The Poems of Hesiod
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a wicked habit: He fawns with his tail and both his ears at those who enter,
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but he does not permit them to go out again. He keeps a careful watch
and devours whomever he catches going out of the gates of powerful
Hades and dread Persephone.
There lives the god hated by the deathless
ones, the hideous Styx, the eldest daughter of Ocean, who flows back upon
himself. She lives in her wonderful house apart from the gods, roofed over
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by tall rocks, propped up all around by silver pillars, reaching to the sky. Rarely
does swift-footed Iris,617 the daughter of Thaumas, bring a message to her
across the broad back of the sea. But when strife and quarrel arise among
the deathless ones, and one of the dwellers in the house of Olympos tells
a lie, then Zeus sends Iris to bring back from afar the great oath of the gods
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in a golden goblet, the celebrated cold water that drips down from
a steep high rock.622
Figure 10. Hades and Persephone. Hades wears a crown of ivy leaves and carries a cornucopia filled with grapes: His other name, Ploutos, “wealth,” reflects the richness that comes from the earth: in this case, wine. He holds a staff and stands before his wife, Persephone, who holds a dish for sacrificial libations in her right hand and in her left hand a jug of wine. Athenian red-figure wine jug, ca. 470 B.C. Musée du Louvre, Paris (Photo: Jastrow; https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Amphora_Hades_Louvre_G209_n2.jpg)
Far beneath the broad-wayed earth a branch of Ocean
runs out of holy Styx through the black night. A tenth part of its waters
is split off from her: In nine silver streams Ocean winds about the earth
and the broad back of the sea before falling into the deep, but a tenth
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flows from the rock, a great affliction for the gods. Whoever of the deathless
ones, who live on the peaks of snowy Olympos, swears falsely after pouring
a libation from the water of Styx, he lies breathless until a year is passed,
nor does he come near to tasting ambrosia or nectar as food, but he lies
without air, unable to speak on a strewn bed, shrouded in an evil sleep.
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But when he has been sick for a long year, then he has to undergo
another ordeal, worse. For nine years he is kept apart from the gods,
who are for ever, nor does he ever participate in their councils or banquets
for a whole nine years. But in the tenth year he again participates
in the assemblies of the deathless ones, who inhabit Olympos.635 Such an oath
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have the gods made of the eternal and primordial waters of the Styx,
which runs through the rugged land. There are the sources and bounds
of the shadowy earth and misty Tartaros and the untiring sea and the starry
sky, all in a row, hated and dank, which even the gods detest; there are
the gleaming gates and the bronze threshold, immovable, fitted with
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endless roots, growing by itself. Beyond live the Titans, apart from
all the gods, outside gloomy Chaos. But the glorious followers
of loud-sounding Zeus have their houses on the foundations of Ocean,
Kottos and Gygês. Briareos, because he was good, the deep-sounding
Earthshaker has made his son-in-law, giving him his daughter, Kymopoleia.645
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But when Zeus drove out the Titans from heaven, huge Earth gave
birth to her youngest son, Typhon, mixing in love with Tartaros647 through
the agency of golden Aphrodite. His hands were strong, capable of great
deeds, and the feet of the powerful god were tireless. From his shoulders
grew one hundred serpents, a monstrous dragon, flickering with gloomy
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tongues, and fire flashed from under the brows of his eyes in his wondrous
heads, and fire burned from all his heads as he glared. There were voices
in all his terrible heads that uttered every kind of unspeakable sound.
At one time they spoke with a voice that the gods could understand,
but at another the voice was that of a proud, ungovernable bull
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whose anger cannot be stopped, and at another time came the voice
of a lion, who has a ruthless heart. At another time it sounded like a pack
of pups, amazing to hear, and at another time he would hiss, and the high
mountains echoed.
A deed beyond repair would have happened on that day,
and he would have taken the rule over mortals and immortals, except
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that the father of men and gods quickly perceived it. He thundered
mightily and with power and the earth around resounded terribly,
and the broad sky above, and the sea and streams of Ocean and the deepest
parts of Earth. Great Olympos trembled beneath his deathless feet
as the king arose, and the earth groaned.
