not taking nourishment. Sorrow, troubled thought, and tears were his food

Others slit the victim’s throats and caught the warm blood

“Noble Odysseus, you ask about your sweet homecoming, but the god will make it a bitter journey. I think you will not escape the Earth-Shaker, who is angered at heart against you, angered because you blinded his son. Even so, though you shall suffer, you and your friends may yet reach home when you have sailed your good ship to the island of Thrinacia, and escaped the dark blue sea, and found there the cattle and the fat flocks of Helios, he who sees and hears everything, if only you can control your own and your comrades’ greed. If you keep your hands off them, and think only of your homeward course, you may yet reach Ithaca, though you will suffer. But if you lay hands on them, then I foresee shipwreck for you and your friends, and even if you yourself escape, you will come unlooked-for to your home, in sore distress, losing all comrades, in another’s vessel, to find great trouble in your house, insolent men who destroy your goods, who court your wife and offer gifts of courtship.

Circe of the lovely tresses, dread goddess with a human voice

striking Achilles’ shield square on, though the spear simply rebounded.

but if I hid from the fighting like a coward, I would be shamed before all the Trojans and their wives in their trailing robes.

, but failed to find white-armed Andromache at home.

sun’s rays can scarcely reach there

Scorned Medea, the helpless exile, speaks to her recent husband,

Mortals bring no help to me; no! Hera has her way.

ruined, ruined.

My own son’s children, woe to him! he was their father and butcher both, hardening his heart to the bloody deed

Wherefore I came making recompense for the former kindness of Heracles [1170] in saving me from the world below, if you have any need of such aid as I or my allies can give, old man.

He also slew Sciron on the borders of Megara, by hurling him down the cliffs. Sciron robbed the passers by, according to the prevalent tradition; but as some say, he would insolently and wantonly thrust out his feet to strangers and bid them wash them, and then, while they were washing them, kick them off into the sea.

six vultures appeared to him

Latinus advanced in front of his lines and invited the leader of the strangers to a conference

hundred knots of bronze.’

she had the face of a woman, the breast and feet and tail of a lion, and the wings of a bird.

The god told him not to trouble about Europa, but to be guided by a cow, and to found a city wherever she should fall down for weariness

O, my Lord, Dionysos! My voice will always sing your praise!

They were accusing her of having slept with some mortal or other and then blamed Zeus for my birth. Typical Kadmos’ trickery: protect the daughter’s honour and you protect your own. But the sisters kept spreading the rumour that my mother had slept with a human and that she had blamed a god for her “improper” pregnancy and that’s why, they say, that God had killed her.

can see my mother’s tomb back there, near the royal palace. Struck dead by Zeus’ flame… and there!  The smoke still raises from the ruins of her house, a potent sign that Hera’s savage anger towards my mother will never be quenched. I thank and admire old Kadmos for turning this into a sacred monument in honour of his daughter. Of course, it was I who shaded the tomb with vines, full of grapes.

Then with gold all Delos [was laden, beholding the child of Zeus and Leto, for joy because the god chose her above the islands and shore to make his dwelling in her: and she loved him yet more in her heart.] blossomed as does a mountain-top with woodland flowers.

nine

But Leto alone stays by the side of Zeus who delights in thunder; and then she unstrings his bow, and closes his quiver, and takes his archery from his strong shoulders in her hands and hangs them on a golden peg against a pillar of his father’s house. Then she leads him to a seat and makes him sit: [10] and the Father gives him nectar in a golden cup welcoming his dear son, while the other gods make him sit down there, and queenly Leto rejoices because she bare a mighty son and an archer.

Yet as my offspring I’ll not let you suffer,

‘Don’t come here to whine, you backslider. Strife, conflict, and war are all you care for, so much so that I loathe you more than all the other Olympians. You share your mother Hera’s intolerable, headstrong spirit; she too will scarcely obey my word

but bright-eyed Athene caught the spear in her hand,

 In a certain city there lived a king and queen, who had three daughters of surpassing beauty.

his thigh pierced with the tusk, the white with the white, and Cypris is sore vexed at the gentle passing of his breath; for the red blood drips down his snow-white flesh, and the eyes beneath his brow wax dim; the rose departs from his lip, and the kiss that Cypris shall never have so again, that kiss dies upon it and is gone.

