The Poems of Hesiod

by Hesiod

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  bull with eager heart, deceiving the mind of Zeus.431 For he set out before him

  on the hide the flesh and the entrails rich with fat, concealing them with

  the bull’s stomach, and then he set out before him in turn the white bones

  of the bull as a cunning trick, attractively concealing them with shining fat.

  Then the father of men and gods said to Prometheus: “O son of Iapetos,

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  most excellent of all the gods—wow! How you have divided the portions

  unequally!” So Zeus spoke with a sneer, knowing all things forever.

  Genealogical Chart 13. The descendants of Iapetos and Klymenê.

  Figure 9. The punishments of Atlas and Prometheus. Atlas, accompanied by a snake, holds the world on his shoulders. Prometheus is bound to a pillar surmounted by a crow while an eagle plucks at his chest. Athenian black-figure wine cup, ca. 550 B.C. Vatican Museums, Vatican City (Photo: Karl-Ludwig G. Poggemann; https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a8/Atlas_Typhon_Prometheus.pdf/page1–1258px-Atlas_Typhon_Prometheus.pdf.jpg)

  But wily Prometheus answered him, with a slight smile, not forgetting

  his cunning deception: “Most glorious and greatest of the everlasting gods,

  of this offering take whatever your spirit within urges you to.”

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  So he spoke,

  keeping his trick in mind. Zeus, who knows all things forever, knew

  and recognized the trick, but he intended evil for mortal man, which

  was to come to pass.443 He took up in both his hands the white fat,

  and he was angry in his heart, and anger overcame his spirit when

  he saw the white bones of the bull cunningly decked out. And this

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  is the reason that the tribes of men upon the earth burn the white bones

  to the gods on the smoking altars.

  Greatly enraged, cloud-gathering Zeus

  spoke to Prometheus: “O son of Iapetos, always up to your tricks!

  So, you have still not let up from your trickery!” Thus spoke Zeus

  in anger, who knows all things forever. From that time, always mindful

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  of the trick, he has not given to ash trees the strength of untiring fire

  for mortal men.452

  But the brave son of Iapetos deceived him when he stole

  the far-seeing gleam of untiring fire in a hollow stalk of fennel.453

  This act stung him to the depths of his spirit, Zeus, who thunders on high,

  and his heart grew angry when he saw the far-seeing gleam of fire

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  among men. He immediately fashioned an evil for men, to balance

  out the fire.

  The famous crippled god, Hephaistos, made from earth

  the likeness of a modest young woman through the devisings of the son

  of Kronos. Flashing-eyed Athena wrapped and adorned her in silvery

  cloth, and with her hands she drew down over her head an embroidered

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  veil, a marvel to see. And around her head Pallas Athena placed garlands,

  the flowers of fresh-blooming grass, seductive. And around her head

  she placed a golden band that the very clever lame god himself had made,

  working it in his hands, giving pleasure to Father Zeus. He worked

  into it many ingenious designs, a wonder to see, of wild animals

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  of the kind that inhabit the sea and the dry land—of these wonderful

  things he placed many examples, like living things with voices,

  and a great beauty shone from it.

  But when he had made the beautiful

  evil as the price for the good,469 he brought her forth to where the other

  gods were, and men, rejoicing in the finery of the flashing-eyed daughter

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  of loud-thundering Zeus.471 Amazement filled the deathless gods and mortal

  men when they saw the bitter deception, which men could not withstand.

  From her comes the race of tender women, who dwell among men as a great

  affliction for mortals, not bearing up well in Poverty, but happy in Plenty.474

  As when bees in roofed hives feed the drones, always up to their evil

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  deeds—the bees are busy by day, and all day long until the sun goes down

  they lay out the white honeycombs while the drones stay inside the roofed

  hives and gather the labor of others into their bellies—even so Zeus,

  who thunders on high, made women an evil for mortal men, conspirators

  in harsh deeds.

