The Theogony of Hesoid
The Theogony of Hesoid
A dactylic hexameter poem of slightly over 1,000 lines, Theogony traces the genealogy and history of the Greek gods. The poet Hesiod begins his song with a description of the activities of the nine Muses in their mountain home on Mt. Helicon. He tells how they sing and celebrate the gods of the Olympian pantheon; the Titans who came before them; and the oldest of the gods Chaos, Chronos, Gaia, Uranus, Oceanus, Night, and others (Theogony, 2004). The Muses, Hesiod tells us, spoke to him as he tended his flocks on the slopes of Mt. Helicon near his home. Into the shepherd they breathed a poetic voice with the power to sing about the future and the past. They instructed the poet that, when he sang, the Muses should begin and end his song. He therefore obeys, tracing their genealogy and recording their birth as the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne. He speaks of their power to sing and to inspire poets and singers, and invokes their power to help him sing of the origins of the gods; of their power, riches, and privileges; and of the universe and its phenomena.
The Muses inspire Hesiod, and he begins his account of the god’s genealogy, in the order of their appearance: Chaos; Gaia; Tartaros, and Eros, the god of love, who overpowers intelligence and strength in gods and in men. Hesiod continues his account of the gods and of mythic beings like the Cyclops and the hundred armed Kottos, Briareos, and Gyes. Uranus’s seed nonetheless impregnated Gaia with the Furies, giants, and wood nymphs. His genitalia ended up in the sea, and from the resultant insemination, Aphrodite, the goddess of love, were born (Edwards, G. P, 1971). Having dealt at some length with Uranus 's progeny, Hesiod turns his attention to the children of Night. Night required no consort, but in a series of births by parthenogenesis, she produced numerous offspring. Among others, these included Fate or Fortune, End, Death, Sleep, Dreams, the three Fates
A dactylic hexameter poem of slightly over 1,000 lines, Theogony traces the genealogy and history of the Greek gods. The poet Hesiod begins his song with a description of the activities of the nine Muses in their mountain home on Mt. Helicon. He tells how they sing and celebrate the gods of the Olympian pantheon; the Titans who came before them; and the oldest of the gods Chaos, Chronos, Gaia, Uranus, Oceanus, Night, and others (Theogony, 2004). The Muses, Hesiod tells us, spoke to him as he tended his flocks on the slopes of Mt. Helicon near his home. Into the shepherd they breathed a poetic voice with the power to sing about the future and the past. They instructed the poet that, when he sang, the Muses should begin and end his song. He therefore obeys, tracing their genealogy and recording their birth as the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne. He speaks of their power to sing and to inspire poets and singers, and invokes their power to help him sing of the origins of the gods; of their power, riches, and privileges; and of the universe and its phenomena.
The Muses inspire Hesiod, and he begins his account of the god’s genealogy, in the order of their appearance: Chaos; Gaia; Tartaros, and Eros, the god of love, who overpowers intelligence and strength in gods and in men. Hesiod continues his account of the gods and of mythic beings like the Cyclops and the hundred armed Kottos, Briareos, and Gyes. Uranus’s seed nonetheless impregnated Gaia with the Furies, giants, and wood nymphs. His genitalia ended up in the sea, and from the resultant insemination, Aphrodite, the goddess of love, were born (Edwards, G. P, 1971). Having dealt at some length with Uranus 's progeny, Hesiod turns his attention to the children of Night. Night required no consort, but in a series of births by parthenogenesis, she produced numerous offspring. Among others, these included Fate or Fortune, End, Death, Sleep, Dreams, the three Fates
Cited: Edwards, G. P. The Language of Hesiod in Its Traditional Context. Oxford: Blackwell, 1971. Hesiod, Hesiod. The Works and Days; Theogony; The Shield of Herakles. Translated by Richmond Lattimore. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962. Nelso, S. A. God and the Land: The Metaphysics of Farming in Hesiod and Vergil. With a translation of Hesiod 's Works and Days by David Grene. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Theogony, Works and Days, Shield. Translated by Apostolos N. Athanassakis. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. Works of Hesiod and the Homeric Hymns. Translated by Daryl Hine. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.