82 On the Tlieogony. 



well-known list of the twelve principal deities. These, as we shall here- 

 after see, (witli the single exception of Venus,) consist exclusively of the 

 brethren or descendants of Jupiter, whom a subsequent 01ym])ic revolution 

 exalted to the throne of power. To these younger gods, therefore, (the 

 Qtoi Nfwrtpoi,) as the associates of this supreme head, we must regard the 

 popular belief as having ascribed exclusive power to aid their votaries. 



Hesiod proceeds in his Theogony for about three hundred lines, exhibit- 

 ing little of poetical ornament, by enumerating several other genealogies ; 

 in the first place, of this primaeval race of gods, and afterwards of their 

 descendants in the next generation. Of the primaeval race he specifies, 

 first, the children of night; and secondly, another progeny of mother 

 Earth, who, besides the offspring we have already considered by Heaven, 

 had another race by the Sea (Pontus, as distinguished from Oceanus). 

 We will speak of tiiese in order. 



1. The offapring of Night (line 21 1).* Night, as we have already seen 

 in the very commencement of these genealogies, was represented as having 

 borne to Erebus iEther and Day. Here the physical allegory is obvious j 

 but in the present passage, Hesiod recounts a numerous progeny of the 

 same mother, without a sire; and here the idea of night seems very vari- 

 ously and vaguely taken — sometimes in its ordinary sense, sometimes as 

 the metaphysical notion of privation, and lastly, for any mysterious and 

 fearful cause whatever. Thus Sleep, Dreams, and the Hesperides, who 

 guarded their golden apples in the farthest isles of the west, are naturally 

 connected with the physical ideas of Night. Destiny, ever shrouded in 

 impenetrable gloom, may be considered as the appropriate offspring of 

 Night ; and accordingly Hesiod has so assigned it, under four different 

 designations, Mopof and K>;p, In the singular, and Motpai and Kr/pee, (the 

 Fates) in the plural ;t including Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. To these 

 also the unusual character of the avengers of transgression is here assigned, 

 although Nemesis, the principle of divine vengeance, is likewise separately 



succumb beneath the influence of one more modern. The newer gods, the Otot 

 Ntwrtpot, would, on this system, be perfectly intelligible. In Rome, the very dif- 

 ferent character of some ancient local deity, Saturniis, the introducer of civilisation 

 and agriculture, seems to have been strangely blended with these Phccniceo-Grecian 

 fictions. And the memory of the Saturnian age of primitive innocence, equality, 

 and liberality, was fondly cherished in the Saturnalia of December, when the slave 

 was i)ermitted to recline at his lord's table, and mutual presents, the origin of our 

 own Christmas boxes, flew around. Kronus is also said to have had a temple and 

 festival at Athens ; and the people of Elis connected him with the origin of the 

 Olympic games. Still, however, the assertion of the te.xt, that he does not appear 

 in these nations to have been the popular object of native prayers or sacrifices, will, 

 we believe, be found perfectly just. 



* According to the Scandinavian mythology of the Edda, Night had three hus- 

 bands : among her children were the Earth and Day. 



t This surely shews that fragments of at least two poems must here be jumbled 

 together. 



I 



