5. What the Guardians Shall Be Taught About The Gods
Then we have found the desired natures; and now that we have found them, how are they to be reared and
educated? Is not this an inquiry which may be expected to throw light on the greater inquiry which is our
final end - How do justice and injustice grow up in States? for we do not want either to omit what is to
the point or to draw out the argument to an inconvenient length.
Adeimantus thought that
the inquiry would be of great service to us.
Then, I said, my dear friend, the task must not be given up, even if somewhat long.
Certainly not.
Come then, and let us pass a leisure hour in story-telling, and our story shall be the education of our heroes.
By all means.
And what shall be their education? Can we find a better than the traditional sort? - and this has two
divisions, gymnastics for the body, and music /1/for the soul.
True.
Shall we begin education with music, and go on to gymnastics afterward?
By all means.
And when you speak of music, do you include literature or not?
I do.
And literature may be either true or false?
Yes.
And the young should be trained in both kinds, and we begin with the false?
I do not understand your meaning, he said.
You know, I said, that we begin by telling children stories which, though not wholly destitute of truth,
are in the main fictitious; and these stories are told them when they are not of an age to learn gymnastics.
Very true.
That was my meaning when I said that we must teach music before gymnastics.
Quite right, he said.
You know also that the beginning is the most important part of any work, especially in the case of a young
and tender thing; for that is the time at which the character is being formed and the desired impression is more readily taken.
Quite true.
And shall we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual tales which may be devised by casual persons,
and to receive into their minds ideas for the most part the very opposite of those which we should wish them to have when they are grown up?
We cannot.
Then the first thing will be to establish a censorship of the writers of fiction, and let the censors
receive any tale of fiction which is good, and reject the bad; and we will desire mothers and nurses to
tell their children the authorized ones only. Let them fashion the mind with such tales, even more fondly
than they mould the body with their hands; but most of those which are now in use must be discarded.
Of what tales are you speaking? he said.
You may find a model of the lesser in the greater, I said; for they are necessarily of the same type,
and there is the same spirit in both of them.
Very likely, he replied; but I do not as yet know what you would term the greater.
Those, I said, which are narrated by Homer and Hesiod, and the rest of the poets, who have ever been
the great storytellers of mankind.
But which stories do you mean, he said; and what fault do you find with them?
A fault which is most serious, I said; the fault of telling a lie, and, what is more, a bad lie.
But when is this fault committed?
Whenever an erroneous representation is made of the nature of gods and heroes - as when a painter
paints a portrait not having the shadow of a likeness to the original.
Yes, he said, that sort of thing is certainly very blamable; but what are the stories which you mean?
First of all, I said, there was that greatest of all lies in high places, which the poet told about
Uranus, and which was a bad lie too - I mean what Hesiod says that Uranus did, and how Cronus retaliated
on him. The doings of Cronus, and the sufferings which in turn his son inflicted upon him /2/, even if they
were true, ought certainly not to be lightly told to young and thoughtless persons; if possible, they
had better be buried in silence. But if there is an absolute necessity for their mention, a chosen
few might hear them in a mystery, and they should sacrifice not a common [Eleusinian] pig, but some
huge and unprocurable victim; and then the number of the hearers will be very few indeed.
Why, yes, said he, those stories are extremely objectionable.
Yes, Adeimantus,
they are stories not to be repeated in our State; the young man should not be told that in committing
the worst of crimes he is far from doing anything outrageous; and that even if he chastises his father
when he does wrong, in whatever manner, he will only be following the example of the first and greatest among the gods.
I entirely agree with you, he said; in my opinion those stories are quite unfit to be repeated.
Neither, if we mean our future guardians to regard the habit of quarrelling among themselves as
of all things the basest, should any word be said to them of the wars in heaven, and of the plots
and fightings of the gods against one another, for they are not true. No, we shall never mention
the battles of the giants, or let them be embroidered on garments; and we shall be silent about
the innumerable other quarrels of gods and heroes with their friends and relatives. If they would
only believe us we would tell them that quarrelling is unholy, and that never up to this time has
there been any quarrel between citizens; this is what old men and old women should begin by telling
children; and when they grow up, the poets also should be told to compose them in a similar spirit.
