Chrysaor, grasping in his hands a sword
Of gold, flew upward on the winged horse:
And left beneath him earth, mother of flocks,
And soar’d to heaven’s immortals: and there dwells
In palaces of Jove, and to the god
Deep-counsell’d bears the bolt and arrowy flame.
Chrysaor with Callirhöe, blending love,
Nymph of sonorous ocean,
[176]Geryon rose,
Three headed form: him the strong Hercules
Despoil’d of life among his hoof-cloven herds
On Erythia, girdled by the wave:
What time those oxen ample-brow’d he drove
To sacred Tyrinth, the broad ocean frith
Once past: and Orthrus, the grim herd-dog, stretch’d
Lifeless; and in their murky den beyond
The billows of the long-resounding deep,
The keeper of those herds, Eurytion, slain.
Another monster Ceto bare anon
[177]In the deep-hollow’d cavern of a rock:
Stupendous nor in shape resembling aught
Of human or of heavenly; the divine
Echidna, the untameable of soul:
Above, a nymph with beauty-blooming cheeks,
And eyes of jetty lustre; but below,
A speckled serpent horrible and huge,
Gorged with blood-banquets, monstrous, hid in caves
Of sacred earth. There in the uttermost depth
Her cavern is, within a vaulted rock:
Alike from mortals and immortals deep
Remote: the gods have there decreed her place
In mansions known to fame. So pent beneath
The rocks of Arima Echidna dwelt
Hideous: a nymph immortal, and in youth
Unchanged for evermore. But legends tell,
That with the jet-eyed nymph Typhaon mix’d
His fierce embrace:
[178]a whirlwind rude and wild:
She, fill’d with love, conceived a progeny
Of strain undaunted. Geryon’s dog of herds,
Orthrus, the first arose: the second birth,
Unutterable, was the dog of hell:
Blood-fed and brazen-voiced, and bold and strong,
[179]The fifty-headed Cerberus; and third
Upsprang the Hydra, pest of Lerna’s lake:
Whom Juno, white-arm’d goddess, fostering rear’d
With deep resentment fill’d, insatiable,
’Gainst Hercules: but he, the son of Jove,
Named of Amphytrion, in the dragon’s gore
Bathed his unpitying steel: by warlike aid
Of Iolaus, and the counsels high
Of Pallas the Despoiler. Last came forth
[180]Chimæra, breathing fire unquenchable:
A monster grim and huge, and swift and strong:
Her’s were three heads: a glaring lion’s one:
One of a goat: a mighty snake’s the third:
In front the lion threatened, and behind
The serpent, and the goat was in the midst,
Exhaling fierce the strength of burning flame.
But the wing’d Pegasus his rider bore,
The brave Bellerophon, and laid her dead.
She, grasp’d by forced embrace of Orthrus, gave
[181]Depopulating Sphinx, the mortal plague
Of Cadmian nations: and the lion bare
Named of Nemæa. Him Jove’s glorious spouse
To fierceness rear’d: and placed his secret lair
Among Nemæa’s hills, the pest of men.
There lurking in his haunts he long ensnared
The roving tribes of man, and held stern sway
O’er cavern’d Tretum: o’er the mountain heights
Of Apesantus, and Nemæa’s wilds:
Till strong Alcides quell’d his gasping strength.
Now Ceto, in embrace with Phorcys, bare
Her youngest born: the dreadful snake, that couch’d
In the dark earth’s abyss, his wide domain,
Holds o’er the golden apples wakeful guard.
[182]Tethys to Ocean brought the rivers forth,
In whirlpool waters roll’d: Eridanus
Deep-eddied, and Alpheus, and the Nile:
Fair-flowing Ister, Strymon, and Meander,
Phasis and Rhesus: Achelous bright
With silver-circled tides: Heptaporus,
And Nessus: Haliacmon and Rhodíus:
Granícus and the heavenly Simois:
Æsapus, Hermus, and Sangarius vast:
Penéus, and Caicus smoothly flowing:
And Ladon, and Parthenius, and Evenus:
Ardescus, and Scamander the divine.
Then bore she a blest race of Naiad nymphs,
Who with the rivers and the king of day
O’er the wide earth
[183]claim the shorn locks of youth:
Their portion this and privilege from Jove.
