Prometheus Chain'd.
13
PROM. Tis painful to relate it, to be silent
Is pain: each circumstance is full of woe.[1]
When stern debate amongst the gods appear'd,
And discord in the courts of heavn was rous'd;
Whilst against Saturn some conspiring will 'd
To pluck him from the throne, that Jove might reign;
And some, averse, with ardent zeal oppos'd
Jove's rising pow'r and empire o'er the gods;
My counsels, tho' discreetest, wisest, best,
Mov'd not the Titans, those impetuous sons
Of Ouranus and Terra, whose high spirits,
Disdaining milder measures, proudly ween'd
To seize by force the sceptre of the sky.
Oft did my goddess mother, Themis now,
- ↑ Gaia, offended with her husband Ouranus for having inprisoned the bravest of her sons, encouraged Saturn to revenge the affront, and armed him with a seythe of adamant, with which he dismembered his father, then seized his throne. But having heard a prophecy that he in his turn should be dethroned by one of his sons, to evade the completion of it, he swallowed down all his male offspring as soon as they were born, till at the birth of Jupiter, Rhea deceived him by a strange device, and privately conveyed the child to Crete, where he was educated, and concealed till he was of age to appear in arms against his father. As Saturn was the youngest son of Ouranus, the two eldest, Titanus and Japetus, claimed their hereditary honours, and opposed the sovereignty of Jupiter. The war had now continued ten years without intermission, and no prospect of a decision appeared when Jupiter released Briareus, Cottos, and Gyges, the sons whom Saturn had imprisoned, and by feasting them with nectar and ambrosia, secured their fidelity: these were of immense courage, strength, and size, each, had fifty heads and a hundred hands; by their assistance the Titans were totally defeated, and Jupiter acknowledged as the sovereign of the sky. Hesiod describes this battle with wonderful sublimity.
- ↑ A multiplicity of names was a mark of dignity; but Themis could not with propriety be called Gaia, this our poet mistook for Rhea, Gaia is the earth in its primitve uncultivated state, terra inculta, Rhea is the earth in its improved state of cultivation, tellus culta: and as from this culture property arose, Justice had here her office to assign and protect this property.
