crowned Phoibê, and beloved

  Tethys. After them was born crooked-counseled Kronos, the youngest

  and most terrible of these children, who hated his powerful father.114

  Genealogical Chart 1. The primordial gods.

  She bore too the Cyclopês with their overweening spirit—Brontês

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  and Steropês and mighty Argês, who gave to Zeus the thunderbolt

  and manufactured the lightning. These creatures were like the gods

  in all other ways, but they had a single eye in the middle of their foreheads:

  So they were called “Round-Eyes,” because there was a single round

  eye in their foreheads. Strength and power and device were in their works.120

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  Earth and Sky had three other children, great and strong,

  scarcely to be named—Kottos and Briareos and Gygês122, prodigal children.

  One hundred arms sprang from their shoulders, scarcely to be imagined,

  and fifty heads grew out of the shoulders of each, mounted on powerful

  limbs. Their strength was unapproachable, mighty in their great forms.

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  Of all the offspring of Earth and Sky, these were the most terrible children.

  Their father, Sky, hated them from the beginning. And as soon

  as one of his children was born, he would hide them all away in a hiding place

  of Earth and would not allow them to come into the light, and Sky took

  delight in his evil deed. But huge Earth groaned within from the strain,

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  and she devised an evil trick. Quickly making a gray unconquerable

  substance,132 she fashioned a huge sickle, and she spoke to her dear children.

  She said, encouragingly, but sorrowing in her own heart: “My children,

  begotten by a mad father, if you are willing to listen to me,

  let us take vengeance for your father’s wicked outrage. For he first

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  devised unseemly deeds.”

  Genealogical Chart 2. The children of Earth and Sky.

  So she spoke, but fear seized them all, nor did

  any of them speak. Then, taking courage, the crooked-counseling Kronos

  answered his excellent mother: “Mother, I will undertake this deed,

  and I will bring it to completion, for I do not like our father and his evil

  name. It was he who first began unseemly deeds.”

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  So he spoke,

  and vast Earth rejoiced greatly in her heart. She took Kronos and hid

  him in an ambush. She placed the saw-toothed sickle in his hands.

  She laid out the whole plot. Great Sky came, dragging night, and he lay

  all over Earth, wanting to make love, and he was spread out all over her.

  Then the child reached out from his ambush with his left hand,

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  and with his right hand he held the huge sickle, long and saw-toothed,

  and furiously he cut off his father’s genitals, and he threw them away,

  to fall backwards. They did not flee from his hand for nothing!

  Earth received all the bloody drops that shook free, and as the years

  rolled around, she bore Erinys and the great and mighty Giants, shining

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  in their armor and holding long spears in their hands, and she bore

  the nymphs that people call the Ash Nymphs upon the boundless earth.152

  When he first cut off the genitals with his sickle made of an unconquerable

  substance, he threw them from the land into the churning sea, where they

  were borne for a long time over the waves, and a white foam [aphros]

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  arose around the deathless flesh. And in it a young woman was raised up.

  She first came to holy CYTHERA, and then from there she arrived in

  CYPRUS, wrapped in waves. She came forth an awful and beautiful goddess,

  and around her slender feet grass grew. Men and gods call her Aphrodite,

  a goddess born from the foam, and also lovely-crowned Cythereia—

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  because she was born of the foam, and Cythereia because she came

  to Cythera. And Cyprogenea, because she was born on stormy Cyprus,

  and Lover of Laughter because she came to light from the genitals.163

  Eros accompanied her, and beautiful Desire, when she first came

  into being and went among the tribe of the gods165. She has this honor from

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  the beginning, and has attained her portion among men and the deathless

  gods—the whisperings of young girls, and their smiles and deceptions,

  and sweet delight, and making love, and gentleness. Great Sky

  called these offspring the Titans, insulting his own children, because,

  he said, “tightening” with folly they undertook a great deed, for which

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  vengeance was soon to follow.171

  And Night bore hateful Doom and black

  Fate and Death, and she bore Sleep, and she bore the tribe of Dreams.

  Then she bore Blame and painful Misery—dark Night did, the goddess,

  without having sex with anyone—and the Hesperidês, who care for the

  beautiful golden apples and the fruit-bearing trees beyond famous Ocean.175

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  Figure 5. The birth of Aphrodite from the so-called Ludovisi Throne. Found in southern Italy, the marble slab was probably part of an altar. The naked goddess rises in the middle, received by two nymphs who stand on the rocky shore at either side. Museo Nazionale Romano of Palazzo Altemps, Rome (Photo: Sailko; https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/Ludovisi_Throne_%288504016347%29.jpg)

  Genealogical Cha
rt 3. The offspring of Earth, the blood of Sky, and the birth of Aphrodite.

  And Night gave birth to the Destinies and the mercilessly punishing

  Fates [Kêres], Klotho and Lachesis and Atropos, who give good and bad

  to mortals at their birth, who follow the offenses of men and gods: Nor do

  the goddesses ever lay off their terrible anger before they take an evil

  vengeance against anyone who goes astray.180

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  And dread Night bore Nemesis,

  a burden to mortal men, and afterwards Deceit and Lovemaking

  and wretched Old Age, and she bore soul-shaking Strife. And wicked

  Strife bore painful Labor and Forgetfulness and Starvation and tearful

  Pains and Disturbances and Battles and Murders and Mankillings

  and Quarrels and Lying Words and Doubletalk and Corruption

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  and Mad Folly—all related to one another; and Oath, which most

  afflicts mortals upon the earth with pain, when someone knowingly

  swears a false oath.188

  And Sea begot Nereus, who never lies, and always

  tells the truth, the oldest of his children, but they call him the Old Man

  because he is unerring and kind, nor does he forget what laws are laid down,

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  but his thoughts are just and kind. Uniting with Earth, Sea then begot

  great Thaumas and noble Phorkys, and Keto with beautiful cheeks,

  and Eurybia, who has a heart of an unconquerable substance in her breast.193

  Genealogical Chart 4. The descendants of Night (Nyx) and Strife (Eris).

