Classic Poem

" THEOGONY . "

Come, from the Muses let the song proceed,
Who the great spirit of their father Zeus
Delight in heaven; and with symphonious voice
Of soft agreement, in their hymns proclaim
The present and the future and the past.
Flows inexhaustible from every tongue
That sweetest voice: the thunderer's palaces
Laugh in their melody, while from the lips
Of those fair goddesses the honeyed sounds
Are scattered far and wide. Olympos rings
From every snow-topt summit and resound
The mansions of celestials. They a voice
Immortal uttering, first in song proclaim
The race of venerable gods who rose
From the beginning, whom the spacious Heaven
And Earth produced; and all the deities
From them successive sprung, dispensing good.
Next also Zeus, the sire of gods and men,
They praise; or when they lift the solemn song,
Or when surcease: how excellent he is
Above all gods, and in his might supreme.
Now to the race of Men and hardy brood
Of Giants, flows the strain; and thus in Heaven
The Olympian Muses charm the mind of Zeus.
Them erst Mnemosyne, whose empire sways
Eleuther's fertile toil, conceived in shades
Pierian, with their sire Saturnios there
Blending embrace of love: they to all ills
Oblivion yield, to every troubled thought
Rest: thrice three nights did all-consulting Zeus
Melt in her arms, apart from eyes profane
Of all immortals, to the sacred couch
Ascending: but when now rolled round the year
And moons had waned and seasons due revolved
And days were numbered, she the virgins nine
Gave at a birth; in unison of soul
Attempered soft, whose care is only song;
In whose free bosom dwells the unsorrowing mind;
They saw the light of Heaven no distant space
From where Olympos his extremest top
Rears in eternal snow. There on the mount
They dwell in mansions beautified and shine
In the smooth pomp of dance: and them beside
The sister Graces hold abode; and Love
Himself is nigh, participant in feast.
So thro their parted lips a lovely voice
The Muses breathe; they sing the laws that bind
The universal Heaven; the manners pure
Of deathless gods, and lovely is their voice.
Anon they toward the Olympian summits bend
Their steps, exulting in the charm of voice
And songs of immortality: remote
The dusky earth remurmurs musical
The echo of their hymnings; and beneath
Their many-rustling feet a pleasant sound
Ariseth, as tumultuous pass they on
To greet their awful sire.
He reigns in Heaven,
The glowing bolt and lightning in his grasp,
Since by ascendant strength cast down from high
Saturn his father fell: hence Zeus to all
Disposes all things, to the eternal gods
Ordering their honours.
Thus the Olympian maids
Are wont to sing, the daughters nine of Zeus:
Clio, Thalia and Melpomene,
Urania, Erato, Terpsichore,
Polymnia and Euterpe, and the last
Calliope: — she proudly eminent
O'er every Muse, with kings majestical
Associate walks. Whom of the monarch race,
The foster sons of Zeus, the Muses will
To honour; on whose infant head, when first
Ushered to light, they placid look from high
With smiling aspect; on his tongue they shed
A gentle dew and words as honey sweet
Drop from his lips. On him the people's eyes
Wait awful, who in righteousness discerns
The ways of judgment; who in wisdom speaks
Infallible, and straight the contest calms
When mightiest. Lo! in this are monarchs wise;
That from the seat of justice to the wronged
They turn the tide of things, retrieving ills
With mild accost of soothing eloquence.
Him when he walks the city-ways all hail
With gentlest awe, and as it were a god
Propitiate: him the assembled council view
Conspicuous in the midst. Lo! such to man
The Muses' gift all sacred. From the Muse
And Phoibos, archer-god, arise on earth
Minstrels and men of song; but kings arise
From Zeus himself. Unutterably blest
He whom the Muses love. A melting voice
Flows ever from his lip: and is there one
Whose aching heart some sudden anguish wrings?
But lo! the bard, the Muses' minister,
Awakes the strain: he sings the mighty deeds
Of men of yore: the praise of blessed gods
In Heaven: and straight, tho stricken to the soul,
He shall forget, nor aught of all his griefs
Remember: so the blessing of the Muse
Hath instantaneous turned his woes away.