Admete, Pitho, Doris and Ianthe:
Urania heavenly-fair: and Clymene:
Prymno, Electra, and Calliröe:
Rhodía, Hippo, and Pasithöe:
Plexaure, Clytie, and Melobosis:
Idya, Thöe, Xeuxo, Galaxaure:
And amiable Dione, and Circeis
Of nature soft, and Polydora fair;
[184]And Ploto, with the bright dilated eyes:
Perseis, Ianira, and Acaste:
Xanthe, the sweet Petræa, saffron-robed
Telestho, Metis, and Eurynome:
And Crisie, and Menestho, and Europa:
Lovely Calypso, Amphiro, Eudora:
Asia, and Tyche, and Ocyröe:
And Styx, the chief of oceanic streams.
The daughters these of Tethys and of Ocean,
The eldest-born: for more untold remain:
Three-thousand graceful Oceanides
[185]Long-stepping tread the earth: or far and wide
Dispersed, they haunt
[186]the glassy depth of lakes,
A glorious sisterhood of goddess birth.
As many rivers also, yet untold,
Rushing with hollow-dashing echoes, rose
From awful Tethys: but their every name
Is not for mortal man to memorate,
Arduous; yet known to all the borderers round.
Now Thia, yielding to Hyperion’s arms,
Bare the great Sun and the refulgent Moon:
And Morn, that scatters wide the rosy light
To men that walk the earth, and deathless gods
Whose mansion is yon ample firmament.
Eurybia, noble goddess, blending love
With Crius, gave the great Astræus birth,
Pallas the god, and Perses, wise in lore.
The Morning to Astræus bare the Winds
Of spirit untamed:
[187]East, West, and South, and North
Cleaving his rapid course: a goddess thus
Embracing with a god. Last, Lucifer
Sprang radiant from the dawn-appearing Morn:
And all the glittering stars that gird the heaven.
Styx, ocean-nymph, with Pallas mingling love,
Bare Victory, whose feet are beautiful
In palaces: and Zeal, and Strength, and Force,
Illustrious children.
[188]Not apart from Jove
Their mansion is: nor is there seat, or way,
But he before them in his glory sits
Or passes forth: and where the Thunderer is,
Their place is found for ever. So devised
The nymph of Ocean, the eternal Styx:
What time the Lightning-sender call’d from heaven,
And summon’d all th’ immortal deities
To broad Olympus’ top: then thus he spake:
“Hear all ye gods! That god who wars with me
Against the Titans, shall retain the gifts
Which Saturn gave, and honours heretofore
His portion midst th’ immortals: and whoe’er
Unhonour’d and ungifted has repined
Under Saturnian sway, the same shall rise,
“As just it is, to honours and rewards.”
Then first of every power eternal Styx,
Sway’d by the careful counsels of her sire,
Stood on Olympus, and her sons beside:
Her Jove received with honour, and endow’d
With goodly gifts: ordain’d her the great oath
Of deities: her sons for evermore
Indwellers with himself. Alike to all,
Even as he pledged that sacred word, the god
Perform’d; so reigns he, strong in power and might.
Now Phœbe sought the love-delighting couch
Of Cœus: so within a god’s embrace
Conceived the goddess. Then arose to life
The azure-robed Latona: ever mild:
Gracious to man and to immortal gods:
Mild from the first beginning of the world:
Gentlest of all within th’ Olympian courts.
Anon she bare
[189]Asteria, blest in fame:
Whom Perses to his spacious palace led,
That he might call her spouse: and
[190]she conceived
With Hecaté. Her o’er all others Jove
Hath honour’d, and endow’d with splendid gifts:
With power on earth and o’er the untill’d sea:
Nor less her glory from the starry heaven,
Chief honour’d by immortals: and if one
Of earthly men performing the due rite
Of victim divination, would appease
The gods above, he calls on Hecaté:
To him, whose prayer the goddess gracious hears,
High honour comes spontaneous, and to him
She yields all affluence; for the power is hers.
Whatever gods, the sons of heaven and earth,
Shared honour at the hands of Jove, o’er all
[191]Her wide allotment stands: nor whatsoe’er
Of rank she held, midst the old Titan gods,
Has Saturn’s son invaded or deprived;
As was the ancient heritage of power
So hers remains: e’en from the first of things.
