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Hesiod, the Poems and Fragments
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General SummaryThe beautiful and varied mythology of the Greeks came into existence long before the beginnings of Greek history. Until the introduction of writing the myths were preserved in popular traditions, in priestly rituals, and in the songs chanted by minstrel bards as they wandered from city to city. Much of this legendary material was taken over by the authors of the Iliad and the Odyssey and built into the structure of the Homeric epics. A century or two after Homer, many of the stories about the gods and demigods were gathered together and reduced to order in the poems attributed to Hesiod n/a. Of these the most important was the Theogony, which recounts the creation of the world and the generation of the gods and heroes. The Hesiodic poems became to the Greeks a standard repository of the old mythology and the source from which later poets derived much of their legendary lore.
Historical SummaryThe Theogony begins with the creation of the world from Chaos and the origin of the forces and phenomena of nature — night and day, earth and the starry heavens, deep-eddying ocean and the lofty hills. From Earth (or Gæa) married to Heaven (or Uranus), sprang the twelve gigantic Titans and the one-eyed Cyclopes. These were personifications of volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, the rolling thunder, and the lightning flash. Other offspring of Earth and Heaven were Briareus, Cottus, and Gyes, hundred-handed giants, supposed to be personifications of the hail, the rain, and the snow. Cronus (Greek, Kronos), youngest of the Titans, made war on his father and dethroned him from his seat. Then Cronus married Rhea, who gave birth to the great deities, Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus. These, in turn, made war on Cronus. On the one side were the Titans fighting for their brother Cronus; on the opposite side were Zeus and Rhea’s other children. For more than ten years they fought, Zeus with his hosts from Mount Olympus, the Titans from Mount Othrys. Then Zeus summoned to his aid the three giants, each with a hundred hands, whom Uranus had sought to bury out of sight beneath the earth.
Chapter IV
Stories from Greek Mythology1
18. The Struggle between Zeus and the Titans2
And now they stood against the Titans in baleful strife, with sheer rocks in their stout hands. And the Titans on the other side eagerly strengthened their ranks. Then these and those together showed forth the work of their hands and their might. The boundless sea roared terribly around them, and the earth crashed aloud, and the wide heaven groaned as it was shaken, and high Olympus was stirred from its foundations at the onset of the immortals, and a grievous convulsion came on misty Tartarus. . . . And the voices of either side came unto the starry heaven as they shouted. And they came together with a mighty din.
Nor did Zeus any longer restrain his soul, but straightway his mind was filled with fury and he showed forth all his might. From heaven and from Olympus he came to join them, lightening as he came. And his bolts flew near at hand with thunder and with lightning, thick bolts from his strong hand rolling a
holy flame; and around the life-giving earth crashed as it burned, and the infinite wood cried aloud with fire. And the whole earth boiled, and the streams of Ocean, and the unharvested sea. Hot breath beset the Titans from under the earth, and infinite flame came unto the holy ether, and the flashing glare of thunderbolt and lightning robbed their eyes of sight, albeit they were strong. And a wondrous heat beset Chaos. And it seemed to see with the eyes and to hear the din with the ears, as if earth and the wide heaven above drew nigh to one another. For such a mighty din would have arisen if earth were ruining and heaven above hurling it to ruin. Such was the din when the gods met in strife.
And amid the foremost, Cottus and Briareus and Gyes, insatiate of war, awoke bitter battle. In quick succession they hurled three hundred rocks from their stout hands, and overshadowed the Titans with their shafts, and sent them beneath the wide-wayed earth to Tartarus. . . . As far beneath the earth as the heaven is high above the earth, even so far is it from earth to misty Tartarus.
1 , translated by A. W. Mair. Oxford, 1908. Clarendon Press.
2 Hesiod, Theogony, 674–721.
Chicago: A. W. Mair., trans., Hesiod, the Poems and Fragments in Readings in Early European History, ed. Webster, Hutton (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1926), 47–48. Original Sources, accessed December 4, 2024, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=DAT9ZUNS58Q57QF.
MLA: . Hesiod, the Poems and Fragments, translted by A. W. Mair., in Readings in Early European History, edited by Webster, Hutton, Boston, Ginn and Company, 1926, pp. 47–48. Original Sources. 4 Dec. 2024. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=DAT9ZUNS58Q57QF.
Harvard: (trans.), Hesiod, the Poems and Fragments. cited in 1926, Readings in Early European History, ed. , Ginn and Company, Boston, pp.47–48. Original Sources, retrieved 4 December 2024, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=DAT9ZUNS58Q57QF.
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