Begin we from the Muses oh my song!
Muses of Helicon: their dwelling-place
The mountain vast and holy: where around
The altar of high Jove and fountain dark
From azure depth,
[142]they lightly leap in dance
With delicate feet; and having duly bathed
Their tender bodies in Permessian streams,
[143]In springs that gush’d fresh from the courser’s hoof,
Or blest Olmius’ waters, many a time
Upon the topmost ridge of Helicon
Their elegant and amorous dances thread,
And smite the earth with strong-rebounding feet.
Thence breaking forth tumultuous, and enwrapt
With the deep mist of air, they onward pass
Nightly, and utter, as they sweep on high,
A voice in stilly darkness beautiful.
They hymn the praise of Ægis-wielding Jove,
And Juno, named of Argos, who august
In golden sandals walks: and her, whose eyes
Glitter with azure light, Minerva born
From Jove: Apollo,
[144]sire of prophecy,
And Dian gladden’d by the twanging bow:
Earth-grasping Neptune, shaker of earth’s shores:
Majestic Themis and Dione fair:
[145]And Venus twinkling bland her tremulous lids:
Hebe, her brows with golden fillet bound:
Morn, the vast Sun, and the resplendent Moon:
Latona and Japetus: and him
Of crooked wisdom, Saturn: and the Earth:
And the huge Ocean, and the sable Night
And all the sacred race of deities
Existing ever. They to Hesiod erst
Have taught their stately song: the whilst he fed
His lambs beneath the holy Helicon.
And thus the goddesses, th’ Olympian maids
Whose sire is Jove, first hail’d me in their speech;
“Shepherds! that tend in fields the fold; ye shames!
[146]Ye fleshly appetites! the Muses hear:
’Tis we can utter fictions veil’d like truths,
Or, if we list, speak truths without a veil.”
So said the daughters of the mighty Jove,
Sooth-speaking maids: and gave unto my hand
A rod of marvellous growth,
[147]a laurel-bough
Of blooming verdure; and within me breathed
A heavenly voice, that I might utter forth
All past and future things: and bade me praise
The blessed race of ever-living gods:
And ever first and last the Muses sing.
Away then—why
[148]this tale of oaks and rocks?
Begin we from the Muses oh my song!
They the great spirit of their father Jove
Delight in heaven: their tongues symphonious breathe
All past, all present, and all future things:
Sweet, inexhaustible, from every mouth
That voice flows on: the Thunderer’s palace laughs
With scatter’d melody of honied sounds
From the breathed voice of goddesses, and all
The snow-topp’d summits of Olympus ring,
The mansions of immortals. They send forth
Their undecaying voice, and in their songs
Proclaim before all themes the race of gods
From the beginning: the majestic race,
Whom earth and awful heaven endow’d with life:
And all the deities who sprang from these,
Givers of blessings. Then again they change
The strain to Jove, the sire of gods and men:
Him praise the choral goddesses: him first
And last: with rising and with ending song:
How excellent he is above all gods,
And in his power most mighty. Once again
They sing the race of men, and giants strong;
And soothe the soul of Jupiter in heaven.
They, daughters of high Jove: Olympian maids:
Whom erst Mnemosyne, protecting queen
Of rich Eleuther’s fallows, in embrace
With Jove their sire amidst
[149]Pieria’s groves
Conceived: of ills forgetfulness; to cares
Rest: thrice three nights did counsel-shaping Jove
Melt in her arms, apart from eyes profane
Of all immortals to the sacred couch
Ascending: and when now the year was full,
When moons had wax’d and waned, and reasons roll’d,
And days were number’d, she, some space remote
From where Olympus highest towers in snow,
[150]Bare the nine maids, with souls together knit
In harmony: whose thought is only song:
Within whose bosoms dwells th’ unsorrowing mind.
There on the mount they shine in troops of dance,
And dwell in beautified abodes: and nigh
The Graces also dwell, and Love himself,
And hold the feast. But they through parted lips
Send forth a lovely voice; they sing the laws
Of universal heaven; the manners pure
Of deathless gods, and lovely is their voice.