But the narrative of Hephaestus binding Here his mother, or how on another occasion Zeus sent him
flying for taking her part when she was being beaten, and all the battles of the gods in Homer - these
tales must not be admitted into our State, whether they are supposed to have an allegorical
meaning or not. For a young person cannot judge what is allegorical and what is literal; anything
that he receives into his mind at that age is likely to become indelible and unalterable; and
therefore it is most important that the tales which the young first hear should be models of virtuous thoughts.
There you are right, he replied; but if anyone asks where are such models to be found and of what
tales are you speaking - how shall we answer him?
I said to him, You and I, Adeimantus,
at this moment are not poets, but founders of a State: now the founders of a State ought to know
the general forms in which poets should cast their tales, and the limits which must be observed
by them, but to make the tales is not their business.
Very true, he said; but what are these forms of theology which you mean?
Something of this kind, I replied: God is always to be represented as he truly is, whatever be the
sort of poetry, epic, lyric, or tragic, in which the representation is given.
Right.
And is he not truly good? and must he not be represented as such?
Certainly.
And no good thing is hurtful?
No, indeed.
And that which is not hurtful hurts not?
Certainly not.
And that which hurts not does no evil?
No.
And can that which does no evil be a cause of evil?
Impossible.
And the good is advantageous?
Yes.
And therefore the cause of well-being?
Yes.
It follows, therefore, that the good is not the cause of all things, but of the good only?
Assuredly.
Then God, if he be good, is not the author of all things, as the many assert, but he is the cause
of a few things only, and not of most things that occur to men. For few are the goods of human
life, and many are the evils, and the good is to be attributed to God alone; of the evils the
causes are to be sought elsewhere, and not in him.
That appears to me to be most true, he said.
Then we must not listen to Homer or to any other poet who is guilty of the folly of saying that two casks
"Lie at the threshold of Zeus, full of lots, one of good, the other of
evil lots," and that he to whom Zeus gives a mixture of the two
"Sometimes meets with evil fortune, at other times with good;"
but that he to whom is given the cup of unmingled ill,
"Him wild hunger drives o'er the beauteous earth."
And again -
"Zeus, who is the dispenser of good and evil to us."
And if anyone asserts that the violation of oaths and treaties, which was really the work of
Pandarus, was brought about by Athene and Zeus, or that the strife and contention of the gods
were instigated by Themis and Zeus, he shall not have our approval; neither will we allow our young men to hear the words of AEschylus, that
"God plants guilt among men when he desires utterly to destroy a house."
And if a poet writes of the sufferings of Niobe - the subject of the tragedy in which these
iambic verses occur - or of the house of Pelops, or of the Trojan War or on any similar theme,
either we must not permit him to say that these are the works of God, or if they are of God, he
must devise some explanation of them such as we are seeking: he must say that God did what was
just and right, and they were the better for being punished; but that those who are punished are
miserable, and that God is the author of their misery - the poet is not to be permitted to say;
though he may say that the wicked are miserable because they require to be punished, and are benefited
by receiving punishment from God; but that God being good is the author of evil to anyone is to
be strenuously denied, and not to be said or sung or heard in verse or prose by anyone whether
old or young in any well-ordered commonwealth. Such a fiction is suicidal, ruinous, impious.
I agree with you, he replied, and am ready to give my assent to the law.
Let this then be one of our rules and principles concerning the gods, to which our poets and
reciters will be expected to conform - that God is not the author of all things, but of good only.
That will do, he said.
And what do you think of a second principle? Shall I ask you whether God is a magician, and
of a nature to appear insidiously now in one shape, and now in another - sometimes himself changing
and passing into many forms, sometimes deceiving us with the semblance of such transformations;
or is he one and the same immutably fixed in his own proper image?
I cannot answer you, he said, without more thought.
Well, I said; but if we suppose a change in anything, that change must be effected either by
the thing itself or by some other thing?
Most certainly.
And things which are at their best are also least liable to be altered or discomposed; for example,
when healthiest and strongest, the human frame is least liable to be affected by meats and
drinks, and the plant which is in the fullest vigor also suffers least from winds or the heat of the sun or any similar causes.
Of course.
And will not the bravest and wisest soul be least confused or deranged by any external influence?
True.
And the same principle, as I should suppose, applies to all composite things - furniture, houses,
garments: when good and well made, they are least altered by time and circumstances.
Very true.
Then everything which is good, whether made by art or nature, or both, is least liable to suffer change from without?
True.
But surely God and the things of God are in every way perfect?
Of course they are.
Then he can hardly be compelled by external influence to take many shapes?