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Beneath the two of them the heat
of thunder and lightning took hold of the purple sea, and from the fire of so
great a monster, and from the scorching wind and the blazing thunderbolt.
The whole earth boiled, and the sky, and the sea. The long waves raged
around the headlands at the rush of the deathless ones, and an unstoppable
quaking arose. Hades trembled, who rules over the dead below, and the Titans
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down in Tartaros, who dwell with Kronos, at the unquenchable clamor
and the dread battle.
Then, when Zeus heaped up his strength and took his armor,
thunder and lightning and the shining thunderbolt, he leaped from Olympos
and struck him. He burned all the godlike heads of the savage monster.
But when he had conquered him and lashed him, Typhon was hurled down,
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a cripple, and the huge earth groaned. Flame shot from King Typhon, struck
by lightning in the murky, rugged groves of the mountain when he was hit.
A great part of the huge earth was burned by the divine vapor and melted,
just as tin is melted under the art of skilled men in vented pots, or as iron,
the strongest of all elements, is dissolved in the groves of the mountain
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under blazing fire, melted in the divine earth at the hands of Hephaistos.
So the earth was melted by the heat of the burning fire.
Raging in his heart,
Zeus cast down Typhon into the broad earth. From Typhon comes the moist
power of rowdy winds, except for South Wind and North Wind and the wild
West Wind. The origin of these winds is from the gods, to mortals a refreshing
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boon. The other gusts of wind blow erratically upon the sea. Some fall
upon the misty waters, a great evil to mortals, raging with wicked blast.
At different seasons they blow and scatter ships and destroy sailors.
There is no defense against this evil for men, who meet them across the sea.
Others across the boundless flowering earth destroy the lovely works
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of men who dwell below, filling them with dust and awful tumult.
But when the blessed gods had finished their labor, and settled by violence
their struggle with the Titans for honors, then they urged far-seeing
Olympian Zeus, through the devices of Earth, to be king and to rule
over the deathless ones. And so he divided up their offices among them.
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Zeus took to wife Meti
s first, who knew the most things among
gods and mortal men. But when she was about to give birth to flashing-eyed
Athena, then he deceived her by a trick with clever words and placed
her in his belly, accepting the advice of Earth and starry Sky. For thus
they advised him, so that no other but Zeus might hold the kingship
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over the gods, who live forever. It was destined that Metis give birth
to children most wise: first of all, the daughter flashing-eyed Tritogeneia,
having an equal power to her father and the same wise understanding. Though
afterwards Metis was to give birth to a son with an overbearing spirit, Zeus,
king of gods and men, placed her instead in his belly first so that the goddess
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might give him good and bad advice.706
Figure 11. Zeus fights Typhon. Zeus, whose name is written, holds a thunderbolt in his right hand while he takes aim with his left. Typhon is winged, bearded, has pointed ears, and snakes for his lower body. Chalcidian black-figure water jar, ca. 560 B.C. Staatliche Antikensammlung, Munich, Germany (Photo: Bibi Saint-Pol; https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d9/Zeus_Typhon_Staatliche_Antikensammlungen_596.jpg)
Next he took to wife shining Themis,
who gave birth to the Hours—Good Order, and Justice, and blossoming
Peace, who supervise the labors of mortal men—and the Fates, whom Zeus
the Counselor endowed with the most honor—Klotho and Lachesis and
Atropos, who give to mortals good things and bad.
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Eurynomê, the daughter of Ocean
who has a pleasing form, gave birth to the Graces, who have beautiful cheeks,
Aglaia and Euphrosynê and lovely Thalia. From their glancing eyes drip
sexual attraction, the looser of limbs, and beautiful is the glance from beneath
their brows.714
Then he went to the bed of bountiful Demeter, and she gave birth
to white-armed Persephone, whom Hades snatched away from her mother.
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For Zeus the Counselor gave her to him. And straightaway he fell in love
with Mnemosynê of the beautiful tresses, on whom were begotten the nine
Muses who wear fillets of gold, who take delight in feasts and the charm
of oral poetry. Then Leto, mixing in love with Zeus, who carries the goatskin
fetish, gave birth to Apollo and Artemis, who delights in arrows, the most
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pleasing offspring of all those who live on Olympos.