  Of Nereus and Doris of the lovely locks, daughter of Ocean, the circling

  river, were born children in the restless sea, lovely among the goddesses—

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  Protho and Eukrantê and Sao and Amphitritê and Eudorê and Thetis

  and Galenê and Glaukê and Kymothoê and swift Speo and darling

  Thalia and Pasithea and Erato and Eunikê with arms like roses, and graceful

  Melitê and Eulimenê and Agavê and Doto and Proto and Pherousa

  and Dynamenê and Nesaiê and Aktaiê and Protomedeia and Doris

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  and Panopê and beautiful Galateia and darling Hippothoê

  and Hipponoê with arms like roses, and Kymodokê, who together

  with Kymatolegê and Amphitritê, who has fine ankles, easily calms

  the waves on the misty sea and the blasts of savage winds, and Kymo

  and Eionê and Halimedê with the fine crown, and Glaukonomê,

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  lover of laughter, and Pontoporeia and Leiagorê and Euagorê

  and Laomedeia and Poulynoê and Autonoê and Lysianassa

  and Euarnê, lovely in appearance and blameless in form, and Psamathê,

  charming in her figure, and the divine Menippê and Neso and Eupompê

  and Themisto and Pronoê and Nemertês, who has the mind

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  of her deathless father. These were the daughters of blameless Nereus,

  fifty in number, knowing faultless crafts.212

  Thaumas united with Elektra,

  the daughter of Ocean with his deep waves, and gave birth to swift

  Iris and the Harpies who have nice hair, Storm Wind and Fast Flier,

  who follow together the blasts of the winds and the birds on their

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  swift wings, for they soar high in the air.216

  Figure 6. Amphitritê stands before Poseidon, her hand raised, as he holds a trident (most of the sea god is broken away). The inscription on the plaque reads, in Corinthian script, APHIRITAEMIPO—that is, “I am A[m]phirita [wife of] Po[seidon].” A[M]PHIRITA is Corinthian dialect for “Amphitritê.” Probably the letters in front of the trident, crowned with a circlet, spell out THR[IAINA]: that is, “trident.” Painted plaque, ca. 560 B.C., from Polyskouphia. Musée du Louvre, Paris (Photo: Marie-Lan Nguyen; https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Amphitrite_Penteskouphia_Louvre_MNC208.jpg)

  And Keto bore the Gray Old

  Ladies, with beautiful cheeks, to Phorkys—gray from birth, whom

  the deathless gods and men who live on the earth call the Old Ladies,

  Pemphredo with the lovely gown and Enyo with the saffron gown—

  and the Gorgons, who live beyond famous Ocean at the edge of Night,

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  where are the Hesperidês, with their high-pitched voices, Sthenno

  and Euryalê and Medusa, who came to a bad end. She was mortal,

  but the others were deathless and ageless, the two of them.223

  The Blue-haired god224 slept with Medusa on the gentle meadow

  amidst the spring flowers. And when Perseus cut off her head,

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  great Chrysaor leaped out, and the horse Pegasos, so called because

  he was born near the springs [pegai] of Ocean. Chrysaor was called

  that because he held a golden [chryseion] sword in his hands.228

  Now Pegasos flew off from the earth, the mother of sheep, and came

  to the deathless ones. He dwells in the house of Zeus, carrying the thunder

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  and the lightning flash for Zeus the Counselor. Chrysaor begot three-headed

  Geryon, having united in love with Kallirhoê, the daughter of famous Ocean.

  The mighty Herakles killed Geryon beside his shamble-footed cattle

  in Erytheia, surrounded by water, on the day when he rustled the broad-

  browed cattle and drove them to holy TIRYNS, crossing the stream

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  of Ocean, and he killed Orthos and Eurytion the herdsman in the misty

  farmstead beyond famous Ocean.237

  Genealogical Chart 5. The descendants of Earth and Sea.

  Figure 7. The head of Medusa, from an Etruscan temple in Orvieto, Italy, ca. 380 B.C. The head is typical for its boar’s tusks, lolling tongue, fearsome eyes and expression, and snaky hair. The temple in which the terra-cotta face was found appears to have been dedicated to Tinia, the Etruscan Zeus. The Etruscans admired Greek myth and adopted many of its main stories. Museo Claudio Faina, Italy (Photo: Sailko; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Gorgoneia#/media/File:Gorgoneion_dal_tempio_di_belvedere,_orvieto,_fine_V_sec._ac..JPG)

  She237 bore another irresistible monster,

  not like mortal men, nor like the deathless gods, in a hollow cave,

  the divine and mighty Echidna, half a young girl with dashing eyes,

  of beautiful cheeks, and half a savage snake, huge and terrible,

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  nimble and flesh-eating, beneath the hidden parts of the sacred earth.

  There she242 has a cave deep under the hollow rock, far from the deathless

  gods and mortal men, where the gods appointed a famous house

  for her to live in.

  Gloomy Echidna dwells among the Arimoi

  beneath the earth, the deathless young girl, ageless for all her days.245

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  They say that Typhon—awful, violent, living without laws—made love

  with the glancing-eyed girl, and that she conceived and brought forth

  ferocious children. First she gave birth to Orthos, the hound of Geryon;

  then she gave birth to Kerberos, irresistible, indescribable, the devourer

  of raw flesh, the brazen-voiced hound of Hades with fifty heads,

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  ruthless and powerful. Third, she brought forth the Hydra of Lerna,

  knowing only evil things, whom the goddess white-armed Hera