ACL 109: Material for Mythology 14.10.2019

        Geneviève Cygan

Gaia

“Gaia, the beautiful, rose up,

Broad blossomed, she that is the steadfast base

Of all things. And fair Gaia first bore

The starry Heaven, equal to herself,

To cover her on all sides and to be

A home forever for the blessed Gods.”

“O eternal Createress of gods and men, who bringest into being rivers

and forests and seeds of life throughout the world, the handiwork of

Prometheus and the stones of Pyrrha, thou who first didst give

nourishment and varied food to famished men, who dost encompass and

bear up the sea; in thy power is the gentle race of cattle and the

anger of wild beasts and the repose of birds; round thee, firm,

steadfast strength of the unfailing universe, as thou hangest in the

empty air the rapid frame of heaven and either chariot doth wheel, O

middle of the world, unshared by the mighty brethren

Therefore art thou bountiful to so many races, so many lofty cities

and peoples, while from above and from beneath thou art

all-sufficient, and with no effort carriest thyself star-bearing Atlas

who staggers under the weight of the celestial realm.”

HESIOD:  Theogony / The Cosmogony

First it was Chaos, and next

broad-bosomed Earth, ever secure seat of all

the immortals, who inhabit the peaks of snow-capped Olympus,

and dark dim Tartaros in a recess of Earth having-broad-ways,

120 and Eros, who is most beautiful among immortal gods,

Eros that relaxes the limbs, and in the breasts of all gods and all men,

subdues their reason and prudent counsel.

But from Chaos were born Erebos and black Night;

and from Night again sprang forth Aether and Day,

125 whom she bore after having conceived, by union with Erebos in love.

And Earth bore first like to herself in size

starry Sky, that he might shelter her around on all sides,

that so she might be ever a secure seat for the blessed gods:

and she brought forth vast Mountains, lovely haunts of deities,

130 the Nymphs who dwell along the woodland hills.

She too bore also the barren Sea, rushing with swollen stream,

the Pontos, without delightsome love: but afterward,

having bedded with Sky, she bore deep-eddying Okeanos,

Koios and Kreios, Hyperion and Iapetos,

135 Thea and Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne,

and Phoebe with golden coronet, and lovely Tethys.

And after these was born, youngest, wily Kronos,

most terrible of their children; and he hated his vigor-giving father.

Then brought she forth next the Cyclopes, having an over-bearing spirit:

140 Brontes, and Steropes, and stout-hearted Arges,

who gave to Zeus his thunder, and forged his lightning.

Now these were in other respects, it is true, like to gods,

but a single eye was fixed in their mid-foreheads.

And Cyclopes was their appropriate name, because

145 in their foreheads one circular eye was fixed.

Strength, force, and contrivances were in their works.

But again, from Earth and Sky sprung other

three sons, great. and mighty, scarce to be mentioned,

Kottos and Briareus and Gyas, children exceeding proud.

150 From the shoulders of these moved actively a hundred hands,

not brooking approach, and to each fifty heads

from their shoulders grew above sturdy limbs.

Castration of Uranos

Now monstrous strength is powerful, joined with vast size.

For as many as were born of Earth and Sky,

155 they were the most terrible of the sons, and were hated by their father

from the very first: as soon as any of these was born,

he would hide them all, and not send them up to the light,

in a cave of the earth, and over the work of mischief exulted

Sky while huge Earth groaned from within,

160 straitened as she was; and she devised a subtle and evil scheme.

Having quickly produced a stock of white adamant,

she forged a large sickle, and gave the word to her children

and said encouragingly, though troubled in her heart:

"Children of me and of a father madly violent, if you would

165 obey me, we shall avenge the baneful injury of your father;

for he was the first that devised acts of indignity."

So spoke she, but fear seized on them all, nor did any of them

speak; till, having gathered courage, great and wily Kronos

addressed his dear mother with speeches [mythoi] in reply:

170 "Mother, I will undertake and accomplish this

deed, at any rate, since for our father, of-detested-name, I care not,

for he was the first that devised acts of indignity."

Thus spoke he, and huge Earth rejoiced much at heart,

and hid and planted him in ambush; in his hand she placed

175 a sickle with jagged teeth, and suggested to him the entire stratagem.

Then came vast Sky bringing Night with him, and around Earth

eager for love, brooded and lay stretched on all sides;

but his son from out his ambush grasped at him with his left

hand, while in his right he took the huge sickle,

180 long and jagged-toothed, and from his dear father

hastily mowed off the genitals, and threw them backwards to be carried

away behind him.