Last of all, he made
buxom Hera his wife, who gave birth to Hebê and Ares and Eileithyia,
mixing in love with the king of gods and men. He gave birth from his own
head to the flashing-eyed Tritogeneia—terrible, stirring the cry of war,
leading the horde, tireless, revered!—who delights in the hullabaloo
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of wars and battle.
And Hera gave birth to famous Hephaistos without
the benefit of sexual intercourse—for she was angry with her bedmate
and quarreled with him—who surpasses the Olympians in all crafts.
Because of this quarrel she bore the glorious son Hephaistos, without
making love with Zeus, who carries the goatskin fetish, and he surpassed
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in skill all the descendants of Sky.731
From Amphitritê and the loud-thundering
Earthshaker came great Triton, whose power is wide, who commands the
depths of the sea and lives with his mother and his father in their golden
house, an awful god.734
Genealogical Chart 14. The offspring of Zeus and his many wives.
And Cythereia bore to shield-piercing Ares terrible Fear
and Terror, who drive on the thick lines of battle in bloody war along
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with city-sacking Ares, and Harmonia, whom brave Kadmos took to wife.
Maia, the daughter of Atlas, bore bold Hermes to Zeus, the herald
of the deathless ones, after she went into his holy bed. Semelê, the daughter
of Kadmos, mixing in love with Zeus, bore the shining, delightful Dionysos,
a mortal woman giving birth to an immortal son. And now both are gods.740
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Alkmenê gave birth to powerful Herakles, mixing in love with Zeus,
who gathers the storm clouds. Hephaistos—famous, with crippled legs—
made Aglaia his blooming wife, youngest of the Graces. Dionysos,
golden of hair, made yellow-haired Ariadnê, the daughter of Minos,
his blooming wife, and Zeus, the son of Kronos, made her deathless
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and ageless for him. Herakles, the brave son of Alkmenê, whose ankles
are beautiful, made Hebê his graceful bride in snowy Olympos, the child
of great Zeus and Hera of the golden sandals, after completing his dangerous
contests. Blessed is he who having accomplished a great deed lives among
the deathless ones without pain and ageless for all his days!750
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Genealogical Chart 15. The descendants of Ares and Aphrodite.
Famous Perseïs,
the daughter of Ocean, bore Circe to untiring Helios, and Aietês the king.
Aietês, son of Helios, who shines for men, married Eiduia with the beautiful
cheeks, the daughter of Ocean, the circling river, following the gods’ will.
And Eiduia, submitting in love through the arts of Aphrodite, gave birth
to Medea with beautiful ankles.
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And now, farewell to you who have your homes
on Olympos, and you islands and the mainland and all within the bitter sea.
Now sing of the tribe of goddesses, sweet-voiced Muses who live on Olympos,
the daughters of Zeus who carries the goatskin fetish, those deathless ones
who slept with mortal men and begot children like the gods!
The bright goddess
Demeter gave birth to Ploutos, having lain in love with the hero Iasion
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in sweet love in a thrice-plowed field in the rich land of Crete, a noble man
who goes everywhere on the earth and the broad back of the sea. He makes
rich the man who finds him, into whose arms he comes, granting him
much wealth.764
Harmonia, the daughter of golden Aphrodite, bore to Kadmos
Ino and Semelê and Agavê with the beautiful cheeks and Autonoê, whom
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Aristaios with thick, long hair married, and Polydoros in well-girt THEBES.766
And Kallirrhoê, the daughter of Ocean, mixed in the love of golden
Aphrodite with bold-hearted Chrysaor and bore the strongest child
of all mortals, Geryon, whom mighty Herakles killed in Erytheia in the midst
of the water, for the sake of his shamble-footed cattle.
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Genealogical Chart 16. The descendants of Helios and Perseïs.
Dawn bore to Tithonos
Memnon with helmet of bronze, king of the Ethiopians, and King Emathion.
And she bore to Kephalos a bold son, powerful Phaëthon, a man like the gods.
Laughter-loving Aphrodite snatched him up when he was young, in the tender
flower of glorious youth, having childish thoughts, and she made him a keeper
of her sacred shrine in the night, a shining spirit.775
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Jason, the son of Aison,