Whom she with dark embrace of Erebus

Commingling bore.

Her first-born Earth produc'd

Of like immensity, the starry Heaven :

That he might sheltering compass her around
On every side, and be for evermore

To the blest gods a mansion unremov'd.

Next the high hills arose, the pleasant haunts
Of goddess-nymphs, who dwell among the glens
Of mountains. With no aid of tender love

Gave she to birth the sterile Sea, high swoll'n
In raging foam; and, Heaven-embraced, anon
She teem'd with Ocean, rolling in deep whirls
His vast abyss of waters.

Crous then,
Cæus, Hyperion, and Iäpetus,
Themis, and Thea rose; Mnemosyne,
And Rhea; Phoebe diadem'd with gold,
And love-inspiring Tethys: and of these,
Youngest in birth, the wily Saturn came,
The sternest of her sons; and he abhorr'd
The sire that gave him life.

Then brought she forth
The Cyclops haughty of spirit: Steropes,
Brontes, and Arges of impetuous soul;
Who gave to Jove his thunder, and who forg'd
The lightning flame. Resembling gods they were,
Save that a single ball of sight was fix'd

In their mid-forehead: hence the Cyclops' name :
For that one circular eye was broad infix'd

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In the mid-forehead :-strength was theirs, and force, 205 And craft of curious toil.

Then other sons

Were born of Earth and Heaven: three mighty sons
And valiant; dreadful but to name; a race
Aspiring; Cottus, Gyges, Bríareus.

A hundred arms from forth their shoulders burst,
Mocking approach; and fifty heads upsprang
O'er limbs of sinewy mould: their giant forms
Tower'd huge, in bold immeasurable strength.

Of all the children sprung from Earth and Heaven,

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The fiercest these; but all their sire abhorr'd
From the beginning: all his race he seiz'd
As each was born, and hid in cave profound,
Nor e'er releas'd to day; and in his work

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Malign exulted Heaven. Then inly groan'd

The vast Earth, grief-opprest, and straight devis'd

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Ill stratagem of fraud: and thus intent,

When now she had produced a whiter kind

Of temper'd iron, cunning-wrought she forg'd
A sickle huge, and to her children spake :
Daring she spake, yet at her heart aggriev'd :—
"My sons! alas, ye children of a sire
Most impious, now obey a mother's voice;
So shall we well avenge the fell despite
Of him, your father, who the first devis'd
Deeds of injustice."

While she said, on all

Fear seiz'd; nor utterance found they, till with soul
Embolden'd, wily Saturn huge address'd

His awful mother.

"Mother, be the deed

My own: thus pledg'd, I will most sure achieve
This feat; nor heed I him, our sire, of name
Detested; for that he the first devis'd

Deeds of injustice."

Thus he said: and Earth

Was gladden'd at her heart. She planted him
In ambush dark and secret: to his grasp
The rough-tooth'd sickle gave, and tutor❜d him
every wile.

In

Vast Heaven came down from high, And with him brought the gloominess of night

On all beneath with ardour of embrace

Hovering o'er Earth, in his immensity

He lay diffus'd around. The wily son
From secret ambush then his weaker hand

:

Put forth his right the sickle grasp'd, with teeth
Horrent, and huge, and long: and from his sire

He swift the source of generative life

Cut sheer then cast behind him far away

:

The bloody ruin.

But not so in vain

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Escap'd it from his hold: the gory drops

Earth, as they gush'd, receiv'd. When years roll'd round Thence teem'd she with the fierce Eumenides,

And giants huge in stature, all in mail

Radiant, and wielding long-protended spears:

And Nymphs, wide worshipp'd o'er the boundless earth

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By Dryad name.

So severing with keen steel

The sacred spoils, he from the continent

Amidst the many surges of the sea

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Hurl'd them. Full long they drifted o'er the deeps;

Till now swift-circling a white foam arose

From that immortal substance, and a nymph

Was nourish'd in the midst. The wafting waves

First bore her to Cythera the divine:

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To wave-encircled Cyprus came she then,

And forth emerg'd, a goddess, in the charms

Of awful beauty. Where her delicate feet

Had prest the sands, green herbage flowering sprang.
Her Aphrodite gods and mortals name,

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The foam-born goddess: and her name is known

As Cytherea with the blooming wreath,

For that she touch'd Cythera's flowery coast;

And Cypris, for that on the Cyprian shore
She rose, amid the multitude of waves.