Anon they bend their footsteps tow’rds the mount,
Rejoicing in their beauteous voice and song
Unperishing: far round the dusky earth
Rings with their hymning voices, and beneath
Their many-rustling feet a pleasant sound
Ariseth, as tumultuous pass they on
To greet their heavenly sire. He reigns in heaven,
The bolt and glowing lightning in his grasp,
Since by the strong ascendant of his arm
Saturn his father fell: he to the gods
Appoints the laws, and he their honours names.
So sing the Muses; dwellers on the mount
Of heaven: nine daughters of the mighty Jove:
Melpomene, Euterpe, Erato,
Polymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia,
Urania, Clio, and Calliope:
The chiefest she: who walks upon the steps
Of kingly judges in their majesty:
And whomsoe’er of heavenly-nurtured kings
Jove’s daughters will to honour, looking down
With smiling aspect on his cradled head
They pour a gentle dew upon his tongue:
And words, as honey sweet, drop from his lips.
To him the people look: on him all eyes
Wait awful, who in righteousness discerns
The ways of judgment: in a single breath,
Utter’d with knowledge, ends the mightiest strife,
And all is peace. The wisdom this of kings:
That in their judgment-hall they from the oppress’d
Turn back the tide of ills, retrieving wrongs
With mild accost of
[151]soothing eloquence.
On him, the judge and king, when passing forth
Among the city-ways, all reverent look
With a mild worship, as he were a god:
And in
[152]the great assembly first is he.
Such is the Muses’ goodly gift to man.
The Muses, and Apollo darting far
The arrows of his splendour, raise on earth
[153]Harpers and men of song: but kings arise
From Jove himself. Oh blessed is the man
Whome’er the Muses love! sweet is the voice
That from his lips flows ever.
[154]Is there one
Who hides some fresh grief in his wounded mind
And mourns with aching heart? but he, the bard,
[155]The servant of the Muse, awakes the song
To deeds of men of old, and blessed gods
That dwell on mount Olympus. Straight he feels
His sorrow stealing in forgetfulness:
Nor of his griefs remembers aught: so soon
The Muse’s gift has turn’d his woes away.
Daughters of Jove! all hail! but oh inspire
The lovely song! record the heavenly race
Of gods existing ever: those who sprang
From earth and starry heaven and murky night,
And whom the salt deep quicken’d. Say how first
The gods and earth became: how rivers flow’d:
Th’ unbounded sea raged high in foamy swell,
The stars shone forth, and overhead the sky
Spread its broad arch: and say from these what gods,
Givers of blessings, sprang: and how they shared
Heaven’s splendid attributes and parted out
Distinct their honours: and how first they fix’d
Their dwelling midst Olympus’ winding vales:
Tell, oh ye Muses! ye who also dwell
In mansions of Olympus: tell me all
From the beginning: say who first arose.
[156]First of all beings Chaos was: and next
Wide-bosom’d Earth, the seat for ever firm
Of all th’ immortals, whose abode is placed
Among the mount Olympus’ snow-top’d heads,
[157]Or in the dark abysses of the ground:
Then Love most beauteous of immortals rose:
He of each god and mortal man at once
Unnerves the limbs, dissolves the wiser breast
By reason steel’d, and quells the very soul.
From Chaos, Erebus and sable Night:
From Night arose the Sunshine and the Day:
Offspring of Night from Erebus’ embrace.
Earth first conceived with Heaven: whose starry cope,
Like to herself immense, might compass her
On every side: and be to blessed gods
A resting-place immoveable for ever.
She teem’d with the high Hills, the pleasant haunts
Of goddess nymphs, who dwell within the glens
Of mountains. With no aid of tender love
She gave to birth the sterile Sea, high-swol’n
In raging foam: and, Heaven-embraced, anon
She teem’d with Ocean, rolling in deep whirls
His vast abyss of waters. Crœus, then,
Cæus, Hyperion, and Iäpetus,
Themis, and Thea rose; Mnemosyne,
And Rhea; Phœbe diadem’d with gold,
And love-inspiring Tethys: and of these,
Youngest in birth, the wily Saturn came,
The sternest of her sons; for he abhorr’d
The sire who gave him life. Then brought she forth
[158]The Cyclops brethren, arrogant of heart,
Undaunted Arges, Brontes, Steropes:
Who forged the lightning shaft, and gave to Jove
His thunder: they were like unto the gods:
Save that a single ball of sight was fix’d
In their mid-forehead. Cyclops was their name,
From that round eye-ball in their brow infix’d:
And strength and force and manual craft were theirs.
