Opening The Theogony — Hesiod in Plato Scroll…
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Hesiod · After Evelyn-White (Loeb)
Hesiod's foundational Greek cosmogony (c. 730–700 BCE): how the universe came to be out of Chaos, how the generations of gods overthrew one another down to the reign of Zeus, and how the order of the present world was established. Composed in dactylic hexameter and rendered here in a public-domain English prose translation that uses the familiar Roman names for the gods. Line numbers in the left margin follow the Greek original. From the Heliconian Muses let us begin to sing, who hold the great and holy mount of Helicon, and dance on soft feet about the deep-blue spring and the altar of the almighty son of Saturn, and, when they have washed their tender bodies in Permessus or in the Horse’s Spring or Olmeius, make their fair, lovely dances upon highest Helicon and move with vigorous feet. Thence they arise and go abroad by night, veiled in thick mist, and utter their song with lovely …
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