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Love track'd her steps, and beautiful Desire

Pursued; while soon as born she bent her way

Toward heaven's assembled gods; her honours these

From the beginning; whether gods or men

Her presence bless, to her the portion fell
Of virgin whisperings, and alluring smiles,
And smooth deceits, and gentle ecstasy,
And dalliance, and the blandishments of love.

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Now the great Heaven, rebuking in his wrath The sons whom he had form'd, the Titan name Stamp'd on his offspring, who vindictive wrought A heinous act audacious: after-time

Should bring the vengeance; they should rue the deed. Abhorred Fate, and dark Necessity,

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And Death, were born from Night; by none embrac'd 290 These gloomy Night brought self-conceiving forth :

And Sleep; and all the hovering host of Dreams.
Again she teem'd with Momus; Care full-fraught
With many griefs: and next th' Hesperian maids,
Whose charge o'ersees the fruits of bloomy gold
Beyond the sounding ocean, the fair trees
Of golden fruitage. Then the Destinies
Arose; and Fates in vengeance pitiless;
Clotho, and Lachesis, and Atropos,

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Who at the birth of men dispense the lot

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Of good and evil. They of men and gods

The crimes pursue; nor ever pause from wrath
Tremendous, till destructive on the head
Of him that sins the retribution fall.

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Then teem'd pernicious Night with Nemesis,
The scourge of mortal men; again she bore
Fraud, and lascivious Love; slow-wasting Age,
And still-persisting Strife.

From hateful Strife
Came sore affliction, and oblivion drear;
Famine, and weeping sorrows; combats, wars,
And slaughters, and all homicides; and brawls,
And bickerings, and deluding lies with them
Came lawlessness and galling injury,
Inseparable mates; and the dread oath-
A mighty bane to him of earth-born men
Who wilful swears, and perjur'd is forsworn.

The Sea with Earth embracing, Nereus rose,
Eldest of all his race; pure from deceit
And true; with filial veneration nam'd
Ancient of years: for mild and blameless he ;
Remembering still the right; still merciful
As just in counsels. Then rose Thaumas huge,
Phorcys the strong, and Ceto fair of cheek,
And last Eurybia, of an iron soul.

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From Nereus and the fair-hair'd Doris, nymph

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Of ocean's perfect stream, the lovely race

Of goddess Nereids rose to light, whose haunt
Is midst the waters of the sterile main.
Eucrate, Proto, Thetis, Amphitrite,
Love-breathing Thália, Sao, and Eudora,
And Spio, skimming with light feet the wave;

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Galene, Glauce, and Cymothöe;
Agave, and the graceful Melita ;
Rose-arm'd Eunice, and Eulimene;
Pasithea, Doto, E'rato, Pherusa,
Nesæa, Cranto, and Dynamene;
Protomedía, Doris, and Actæa;
And Panope, and Galatea fair;
Hippothöe winning soft; Hipponöe

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The roseate-arm'd; Cymodoce who calms

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The stormy billows of the darken'd main,

And blasts of mighty winds; her aids the Nymph

Cymatolége, while along the deep

With beauteous ankles Amphitrite glides:

Cymo, Eïone, Liagore,

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And, grac'd with blooming sea-wreath, Halimed:

And Neso, and Eupompe, and Themistho;
And last Nemertes, with prophetic soul

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Blest of her sire immortal. These are they
From blameless Nereus born, the fifty nymphs
In labours vers'd of blameless ministry.

Electra, nymph of the deep-flowing main, Embrac'd with Thaumas: rapid Iris thence Rose, and Aello, and Ocypetes,

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The sister harpies, fair with streaming locks :
On fleetest wings upborne, they chase aloft

The hovering birds and wandering winds, and soar

Into the heaven.

From Ceto fair of cheek,

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And Phorcys, came the Graiæ: (gray they were
E'en from the natal hour, and hence their name

Is known among the deities on high

And man's earth-wandering race.) Pephredo clad
In flowing vesture, and her sister nymph,
The saffron-rob'd Eny'o. Then were born

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