89    So Psyche was given in marriage to Cupid according to the rite, and when her term was due a daughter was born to them both, whom we call Pleasure.’

But I urge you, goddess: stop your loud cry of lamentation: you should not have an anger without bounds, all in vain.

who wear their waistbands slung low.

She was given away by Zeus, the loud-thunderer, the one who sees far and wide.

put inside her a voice, and he called this woman Pandōrā,

To make up for the fire, I will give them an evil thing, in which they may all take their delight in their hearts, embracing this evil thing of their own making.” Thus spoke the father of men and gods, and he laughed out loud.

the good son of Iapetos [Prometheus] stole it for humankind from Zeus the Planner

The gods had hidden away the true means of livelihood for humankind, and they still keep it that way.

” Thus spoke in his wrath Zeus knowing imperishable counsels: from that time forward, ever mindful of the fraud, he did not give the strength of untiring fire to wretched mortal men, who dwell upon the earth. 

“Son of Iapetos, far-famed among all kings, how unfairly, good friend, you have divided the portions.” 

For here, on the one hand, he deposited the flesh and entrails with rich fat on the hide, having covered it with the belly of the ox; and there, on the other hand, he laid down, 540 having well disposed them with subtle craft, the white bones of the ox, covering them with white fat.

she was wisest among gods and mortal men

From his shoulders grew an hundred heads of a snake, a fearful dragon, with dark, flickering tongues, and from under the brows of his eyes in his marvellous heads flashed fire, and fire burned from his heads as he glared.

But when Zeus had driven the Titans from heaven, huge Earth bare her youngest child Typhoeus of the love of Tartarus, by the aid of golden Aphrodite.

From the thighs downward he had huge coils of vipers, which when drawn out, reached to his very head and emitted a loud hissing. His body was all winged12 (Links to an external site.):unkempt hair streamed on the wind from his head and cheeks; and fire flashed from his eyes.

One of his hands reached out to the west and the other to the east, and from them projected a hundred dragons’ heads.

Ephialtes was shot by Apollo with an arrow in his left eye and by Hercules in his right

simple

These were matchless in the bulk of their bodies and invincible in their might; terrible of aspect did they appear, with long locks drooping from their head and chin, and with the scales of dragons for feet.2 

Before there was earth or sea or the sky that covers everything, Nature appeared the same throughout the whole world: what we call chaos: a raw confused mass, nothing but inert matter, badly combined discordant atoms of things, confused in the one place.

I want to speak about bodies changed into new forms. You, gods, since you are the ones who alter these, and all other things, inspire my attempt, and spin out a continuous thread of words, from the world’s first origins to my own time.

Consequently Cronus time and again did away with the children whom he begot; but Rhea, grieved as she was, and yet lacking the power to change her husband’s purpose, when she had given birth to Zeus, concealed him in Idê, as it is called, and, without the knowledge of Cronus, entrusted the rearing of him to the Curetes who dwelt in the neighbourhood of Mount Idê. The Curetes bore him off to a certain cave where they gave him over to the Nymphs, with the command that they should minister to his every need.

Regarding the birth of Zeus and the manner in which he came to be king, there is no agreement.

But by himself, from his head, he produced glancing-eyed Tritonis [Athena], 925 fierce, strife-stirring, army-leading, unsubdued, and awesome, to whom dins, and wars, and battle are a delight.

he has an evil trick: those who enter he fawns upon with his tail and both ears alike, yet he allows them not to go forth back again, but lies in wait and devours whomsoever he may have caught going forth outside the gates of strong Hādēs and dread Persephone.

nine nights and days

when they had heard his speech: and their spirit was eager for battle still more than before, and they stirred up unhappy strife all of them, female as well as male,

beneath her delicate feet the grass throve aroun

Children of me and of a father madly violent, if you 165 would obey me, we shall avenge the baneful injury of your father; for he was the first that devised acts of indignity.

155 they were the fiercest, 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 Sky exulted over the work of mischief, while huge Earth groaned from within, 160 straitened as she was; and she devised a subtle and evil scheme.