text
- Hesiod: author function
- authorship vs. orality
- succession myth
gods and titans
- Gaia: Earth
- Ouranos: Sky
- Mnemosyne: Memory
- Charites: Graces
- Himeros: Desire
- Zeus: Cronion, the Aegisholder
- Pontos: Sea
- Nyx: Night
- Erinyes: Furies
- Hephaistos: Lame God
- Aphrodite
- “Virginal sweet-talk, lovers’ smiles and deciets, / And all of the gentle pleasures of sex.” 205–206
- Poseidon: Earthshaker, Dark-maned One
- Sleep: Hypnos
- Death: Thanatos
the poem
Invocation to the Muses
- goddesses of creativity and inspiration
- pause in sorrow, forgetting troubles
- preserve mythological memory
- daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne
- Cleio
- Euterpe
- Thaleia
- Melpomene
- Terpischore
- Erato
- Polyhymnia
- Ourania
- Callipe
- most important
- keep company of reverend kings
- kings make straight judgements
- servants of muses help them forget sorrows and cares
The First Gods
- Chaos
- Gaia
- Ouranos
- Mountains
- Sea
- with Ouranos
- Ocean
- Coios
- Crios
- Hyperion
- Iapetos
- Theia
- Rheia
- Themis
- Mnemosyne
- Phoibe
- Tethys
- Cronos
- Cyclopes
- Brontes
- Steropes
- Arges
- gave Zeus thunder
- Hundred-handers
- Cottos
- Briareos
- Gyges
- from blood of castration
- Furies
- Giants
- Meliai: ash-tree Nymphs
- Tartaros
- Eros
- Erebos
- Nyx
- with Erebos
- Aether
- Day
- with Erebos
- Gaia
The Castration of Ouranos
- keeps stuffing his children back into the Earth as soon as they come out
- Gaia bitter
- huge sickle
- Cronos ambush
The Birth of Aphrodite
- his genitalia thrown into the sea 💀
- foam → Aphrodite
- aka Cythereia
- Cyporogenes
- Philommedes: “fond of genitals”
- foam → Aphrodite
- Ouranos referred to sons as Titans because “over-reached” titaino
Other Early Gods
- genealogy of the gods representing different human experiences
- notably
- Night → Doom, Fate, Death, Sleep, Dreams… human sins, Oath
- Pontos → Nereus (gentle and just), Doris → 50 daughters
- Pontos, Gaia → Thaumas, Electra → Harpies (Aello and Ocypete), Gorgons…
- Medusa, Poseidon → Chrysaor, Pegasos
- Ceto → Echidna, Typhaon → Orthos, Cerberos, Hydra, Chimaira (→ Sphinx, Nemean Lion, but perhaps these were borne from Echidna??)
- Zeus → Heracles
- Tethys, Ocean → rivers, daughters incl. Calypso and Styx
- Theia → Helios, Selene, Eos
- Styx was the first to side with Zeus against the Titans
- honor, gifts
Hecate
- Phoibe, Coios → Leto, Asteria (Perses wife), Hecate
She has a share of privileges of all the gods That were ever born of Earth and Heaven. (423–424)
- nurse for the young
- privileged goddess
- helps gods in blessings
The Birth of the Olympians
- Cronos, forced upon Rheia
- Hestia
- Demeter
- Hera
- Hades
- Poseidon
- Zeus
- swallow children
- Zeus raised on Crete
- replace by stone
- freed Cyclopes
- gave thunder and thunderbolt and lightning
Prometheus
- Iapetos, Clymene → Atlas, Menoitios, Prometheus, Epimetheus
- why is there so much emphasis on pretty ankles?
- Atlas holds up the sky
- Prometheus matches wits with Zeus
- serve bones in fat
- origin of offerings
- gifted fire to men
- serve bones in fat
Pandora
He made this lovely evil to balance the good, … The deadly race and population of women, A great infestation among mortal men, At home with Wealth but not with Poverty. It’s the same as with bees in their overhung hives Feeding the drones, evil conspirators. The bees work every day until the sun goes down, Busy all day long making pale honeycombs, While the drones stay inside, in the hollow hives, Stuffing their stomachs with the works of others. That’s just how Zeus, the high lord of thunder, Made women as a curse for mortal men, Evil conspirators. … (588, 595–606)
- this guy hates women 💀
- Pandora, mother of all women, gorgeous, all “sighed with beauty” (586)
The Titanomachy
- Ouranos angry with Obraireos (Briareos, Hundred-hander)
- sent underground with Cottos and Gyges
- freed by Zeus
- sent underground with Cottos and Gyges
- gods vs. Titans; Olympos and Othrys
- ten years
- gods: givers of good
- Hundred-handers provided ambrosia and nectar
- allied, throwing cliffs and stones
- Zeus’s might melted land and boiled the ocean
- great heat, “Heat so terrible it engulfed deep Chaos” (704)
- Titans down to Tartaros
Tartaros
- Titans trapped, guarded by Gyges and Cottos
- home of Night and Day, never inside together
- Atlas holds the sky
- Night holds Sleep, Hypnos
- guarded by Ceberos
- Styx, loathed by the gods, if an oath is broken, one year of coma and nine years of exile
- Briareos married Cymopoleia, daughter of Poseidon
Typhoios
- Typhoios was mirror image of Zeus, but monstrous qualities
- earth melted in fight
- hurled into Tartaros
Zeus in Power
- Zeus, Metis (”Cunning Intelligence”, first wife) → Tritogeneia (Athena)
- stuffed in stomach, then born from head
- Zeus, Themis → Seasons, Eunomia (Lawfulness), Dike (Justice), Eirene (Peace)
- Zeus, Eurynome → Graces: Aglaia, Euphrosyne, Thalia
- Zeus, Demeter → Persephone
- Zeus, Mnemosyne → nine Muses
- Zeus, Leto → Apollo, Artemis
- Zeus, Hera (wife) → Hebe, Eileithyia, Ares
- Hera → Hephaistos
- Zeus, Maia → Hermes
- Zeus, Semele (mortal woman → god) → Dionysos
- Zeus, Alcmene → Heracles
- Helios, Perseis → Circe, Aietes
- Aietes, Idyia → Medeia
- ankles again??
- Aietes, Idyia → Medeia
Goddesses and Heroes
goddesses who slept with mortal men
- Jason, Medeia → Medeios
- Thetis, Peleus → Achilles
- Circe, Odysseus → Agrios, Lations, Telegonos
- Calypso, Odysseus → Nausithoos, Nausinoos
etc, only noted down the notable names that I’ve heard of because they list so much
- lists as rhythm for listener