Nor is
[192]her solitary birth reproach:
Nor less, though singly born, her rank and power
In heaven and earth and main, but higher meed
Of glory, since her honour is from Jove.
She, in the greatness of her power, is nigh
With aid to whom she lists: whoe’er she wills
O’er the great council of the people shines:
And when the mailed men arise to wage
Destroying battle, she to whom she lists
Is present, yielding victory and fame;
And on the judgment-seat with awful kings
She sits; and when in the gymnastic strife
Men struggle, the propitious goddess comes
Present with aid: then easily the man,
Conqueror in hardiment and strength, obtains
The graceful wreath, and glad-triumphing sheds
[193]A gleam of glory o’er his parents’ days.
She, as she lists, is nigh to charioteers
Who strive with steeds: and voyagers who cleave
Through the blue watery vast th’ untractable way.
They call upon the name of Hecaté
With vows: and his, loud-sounding god of waves,
Earth-shaker Neptune. Easily at will
The glorious goddess yields the woodland prey
Abundant: easily, while scarce they start
On the mock’d vision, snatches them in flight.
She too with Hermes is propitious found
To herd and fold: and bids increase the droves
Innumerable of goats and woolly flocks,
And swells their numbers or their numbers thins.
And thus, although her mother’s lonely child,
She midst th’ immortals shares all attributes.
Her Jove appointed nursing-mother bland
Of babes, who after her to morn’s broad light
Should lift the tender lid: so from the first
The foster-nurse of babes: her honours these.
Embraced by Saturn, Rhea gave to light
Illustrious children.
[194]Golden-sandal’d Juno,
[195]Ceres, and Vesta:
[196]Pluto strong, who dwells
In mansions under earth: of ruthless heart;
[197]Earth-shaker Neptune, loud with dashing waves:
And
[198]Jupiter th’ all-wise: the sire of gods
And men; beneath whose crashing thunder-peal
The wide earth rocks in elemental war.
But them, as issuing from the sacred womb
They touch’d the mother’s knees, did Saturn huge
Devour: revolving in his troubled thought
Lest other one of beings heavenly-born
Usurp the kingly honours. For from earth
And starry heaven the rumour met his ear,
That it was doom’d by Fate, strong though he were,
[199]To his own son he should bow down his strength.
Jove’s wisdom this fulfill’d. No blind design
He therefore cherish’d, and in crooked craft
Devour’d his children. But on Rhea prey’d
Never-forgotten anguish. When the time
Was full, and Jove, the sire of gods and men,
Came to the birth, her parents she besought,
Earth and starr’d Heaven, that they should counsel yield
How secretly the babe may spring to life:
And how the father’s furies ’gainst his race
In subtlety devour’d may meet revenge:
They to their daughter listen’d and complied:
Unfolding what the Fates had sure decreed
Of kingly Saturn and his dauntless son:
And her they sent to Lyctus: to the clime
Of fallow’d Crete. Now when her time was come,
The birth of Jove her youngest-born, vast Earth
Took to herself the mighty babe, to rear
With nurturing softness in the spacious isle
Of Crete. So came she then, transporting him
With the swift shades of night, to Lyctus first:
And thence, upbearing in her arms, conceal’d
Beneath the sacred ground, in sunless cave,
Where shagg’d with thickening woods th’ Egæan mount
Impends. Then swathing an enormous stone
She placed it in the hands of Heaven’s huge son,
The ancient king of gods: that stone he snatch’d;
And in his ravening breast convey’d away:
Wretch! nor bethought him that the stone supplied
His own son’s place; survivor in its room,
Unconquer’d and unharm’d: the same, who soon
Subduing him with mightiness of arm,
Should drive him from his state, and reign himself
King of immortals. Swiftly grew the strength
And hardy limbs of that same kingly babe:
And when the great year had fulfill’d its round,
Gigantic Saturn, wily as he was,
Yet foil’d by Earth’s considerate craft, and quell’d
By his son’s arts and strength, released his race:
The stone he first disgorged, the last devour’d:
This Jove on earth’s broad surface firmly fix’d
At Pythos the divine, in the deep cleft
Of high Parnassus:
[200]to succeeding times
A monument, and miracle to man.