He cannot.
But may he not change and transform himself?
Clearly, he said, that must be the case if he is changed at all.
And will he then change himself for the better and fairer, or for the worse and more unsightly?
If he change at all he can only change for the worse, for we cannot suppose him to be deficient either in virtue or beauty.
Very true, Adeimantus;
but then, would anyone, whether God or man, desire to make himself worse?
Impossible.
Then it is impossible that God should ever be willing to change; being, as is supposed, the fairest
and best that is conceivable, every God remains absolutely and forever in his own form.
That necessarily follows, he said, in my judgment.
Then, I said, my dear friend, let none of the poets tell us that
"The gods, taking the disguise of strangers from other lands, walk up
and down cities in all sorts of forms;"
and let no one slander Proteus and Thetis, neither let anyone, either in tragedy or in any other
kind of poetry, introduce Here disguised in the likeness of a priestess asking an alms
"For the life-giving daughters of Inachus the river of Argos;"
- let us have no more lies of that sort. Neither must we have mothers under the influence of the
poets scaring their children with a bad version of these myths - telling how certain gods, as they say,
"Go about by night in the likeness of so many strangers and in divers forms;"
but let them take heed lest they make cowards of their children, and at the same time speak blasphemy against the gods.
Heaven forbid, he said.
But although the gods are themselves unchangeable, still by witchcraft and deception they may make us think that they appear in various forms?
Perhaps, he replied.
Well, but can you imagine that God will be willing to lie, whether in word or deed, or to put forth a phantom of himself?
I cannot say, he replied.
Do you not know, I said, that the true lie, if such an expression may be allowed, is hated of gods and men?
What do you mean? he said.
I mean that no one is willingly deceived in that which is the truest and highest part of himself, or about
the truest and highest matters; there, above all, he is most afraid of a lie having possession of him.
Still, he said, I do not comprehend you.
The reason is, I replied, that you attribute some profound meaning to my words; but I am only saying that
deception, or being deceived or uninformed about the highest realities in the highest part of themselves,
which is the soul, and in that part of them to have and to hold the lie, is what mankind least like;
- that, I say, is what they utterly detest.
There is nothing more hateful to them.
And, as I was just now remarking, this ignorance in the soul of him who is deceived may be called the
true lie; for the lie in words is only a kind of imitation and shadowy image of a previous affection of
the soul, not pure unadulterated falsehood. Am I not right?
Perfectly right.
The true lie is hated not only by the gods, but also by men?
Yes.
Whereas the lie in words is in certain cases useful and not hateful; in dealing with enemies - that
would be an instance; or again, when those whom we call our friends in a fit of madness or illusion are
going to do some harm, then it is useful and is a sort of medicine or preventive; also in the tales of
mythology, of which we were just now speaking - because we do not know the truth about ancient times,
we make falsehood as much like truth as we can, and so turn it to account.
Very true, he said.
But can any of these reasons apply to God? Can we suppose that he is ignorant of antiquity, and
therefore has recourse to invention?
That would be ridiculous, he said.
Then the lying poet has no place in our idea of God?
I should say not.
Or perhaps he may tell a lie because he is afraid of enemies?
That is inconceivable.
But he may have friends who are senseless or mad?
But no mad or senseless person can be a friend of God.
Then no motive can be imagined why God should lie?
None whatever.
Then the superhuman, and divine, is absolutely incapable of falsehood?
Yes.
Then is God perfectly simple and true both in word and deed; he changes not; he deceives not, either by sign or word, by dream or waking vision.
Your thoughts, he said, are the reflection of my own.
You agree with me then, I said, that this is the second type or form in which we should write and
speak about divine things. The gods are not magicians who transform themselves, neither do they
deceive mankind in any way.
I grant that.
Then, although we are admirers of Homer, we do not admire the lying dream which Zeus sends to
Agamemnon; neither will we praise the verses of AEschylus in which Thetis says that Apollo at her nuptials
"was celebrating in song her fair progeny whose days were to be long,
and to know no sickness. And when he had spoken of my lot as in all
things blessed of heaven, he raised a note of triumph and cheered my soul.
And I thought that the word of Phoebus, being divine and full of prophecy,
would not fail. And now he himself who uttered the strain, he who was
present at the banquet, and who said this - he it is who has slain my
son."
