72 THE MYTHS OF CREATION: THE GODS
that he got married. After all, misanthrope that he is, Hesiod still recommends
a good marriage, if it can be found. Perhaps he was embittered by his experi-
ences with his wife—an idle conjecture! He does tell us for a fact about his em-
bitterment because of betrayal by his brother Perses.
After the death of their father, Hesiod had a serious dispute with Perses over
their inheritance. The case was brought before a court, and the judges, who were
bribed by Perses, cheated Hesiod of his fair share. Hesiod composed the Works
and Days as an admonition to his brother to follow the path of justice and obey
the righteous dictates of the one god Zeus. The Theogony too is drenched in a
similar religious fervor, describing the genesis of the world, mortals, and the
gods and tracing the momentous events that led to the supremacy of Zeus.
Hesiod grew up as a farmer and a shepherd and became a poet, and he once
sailed to Chalcis on the island of Euboea. There, at the funeral games of Am-
phidamas, he won the first prize in the poetry contest, a tripod, which he ded-
icated to the Muses at the very spot on Mt. Helicon where he had received their
divine inspiration.
Here is the text of the opening section of the Theogony, a lengthy tribute and
invocation to his beloved Muses, some but by no means all of which has been
included in the body of this chapter. The Muses are discussed further in the con-
cluding section of Chapter 5.f
HESIOD BEGINS HIS THEOGONY WITH A HYMN TO THE MUSES (1-21)
With the Heliconian Muses let us begin to sing, who have as their own Mount
Helicon, lofty and holy. Round about the waters of a violet-hued spring they
dance on delicate feet, and also round the altar of Zeus, the mighty son of Cronus.
After they have bathed their soft skin in the brook, Permessus, or Hippocrene,
"The Horse's Spring," or the holy Olmeius, at the very peak of Helicon they per-
form their choral dances, lovely and enticing, with firm and flowing steps. From
here they set forth, enveloped and invisible in an impenetrable mist and pro-
ceed on their way in the night, singing hymns with exquisite voice in praise of:
Zeus, who bears the aegis, and his queen Hera, of Argos, who walks on golden
sandals, and bright-eyed Athena, daughter of aegis-bearing Zeus, and Phoebus
Apollo, and Artemis, who delights in shooting arrows, and Poseidon, who firmly
embraces the earth and violently shakes it, and revered Themis, and Aphrodite,
with her seductive eyes, and golden-crowned Hebe, and beautiful Dione, and
Leto, and Iapetus, and wily Cronus, and Eos, and great Helius, and bright Se-
lene, and Earth, and great Oceanus, and black Night, and the holy race of the
other immortals, who live forever.
THE MUSES TEACH AND INSPIRE HESIOD (22-35)
They, the Muses, once taught Hesiod beautiful song, while he was shepherding
his flocks on holy Mount Helicon; these goddesses of Olympus, daughters of aegis-
bearing Zeus first of all spoke this word to me, "Oh, you shepherds of the fields,
base and lowly things, little more than bellies, we know how to tell many false-
hoods that seem like truths but we also know, when we so desire, how to utter
the absolute truth." Thus they spoke, the fluent daughters of great Zeus. Pluck-