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  And he gave a second evil in return for the good:

  For whoever flees from marriage and the oppressive ways of women

  and wishes not to marry, then a wretched old age comes upon him,

  and no one to care for him. And although he lives with sufficient substance,

  when he dies distant relatives divide up his estate. As for the man

  who chooses marriage as his lot, and takes a pleasant wife suited

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  to his own mind, from the beginning evil goes with the good.

  Whoever happens to have a troublemaking wife, he lives with

  endless sorrow in his heart and his breast—this evil cannot be cured!

  And so you cannot deceive or get around the mind of Zeus.

  For not even the generous Prometheus, the son of Iapetos, escaped

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  his heavy anger, but by necessity, though he knew many things, great

  bonds hold him down.

  When first Father Sky grew angry in his heart

  at Briareos and Kottos and Gygês,493 he bound them in powerful bonds,

  amazed at their extraordinary manliness and their good looks and their size.

  He made them live beneath the wide-wayed earth. There, dwelling beneath

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  the earth at the end of creation, at the limits of its greatness, they were

  afflicted for a long time, having great suffering in their hearts.

  But the son of Kronos and the other deathless gods, which bright-haired

  Rhea begot in lovemaking with Kronos, brought them up again

  into the light on Earth’s cunning advice.

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  Earth went through the whole

  thing thoroughly with them, explaining how they could be victorious

  and win splendid fame; for the Titans and the gods, as many as were

  begotten by Kronos, were fighting furiously with one another, the bold

  Titans from forested MOUNT OTHRYS, and the gods, the givers of good

  things, from MOUNT OLYMPOS—those whom bright-haired Rhea

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  had given birth to, after bedding with Kronos.506 They had fought

  with one another in bitter rage continually for more than ten years,

  but there was no resolution or end to their hard anger on either side,

  and the outcome of the war hung in the balance. But when Zeus provided

  the Hundred-Handers with all things required, nectar and ambrosia,510

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  the food of the gods, the bold spirit increased in the breasts of them all.

  And when they had eaten the nectar and the lovely ambrosia,

  then the father of men and gods addressed them: “Listen to me,

  you, glorious children of Earth and Sky, while I speak what is in my heart.

  Already for a long time, all day long, we—the gods born of Kronos—

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  have struggled with the Titans, trying through strength to gain victory.

  So show forth your great power and your unconquerable hands

  and fight against the Titans in mournful battle. Remember our kind

  friendship and all that you suffe
red before coming back to the light from

  your cruel bonds in the misty gloom, thanks to our devising.”

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  So he spoke.

  And blameless Kottos answered him immediately:521 “Divine one,

  you do not speak what we do not know. We know by ourselves

  that your wisdom is superior, that your mind is superior, and that

  you have become the defender of the deathless ones from a gory doom.

  Through your plots we have come back from the misty darkness,

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  away from our cruel bonds, O King, son of Kronos, experiencing

  what we had never hoped for. For this reason we will now

  assist your power in dread battle with a fixed purpose and a deliberate

  will to fight against the Titans in mighty war.”

  So Kottos spoke,

  and the gods, the givers of good things, shouted approval when they

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  heard his speech, and their spirits longed for war still more than before.

  All stirred hated battle on that day, the females and the males, both

  the Titan gods and those begotten of Kronos, and those whom Zeus

  brought to the light from the Dark Place beneath the earth, those terrible

  and powerful ones, capable of overwhelming violence. One hundred arms

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  sprang forth from their shoulders on each alike, and each had fifty heads

  growing from his shoulders on top of his powerful limbs.

  Well then,

  the Hundred-Handers stood against the Titans in grim war, holding jagged

  rocks in their mighty hands. But the Titans, on their side, eagerly formed

  up into ranks, and each side showed forth the strength of their hands.

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  And the vast sea echoed terribly, and the earth crashed loudly,

  and the broad heaven, shaken, groaned. High Olympos wobbled

  on its foundations under the charge of the deathless ones, and a heavy

  quaking came to shadowy Tartaros from the deep sound of feet

  and the loud noise of horrid rout and the powerful missiles.

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  And so they cast their groaning shafts at one another. The voices

  of either side reached the starry heaven as they shouted. They came together

  with a great battle cry. Nor did Zeus any more hold back his strength,

  but his whole mind was filled with power, and he showed forth all his might.