The brethren of his father too he loosed,
Whom Heaven, their sire, had in his frenzy bound:
They the good deed in grateful memory bore:
And gave the thunder, and the burning bolt,
And lightning, which vast Earth had heretofore
Hid in her central caves. In these confides
The god, and reigns o’er deities and men.
Iäpetus ascends the bed of love
With Clýmene, fair-ankled ocean-nymph:
She brought forth Atlas: her undaunted son:
Glorying Menœtius and Prometheus vers’d
In changeful turns and shifting subtleties:
And Epimetheus of unwary mind:
Who from old time became an evil curse
To man’s inventive race; for he received
The clay-form’d virgin-woman sent from Jove.
All-seeing Jove struck with his smouldering flash
Haughty Menœtius, and cast down to hell;
Shameless in crime and arrogant in strength.
Atlas, enforced by stern necessity,
[201]Props the broad heaven: on earth’s far borders, where
Full opposite th’ Hesperian virgins sing
With shrill sweet voice, he rears his head and hands
Aye unfatiguable: Heaven’s counsellor
So doom’d his lot. But with enduring chains
[202]He bound Prometheus, train’d in shifting wiles,
With galling shackles fixing him aloft
Midway a column. Down he sent from high
His eagle hovering on expanded wings:
She gorged his liver: still beneath her beak
Immortal; for it sprang with life, and grew
In the night-season, and repair’d the waste
Of what the wide-wing’d bird devour’d by day.
But her the fair Alcmena’s hardy son
Slew; from Prometheus drove the cruel plague,
And freed him from his pangs. Olympian Jove,
Who reigns on high, consented to the deed;
That thence yet higher glory might arise,
O’er peopled earth, to Hercules of Thebes:
And in his honour, Jove now made to cease
The wrath he felt before; ’gainst him who strove
In wisdom e’en with Saturn’s mighty son.
Of yore when strife arose for sacrifice,
Twixt gods and men, within Mecona’s walls,
Prometheus wilful
[203]parted a huge ox
And set before the god: so tempting him
With purpose to deceive: for here he laid
The unctuous substance, entrails, and the flesh
Close cover’d with the belly of the hide:
There the white bones he craftily disposed;
And with the marrowy substance wrapt them round.
Then spake the father of the gods and men:
“Son of Iäpetus!” thou famous god!
How partial, friend! are thy divided shares!”
So in rebuke spoke Jupiter: whose thoughts
Of wisdom perish not. Then answer’d him
Wily Prometheus, with a laugh suppress’d,
And well remembering his insidious fraud:
“Hail glorious Jove! thou mightiest of the gods
Who shall endure for ever: choose the one
Which now the spirit in thy breast persuades.”
He spoke, revolving treachery. Jove, whose thoughts
Of wisdom perish never, knew the guile,
Not unforewarn’d: and straight his soul devised
Evil to mortals, that should surely be:
He raised the snowy portion with his hands,
And felt his spirit wroth: yea, anger seiz’d
His spirit, when he saw the whitening bones
O’erlaid with cunning artifice: and thence,
E’en from that hour, the dwellers upon earth
Consume the whitening bones, when climbs the smoke
Wreath’d from their flaming altars. Then again
Cloud-gatherer Jove with indignation spake:
“Son of Iäpetus! of all most wise!
Still, friend! rememberest thou thy arts of guile?”
So spake, incensed, the god, whose wisdom yields
To no decay: and from that very hour,
Remembering still the treachery, he denied
The strength of indefatigable fire
To all the dwellers upon earth. But him
Benevolent Prometheus did beguile:
For in a hollow reed he stole from high
The far-seen splendour of unwearied flame.
Then deep resentment stung the Thunderer’s soul;
And his heart chafed in anger, when he saw
The fire far-gleaming in the midst of men.
And for the flame restored, he straight devised
A mischief to mankind. At Jove’s behest
Famed Vulcan fashion’d from the yielding clay
A bashful virgin’s likeness: and the maid
Of azure eyes, Minerva, round her waist
Clasp’d the broad zone, and dress’d her limbs in robe
Of flowing whiteness; placed upon her head
A wondrous veil of variegated threads;
Entwined amidst her hair delicious wreaths
Of verdant herbage and fresh-blooming flowers;
And set a golden mitre on her brow;
Which Vulcan framed, and with adorning hands
Wrought, at the pleasure of his father Jove.