Others again were born from Earth and Heaven:
Three giant sons: strong, dreadful but to name,
Children of glorying valour: Briareus,
Cottus and Gyges: from whose shoulders burst
A hundred arms that mock’d approach, and o’er
Their limbs hard-sinew’d fifty heads upsprang:
Mighty th’ immeasurable strength display’d
In each gigantic stature: and of all
The children born to earth and heaven these sons
Were dreadfullest: and they, e’en from the first,
Drew down their father’s hate: as each was born
He seized them all, and hid them in th’ abyss
Of Earth: nor e’er released them to the light.
Heaven in his evil deed rejoiced: vast Earth
Groan’d inly, sore aggrieved: but soon devised
A stratagem of mischief and of fraud.
Sudden creating for herself a kind
Of whiter iron, she with labour framed
A scythe enormous: and address’d her sons:
She spoke emboldening words, though grieved at heart.
“My sons! alas! ye children of a sire
Most impious, now obey a mother’s voice:
So shall we well avenge the fell despite
Of him your father, who the first devised
Deeds of injustice.” While she said, on all
Fear fell: nor utterance found they, till with soul
Embolden’d, wily Saturn huge address’d
His awful mother. “Mother! be the deed
My own: thus pledged I will most sure achieve
This feat: nor heed I him, our sire, of name
Detested: for that he the first devised
Deeds of injustice.” Thus he said, and Earth
Was gladden’d at her heart. She planted him
In ambush dark and secret: in his grasp
She placed the sharp-tooth’d scythe, and tutor’d him
In every wile. Vast Heaven came down from high,
And with him brought the gloominess of Night
On all beneath: with ardour of embrace
Hovering o’er Earth, in his immensity
He lay diffused around. The son stretch’d forth
His weaker hand from ambush: in his right
[159]He took the sickle huge and long and rough
With sharpen’d teeth: and hastily he reap’d
The genial organs of his sire, at once
Cut sheer: then cast behind him far away.
They not in vain escaped his hold: for Earth
Received the blood-drops, and as years roll’d round
Teem’d with strong furies and with giants huge,
Shining in mail, and grasping in their hands
Protended spears: and wood-nymphs, named of men
Dryads, o’er all th’ immeasurable earth.
So severing, as was said, with edge of steel
The genial spoils, he from the continent
Amidst the many surges of the sea
Hurl’d them. Full long they drifted o’er the deeps:
Till now swift-circling a white foam arose
From that immortal substance, and a nymph
Was quicken’d in the midst. The wafting waves
First bore her to Cythera’s heavenly coast:
Then reach’d she Cyprus, girt with flowing seas,
And forth emerged a goddess, in the charms
Of awful beauty. Where her delicate feet
Had press’d the sands, green herbage flowering sprang.
Her Aphrodite gods and mortals name,
[160]The foam-born goddess: and her name is known,
As Cytherea with the blooming wreath,
For that she touch’d Cythera’s flowery coast:
And Cypris, for that on the Cyprian shore
She rose, amidst the multitude of waves:
And Philomedia, from the source of life.
[161]Love track’d her steps; and beautiful Desire
Pursued, while soon as born she bent her way
Towards heaven’s assembled gods: her honours these
From the beginning: whether gods or men
Her presence bless, to her the portion fell
Of
[162]virgin whisperings and alluring smiles,
And smooth deceits, and gentle ecstasy,
And dalliance, and the blandishments of love.
But the great Heaven, rebuking those his sons
That issued from his loins, new-named them now
Titans: and said that they avenging dared
A crime; but retribution was behind.
Abhorred Fate and dark Necessity
And Death were born from Night: by none embraced
These gloomy Night brought self-conceiving forth:
And Sleep and all the hovering host of dreams.
