Ancient / Classical History

  1. Home
  2. Education
  3. Ancient / Classical History
Hesiod: The Theogony
Endnotes

Translated by Evelyn-White.

 Related Resources
•  Primary Text Index
• Hesiod Text Index
• Evelyn-White's Theogony
 

(1) The epithet probably indicates coquettishness.

(2) A proverbial saying meaning, `why enlarge on irrelevant topics?'

(3) `She of the noble voice': Calliope is queen of Epic poetry.

(4) Earth, in the cosmology of Hesiod, is a disk surrounded by the river Oceanus and floating upon a waste of waters. It is called the foundation of all (the qualification `the deathless ones...' etc. is an interpolation), because not only trees, men, and animals, but even the hills and seas (ll. 129, 131) are supported by it.

(5) Aether is the bright, untainted upper atmosphere, as distinguished from Aer, the lower atmosphere of the earth.

(6) Brontes is the Thunderer; Steropes, the Lightener; and Arges, the Vivid One.

(7) The myth accounts for the separation of Heaven and Earth. In Egyptian cosmology Nut (the Sky) is thrust and held apart from her brother Geb (the Earth) by their father Shu, who corresponds to the Greek Atlas.

(8) Nymphs of the ash-trees, as Dryads are nymphs of the oak- trees. Cp. note on "Works and Days", l. 145.

(9) `Member-loving': the title is perhaps only a perversion of the regular PHILOMEIDES (laughter-loving).

(10) Cletho (the Spinner) is she who spins the thread of man's life; Lachesis (the Disposer of Lots) assigns to each man his destiny; Atropos (She who cannot be turned) is the `Fury with the abhorred shears.'

(11) Many of the names which follow express various qualities or aspects of the sea: thus Galene is `Calm', Cymothoe is the `Wave-swift', Pherusa and Dynamene are `She who speeds (ships)' and `She who has power'.

(12) The `Wave-receiver' and the `Wave-stiller'.

(13) `The Unerring' or `Truthful'; cp. l. 235.

(14) i.e. Poseidon.

(15) Goettling notes that some of these nymphs derive their names from lands over which they preside, as Europa, Asia, Doris, Ianeira (`Lady of the Ionians'), but that most are called after some quality which their streams possessed: thus Xanthe is the `Brown' or `Turbid', Amphirho is the `Surrounding' river, Ianthe is `She who delights', and Ocyrrhoe is the `Swift-flowing'.

(16) i.e. Eos, the `Early-born'.

(17) Van Lennep explains that Hecate, having no brothers to support her claim, might have been slighted.

(18) The goddess of the hearth (the Roman "Vesta"), and so of the house. Cp. "Homeric Hymns" v.22 ff.; xxxix.1 ff.

(19) The variant reading `of his father' (sc. Heaven) rests on inferior MS. authority and is probably an alteration due to the difficulty stated by a Scholiast: `How could Zeus, being not yet begotten, plot against his father?' The phrase is, however, part of the prophecy. The whole line may well be spurious, and is rejected by Heyne, Wolf, Gaisford and Guyet.

(20) Pausanias (x. 24.6) saw near the tomb of Neoptolemus `a stone of no great size', which the Delphians anointed every day with oil, and which he says was supposed to be the stone given to Cronos.

(21) A Scholiast explains: `Either because they (men) sprang from the Melian nymphs (cp. l. 187); or because, when they were born (?), they cast themselves under the ash-trees, that is, the trees.' The reference may be to the origin of men from ash-trees: cp. "Works and Days", l. 145 and note.

(22) sc. Atlas, the Shu of Egyptian mythology: cp. note on line 177.

(23) Oceanus is here regarded as a continuous stream enclosing the earth and the seas, and so as flowing back upon himself.

(24) The conception of Oceanus is here different: he has nine streams which encircle the earth and the flow out into the `main' which appears to be the waste of waters on which, according to early Greek and Hebrew cosmology, the disk-like earth floated.

(25) i.e. the threshold is of `native' metal, and not artificial.

(26) According to Homer Typhoeus was overwhelmed by Zeus amongst the Arimi in Cilicia. Pindar represents him as buried under Aetna, and Tzetzes reads Aetna in this passage.

(27) The epithet (which means literally `well-bored') seems to refer to the spout of the crucible.

(28) The fire god. There is no reference to volcanic action: iron was smelted on Mount Ida; cp. "Epigrams of Homer", ix. 2-4.

(29) i.e. Athena, who was born `on the banks of the river Trito' (cp. l. 929l)

(30) Restored by Peppmuller. The nineteen following lines from another recension of lines 889-900, 924-9 are quoted by Chrysippus (in Galen).

(31) sc. the aegis. Line 929s is probably spurious, since it disagrees with l. 929q and contains a suspicious reference to Athens.

The URL for this resource page is
http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_text_hesiod_theogendnotes.htm
This page is copyright © 2000-2002 N.S. Gill.

Subscribe to the Newsletter
Name
 Email

About.com Special Features

A Smarter Future

Tips that will help finance your education, excel in the classroom, and advance your career. More >

How to Ace the GRE

Being well prepared is the first step; here are more essential suggestions. More >