These are the kind of sentiments about the gods which will arouse our anger; and he who utters
them shall be refused a chorus; neither shall we allow teachers to make use of them in the instruction
of the young, meaning, as we do, that our guardians, as far as men can be, should be true worshippers of the gods and like them.
I entirely agree, he said, in these principles, and promise to make them my laws.
Here Ends Book II of Plato's Republic, the dialogue continues in
Book III.
NOTES
/1/
Music. The Grekk MOUSIKOS, which is the root for our
word "museum" embraces all activities inspired by the muses,
poetry, philosophy, literature, as well as music in our narrower sense.
/2/
Uranus, Cronus, and the war among the gods.. Gaia (Earth), of her son Uranus (Heaven), bare Rhea and Cronus, and several other
children. Among the children of Gaia's and Uranus' incest were Cottus, Briareos, and Gyes, who were
of great strength and each with a hundred hands. Uranus, apparently in fear of these hundred-handed
ones (Hecatonchires), shut them up in Earth. Gaia called on her children, the Titans, to punish Uranus for his un-fatherly behavior. Only
Cronus took up the challenge, ambushed his father Uranus and castrated him. Having surplanted Uranus as king,
Cronus sired children of his sister Rhea, but, fearing that he would, like his father, be undone by his own son,
devoured each of these Olympians as it was born. Rhea, carrying in her womb Zeus, conspired with Uranus and Gaia to
steal away and secretly give birth to Zeus, the further king of the Olympian gods. After Zeus was
grow up, Gaia somehow tricks Cronus into vomiting up the other children and they, the Olympians, lead
by their king Zeus do ten-years battle with Cronus and the other Titans for mastery of the universe.
Finally Zeus enlists the Hecatonchires to fight with the Olympians against the Titans and the Titans
are beaten and exiled to the Hell of Tartarus and Zeus and his Olympians are reign supreme.
The tale from Hesiod's The Theogony is presented below in an abridgement:
... Hail, children of Zeus! Grant lovely song and celebrate the holy race of the deathless gods who are for ever, those that were born
of Earth and starry Heaven and gloomy Night and them that briny Sea did rear. Tell how at the first gods and earth came to be...
Verily at the first Chaos came to be, but next wide-bosomed Earth, the ever-sure foundations of all
the deathless ones who hold the peaks of snowy Olympus, and dim Tartarus in the depth of the wide-pathed Earth, and Eros,
fairest among the deathless gods, who unnerves the limbs and overcomes the mind and wise counsels of all gods and all men within them.
From Chaos came forth Erebus and black Night; but of Night were born Aether and Day, whom she conceived and bare from union in
love with Erebus. And Earth [Gaia] first bare starry Heaven [Uranus], equal to herself, to cover her on every side, and to be an ever-sure abiding-place
for the blessed gods. And she brought forth long Hills, graceful haunts of the goddess-Nymphs who dwell amongst the glens of the hills.
She bare also the fruitless deep with his raging swell, Pontus, without sweet union of love. But afterwards she lay with Heaven [Uranus] and
bare deep-swirling Oceanus, Coeus and Crius and Hyperion and Iapetus, Theia and Rhea, Themis and Mnemosyne and gold-crowned
Phoebe and lovely Tethys. After them was born Cronos the wily, youngest and most terrible of her children, and he hated his lusty sire...
And again, three other sons were born of Earth [Gaia] and Heaven [Uranus], great and doughty beyond telling, Cottus and Briareos
and Gyes, presumptuous children. From their shoulders sprang an hundred arms, not to be approached, and each had fifty
heads upon his shoulders on their strong limbs, and irresistible was the stubborn strength that was in their great forms.
For of all the children that were born of Earth [Gaia] and Heaven [Uranus], these were the most terrible, and they were hated by
their own father from the first. And he [Uranus] used to hide them all away in a secret place of Earth so soon as each
was born, and would not suffer them to come up into the light: and Heaven [Urnaus] rejoiced in his evil doing.
But vast Earth [Gaia] groaned within, being straitened, and she made the element of grey flint and shaped a great sickle,
and told her plan to her dear sons. And she spoke, cheering them, while she was vexed in her dear heart:
'My children, gotten of a sinful father, if you will obey me, we should punish the vile outrage of your father;
for he first thought of doing shameful things.'
So she said; but fear seized them all, and none of them uttered a word. But great Cronos the wily took courage and answered his dear mother:
'Mother, I will undertake to do this deed, for I reverence not our father of evil name, for he first thought of doing shameful things.'