[163]Then bare she Momus; Care, still brooding sad
On many griefs; and next
[164]th’ Hesperian maids,
Whose charge o’er-sees the fruits of blooming gold
Beyond the sounding ocean, the fair trees
Of golden fruitage. Then the Destinies
Arose, and Fates in vengeance pitiless:
Clotho, and Lachesis, and Atropos:
Who at the birth of men dispense the lot
Of good and evil. They of men and gods
The crimes pursue, nor ever pause from wrath
Tremendous, till destructive on the head
Of him that sins the retribution fall.
Then teem’d pernicious Night with Nemesis,
The scourge of mortal men: again she bare
Fraud and lascivious Love: slow-wasting Age,
And still-persisting Strife. From hateful Strife
Came sore Affliction and Oblivion drear:
Famine and weeping Sorrows: Combats, Wars,
And Slaughters, and all Homicides: and Brawls,
And Bickerings, and deluding Lies: with them
Perverted Law and galling Injury,
Inseparable mates: and the dread Oath;
A mighty bane to him of earth-born men
Who wilful swears, and perjured is forsworn.
The Sea with Earth embracing, Nereus rose,
[165]Eldest of all his race: unerring seer,
And true: with filial veneration named
Ancient of Years: for mild and blameless he:
Remembering still the right; still merciful
As just in counsels.
[166]Then rose Thaumas vast,
[167]Phorcys the mighty, Ceto fair of cheek,
And stern Eurybia, of an iron soul.
From Nereus and the fair-hair’d Doris, nymph
Of ocean’s perfect stream, the lovely race
Of goddess Nereids rose to light, whose haunt
Is midst the waters of the sterile main:
Eucrate, Proto, Thetis, Amphitrite,
Love-breathing Thália, Sao, and Eudora,
And Spio, skimming with light feet the wave:
Galene, Glauce, and Cymothöe:
Agave, and the graceful Melita:
[168]Rose-arm’d Eunice, and Eulimene:
Pasithea, Doto, Erato, Pherusa,
Nesæa, Cranto, and Dynamene:
Protomedía, Doris, and Actæa:
And Panope, and Galatæa fair:
Rose-arm’d Hipponöe: soft Hippothöe:
Cymodoce who calms, at once, the waves
Of the dark sea, and blasts of heaven-breathed winds:
With whom Cymatolége, and the nymph
Of beauteous ankles Amphitrite glide:
Cymo, Eïone, Liagore,
And Halimede, with her sea-green wreath:
Pontoporïa, and Polynome;
Evagore, and blithe Glauconome:
Laomedía, and Evarne blest
With gracious nature and with faultless form:
Lysianassa, and Autonome,
And Psamathe, with shape of comeliness:
Divine Menippe, Neso, and Themistho:
And Pronöe, and Eupompe, and Nemertes:
Full of her deathless sire’s prophetic soul.
These sprang from blameless Nereus:
[169]Nereid nymphs:
Who midst the waters ply their blameless tasks.
Electra, nymph of the deep-flowing ocean,
Embraced with Thaumas: rapid Iris thence
Rose, and Aëllo and Ocypetes,
[170]The sister-harpies, fair with streaming locks:
Who track the breezy winds and flights of birds,
On wings of swiftness hovering nigh the heaven.
Then Ceto, fair of cheek, to Phorcys bore
[171]The Graiæ; from their birth-hour gray: and hence
Their name with gods, and men that walk the earth:
Long-robed Pephredo, saffron-veil’d Enýo:
And Gorgons dwelling on the brink of night
Beyond the sounding main: where silver-voiced
Th’ Hesperian maidens in their watches sing:
Stheno, Euryale, Medusa these:
The last ill-fated, since of mortal date:
The two immortal, and unchanged by years.
Yet her alone the blue-hair’d god of waves
Enfolded, on the tender meadow grass,
And bedded flowers of spring:
[172]when Perseus smote
Her neck, and snatch’d the sever’d bleeding head,
[173]The great Chrysaor then leap’d into life:
[174]And Pegasus the steed; who born beside
[175]Old Nilus’ fountains thence derived a name.