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  Straightaway he came from the sky and from Olympos, constantly

  hurling the lightning. The bolts flew thick and fast from his powerful

  hand, accompanied by thunder and flashing, rolling along a sacred fire.

  The life-bearing earth, groaning, was burned up, and the endless forest

  burst into huge flames. The whole earth was boiling and the currents of

  Ocean and the tireless sea.

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  A hot breath surrounded the Titans, the children

  of Earth, and an unending fire rose into the shining sky, and the coruscating

  brilliance of the thunderbolt and lightning blinded their eyes, though they

  were powerful. A wondrous heat took hold of the region below the earth.

  To see it with one’s eyes, and to hear the sound with one’s ears, was as if

  Earth and broad Sky had come together—so great would have been the roar

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  of the one being fallen upon, and of the other falling down: So great

  was the roar of the gods clashing in anger. The winds raised up a bustle

  of dust and thunder and lightning and the shining thunderbolt—the shafts

  of great Zeus—and they carried the shouting and the crash of battle

  into the midst of the two sides. A great hubbub of savage strife arose

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  and mighty deeds were done.

  And then the battle turned. Before then

  they lay on one another and fought continuously in horrid contention.

  And among the foremost Kottos and Briareos and Gygês, insatiate of combat,

  waged bitter war. From their powerful hands they sent forth three-hundred

  rocks, one after another, and with their weapons they threw a shadow

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  over the Titans. And they sent them beneath the broad-wayed earth

  and bound them in agonizing bonds, overcoming them with their hands,

  though they were very strong, as far beneath the earth as the earth

  is from the sky: So far is it from the earth into misty Tartaros.

  For nine nights

  and days an anvil of bronze might fall from the sky, and on the tenth

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  it would arrive on earth; for nine nights and days an anvil of bronze

  might fall from the earth, and on the tenth it would arrive in Tartaros.

  A fence of bronze runs all around it, and night is poured all around

  in three layers, and above are the roots of the earth and of the restless sea.

  There the divine Titans are imprisoned in the misty darkness,

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  through the will of cloud-gathering Zeus, in a dank place at the ends

  of the huge earth. There is no way out, but Poseidon has set up doors

  of bronze, and a wall surrounds it from all sides. There Gygês

  and Kottos and great-spirited Briareos dwell, the trusted guards

  of Zeus, who carries the goatskin fetish. There, all in order, are

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  the sources and the bounds of gloomy earth and misty Tartaros

  and the restless sea and the starry sky—loathsome, dank!—which even

  the gods hate, a great chasm.

  If a man were to come inside the gates,

  he would not reach the floor even after a full year, but cruel blast

  upon blast would carry him this way and that. This marvel is terrible

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  even to the deathless gods. There stands the house of horrid Night,

  wrapped in dark clouds. And before it stands, immovable, the son of Iapetos,592

  holding up the broad sky with his head and tireless hands, where Night

  and Day come close and greet each other as they pass the great bronze

  threshold. While the one descends downward and within, the other comes

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  out by the door, nor does the house ever hold them both within, but always

  the one outside the house passes over the earth, and the other, remaining

  within, waits until the hour of her journey arrives. The one holds all-seeing

  light for mortals on the earth; the other holds Sleep in her arms, the brother

  of Death—I mean evil Night, wrapped in misty cloud.

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  There the children

  of gloomy Night have their house, Sleep and Death, savage gods. Nor does

  shining Helios ever look with his rays upon them, either going up into

  the sky, nor coming down from the sky. Of the two, Sleep roams peacefully

  over the earth and the broad back of the sea and is sweet to men, but Death

  has an iron heart, and the spirit within his breast is as pitiless as bronze.

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  Whomever of men he once has taken, he holds him fast: He is hateful

  even to the deathless gods.

  There, as you go further, stands the echoing

  house of the god of the underworld, of powerful Hades and of dread

  Persephone, and a fearful dog stands guard in front,609 pitiless, and he has