So he said: and vast Earth [Gaia] rejoiced greatly in spirit, and set and hid him in an ambush, and put in his hands a
jagged sickle, and revealed to him the whole plot.
And Heaven [Uranus] came, bringing on night and longing for love, and he lay about Earth [Gaia] spreading himself full upon her.
Then the son [Cronus] from his ambush stretched forth his left hand and in his right took the great long sickle with jagged teeth, and swiftly
lopped off his own father's members and cast them away to fall behind him...
...Rhea was subject in love to Cronos and bare splendid children, Hestia, Demeter, and gold-shod Hera and
strong Hades, pitiless in heart, who dwells under the earth, and the loud-crashing Earth-Shaker, and wise
Zeus, father of gods and men, by whose thunder the wide earth is shaken. These great Cronos swallowed
as each came forth from the womb to his mother's knees with this intent, that no other of the proud sons of Heaven
should hold the kingly office amongst the deathless gods. For he learned from Earth [Gaia] and starry Heaven [Urnaus] that
he was destined to be overcome by his own son, strong though he was, through the contriving of great Zeus.
Therefore he kept no blind outlook, but watched and swallowed down his children: and unceasing grief seized Rhea.
But when she was about to bear Zeus, the father of gods and men, then she besought her own dear parents,
Earth [Gaia] and starry Heaven [Uranus], to devise some plan with her that the birth of her dear child might
be concealed, and that retribution might overtake great, crafty Cronos for his own father and also for the
children whom he had swallowed down. And they readily heard and obeyed their dear daughter, and told her all
that was destined to happen touching Cronos the king and his stout-hearted son. So they sent her to Lyetus,
to the rich land of Crete, when she was ready to bear great Zeus, the youngest of her children.
Him did vast Earth [Gaia] receive from Rhea in wide Crete to nourish and to bring up. Thither came Earth [Gaia]
carrying him swiftly through the black night to Lyctus first, and took him in her arms and hid him in a remote
cave beneath the secret places of the holy earth on thick-wooded Mount Aegeum; but to the mightily ruling son of
Heaven, the earlier king of the gods, she gave a great stone wrapped in swaddling clothes. Then he took it in his
hands and thrust it down into his belly: wretch! he knew not in his heart that in place of the stone his son was
left behind, unconquered and untroubled, and that he was soon to overcome him by force and might and drive him from
his honours, himself to reign over the deathless gods.
After that, the strength and glorious limbs of the prince [Zeus] increased quickly, and as the years rolled on, great
Cronos the wily was beguiled by the deep suggestions of Earth [Gaia], and brought up again his offspring,
vanquished by the arts and might of his own son, and he vomited up first the stone which he had swallowed last.
And Zeus set it fast in the wide-pathed earth at goodly Pytho under the glens of Parnassus, to be a sign
thenceforth and a marvel to mortal men. And he set free from their deadly bonds the brothers of his father,
sons of Heaven whom his father in his foolishness had bound. And they remembered to be grateful to him for
his kindness, and gave him thunder and the glowing thunderbolt and lightening: for before that, huge Earth had
hidden these. In them he trusts and rules over mortals and immortals...
But when first their father [Uranus] was vexed in his heart with Obriareus and Cottus and Gyes, he bound them in
cruel bonds, because he was jealous of their exceeding manhood and comeliness and great size: and he made
them live beneath the wide-pathed earth, where they were afflicted, being set to dwell under the ground,
at the end of the earth, at its great borders, in bitter anguish for a long time and with great grief at
heart. But the son of Cronos [Zeus] and the other deathless [the Olympians] gods whom rich-haired Rhea bare from union with Cronos,
brought them up again to the light at Earth's advising. For she herself recounted all things to the gods
fully, how that with these they would gain victory and a glorious cause to vaunt themselves. For the
Titan gods and as many as sprang from Cronos had long been fighting together in stubborn war with heart-grieving
toil, the lordly Titans from high Othyrs, but the gods, givers of good, whom rich-haired Rhea bare in
union with Cronos, from Olympus. So they, with bitter wrath, were fighting continually with one another
at that time for ten full years, and the hard strife had no close or end for either side, and the
issue of the war hung evenly balanced.
####
But when he had provided those three with all things fitting,
nectar and ambrosia which the gods themselves eat, and when their proud spirit revived within them
all after they had fed on nectar and delicious ambrosia, then it was that the father of men and gods
spoke amongst them:
'Hear me, bright children of Earth and Heaven, that I may say what my heart within me bids.
A long while now have we, who are sprung from Cronos and the Titan gods, fought with each
other every day to get victory and to prevail. But do you show your great might and unconquerable
strength, and face the Titans in bitter strife; for remember our friendly kindness, and from what
sufferings you are come back to the light from your cruel bondage under misty gloom through our counsels.'
So he said. And blameless Cottus answered him again: 'Divine one, you speak that which we know well:
nay, even of ourselves we know that your wisdom and understanding is exceeding, and that you became a
defender of the deathless ones from chill doom. And through your devising we are come back again from
the murky gloom and from our merciless bonds, enjoying what we looked not for, O lord, son of Cronos.
And so now with fixed purpose and deliberate counsel we will aid your power in dreadful strife and will
fight against the Titans in hard battle.'
So he said: and the gods, givers of good things, applauded when they heard his word, and their spirit
longed for war even more than before, and they all, both male and female, stirred up hated battle that
day, the Titan gods, and all that were born of Cronos together with those dread, mighty ones of overwhelming
strength whom Zeus brought up to the light from Erebus beneath the earth. An hundred arms sprang from
the shoulders of all alike, and each had fifty heads growing upon his shoulders upon stout limbs.
These, then, stood against the Titans in grim strife, holding huge rocks in their strong hands.
And on the other part the Titans eagerly strengthened their ranks, and both sides at one time showed
the work of their hands and their might. The boundless sea rang terribly around, and the earth crashed
loudly: wide Heaven was shaken and groaned, and high Olympus reeled from its foundation under the
charge of the undying gods, and a heavy quaking reached dim Tartarus and the deep sound of their feet
in the fearful onset and of their hard missiles. So, then, they launched their grievous shafts upon
one another, and the cry of both armies as they shouted reached to starry heaven; and they met
together with a great battle-cry.
Then Zeus no longer held back his might; but straight his heart was filled with fury and he showed forth
all his strength. From Heaven and from Olympus he came forthwith, hurling his lightning: the bolts flew
thick and fast from his strong hand together with thunder and lightning, whirling an awesome flame. The
life-giving earth crashed around in burning, and the vast wood crackled loud with fire all about. All
the land seethed, and Ocean's streams and the unfruitful sea. The hot vapour lapped round the earthborn
Titans: flame unspeakable rose to the bright upper air: the flashing glare of the thunder-stone and
lightning blinded their eyes for all that there were strong. Astounding heat seized Chaos: and to see
with eyes and to hear the sound with ears it seemed even as if Earth and wide Heaven above came together;
for such a mighty crash would have arisen if Earth were being hurled to ruin, and Heaven from on high
were hurling her down; so great a crash was there while the gods were meeting together in strife. Also
the winds brought rumbling earthquake and duststorm, thunder and lightning and the lurid thunderbolt,
which are the shafts of great Zeus, and carried the clangour and the warcry into the midst of the two
hosts. An horrible uproar of terrible strife arose: mighty deeds were shown and the battle inclined.
But until then, they kept at one another and fought continually in cruel war.
And amongst the foremost Cottus and Briareos and Gyes insatiate for war raised fierce fighting:
three hundred rocks, one upon another, they launched from their strong hands and overshadowed the
Titans with their missiles, and buried them beneath the wide-pathed earth, and bound them in bitter
chains when they had conquered them by their strength for all their great spirit, as far beneath the
earth to Tartarus. For a brazen anvil falling down from heaven nine nights and days would reach
the earth upon the tenth: and again, a brazen anvil falling from earth nine nights and days would
reach Tartarus upon the tenth. Round it runs a fence of bronze, and night spreads in triple line
all about it like a neck-circlet, while above grow the roots of the earth and unfruitful sea.
There by the counsel of Zeus who drives the clouds the Titan gods are hidden under misty gloom,
in a dank place where are the ends of the huge earth. And they may not go out; for Poseidon fixed
gates of bronze upon it, and a wall runs all round it on every side. There Gyes and Cottus and
great-souled Obriareus live, trusty warders of Zeus who holds the aegis...
But when the blessed gods had finished their toil, and settled by force their struggle for honours
with the Titans, they pressed far-seeing Olympian Zeus to reign and to rule over them, by Earth's
prompting. So he divided their dignities amongst them...
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
|