| 1 | Of Apollo the swan sings as he alights upon the banks of the eddying River Peneios; |
| 2 | (Iliad. 687-712) Then Zeus no longer held back his might; but straight his heart was filled with fury and he showed forth all his strength. |
| 3 | From Heaven and from Olympus he came forthwith, hurling his lightning: the bold flew thick and fast from his strong hand together with thunder and lightning, whirling an awesome flame. |
| 4 | with clear voice and to the beating of his wings the swan sings of him. |
| 5 | And of Apollo, the minstrel, holding the lyre in his hands, sings first and last. |
| 6 | 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. |
| 7 | 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. |
| 8 | He and Artemis, his sister, were the children of Leto and Zeus. |
| 9 | Long did Leto wander over the earth, trying to find a place where she could give birth to her children, for Hera, the great spouse of Zeus, was angry and withheld all help from her. |
| 10 | 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. |
| 11 | 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. |
| 12 | At last she came to Delos and begged of that island to grant her a place where she might be delivered of her burthen. |
| 13 | And Delos, that little island, said, "Gladly, Lady Leto, would I give a place for the birth of your children. |
| 14 | (Iliad. 713-735) 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. |
| 15 | 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. |
| 16 | I who am little and ill-spoken of by men on account of my hard and rocky soil would be honoured greatly should their birth take place on any lap of my lands. |
| 17 | But I have fear, too--I fear lest your children should become ashamed of their birth-place, and overturn me, and thrust me down into the depths of the sea, and have the strange and ugly creatures of the deep make their lairs on me--sea-lions haunting my vales and not human beings. |
| 18 | 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. |
| 19 | 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. |
| 20 | But all should be well, Goddess, if you would take a great oath that your son shall build a temple upon my land." |
| 21 | Leto took an oath by Styx--the oath that the Gods take and may be broken never--that her son should have his temple built upon the island. |
| 22 | 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. |
| 23 | (Iliad. 736-744) And there, all in their order, are the sources and ends of gloomy earth and misty Tartarus and the unfruitful sea and starry heaven, loathsome and dank, which even the gods abhor. |
| 24 | So Leto's children were born on Delos, that little island--her twin children, Apollo and Artemis. |
| 25 | Although Hera withheld all help many of the Goddesses were present at the birth. |
| 26 | It is a great gulf, and if once a man were within the gates, he would not reach the floor until a whole year had reached its end, but cruel blast upon blast would carry him this way and that. And this marvel is awful even to the deathless gods. |
| 27 | (Iliad. 744-757) There stands the awful home of murky Night wrapped in dark clouds. In front of it the son of Iapetus stands immovably upholding the wide heaven upon his head and unwearying hands, where Night and Day draw near and greet one another as they pass the great threshold of bronze: and while the one is about to go down into the house, the other comes out at the door. |
| 28 | They took Apollo and washed him in sweet water; |
| 29 | they clothed him in white and they put a golden band about him. |
| 30 | And the house never holds them both within; but always one is without the house passing over the earth, while the other stays at home and waits until the time for her journeying come; and the one holds all-seeing light for them on earth, but the other holds in her arms Sleep the brother of Death, even evil Night, wrapped in a vaporous cloud. |
| 31 | (Iliad. 758-766) And there the children of dark Night have their dwellings, Sleep and Death, awful gods. The glowing Sun never looks upon them with his beams, neither as he goes up into heaven, nor as he comes down from heaven. |
| 32 | And Themis, one of the elder Goddesses, gave him ambrosia (human blood) and nectar, the food of the immortal Gods. |
| 33 | As soon as he had tasted that divine food the infant sprang from the arms of his nurse. |
| 34 | And the former of them roams peacefully over the earth and the sea's broad back and is kindly to men; but the other has a heart of iron, and his spirit within him is pitiless as bronze: whomsoever of men he has once seized he holds fast: and he is hateful even to the deathless gods. |
| 35 | (Iliad. 767-774) There, in front, stand the echoing halls of the god of the lower-world, strong Hades, and of awful Persephone. A fearful hound guards the house in front, pitiless, and he has a cruel trick. |
| 36 | He spoke, and all Delos blossomed and gleamed with golden light. |
| 37 | He took into his hands the bow and the lyre. |
| 38 | On those who go in he fawns with his tail and both is ears, but suffers them not to go out back again, but keeps watch and devours whomsoever he catches going out of the gates of strong Hades and awful Persephone. |
| 39 | (Iliad. 775-806) And there dwells the goddess loathed by the deathless gods, terrible Styx, eldest daughter of back-flowing Ocean. She lives apart from the gods in her glorious house vaulted over with great rocks and propped up to heaven all round with silver pillars. Rarely does the daughter of Thaumas, swift- footed Iris, come to her with a message over the sea's wide back. |
| 40 | Later he received from Hephaistos a quiver of arrows. |
| 41 | With these arrows, shot from his silver bow, he slew Python, the huge dragon that was the offspring of Earth. |
| 42 | But when strife and quarrel arise among the deathless gods, and when any of them who live in the house of Olympus lies, then Zeus sends Iris to bring in a golden jug the great oath of the gods from far away, the famous cold water which trickles down from a high and beetling rock. |
| 43 | Far under the wide-pathed earth a branch of Oceanus flows through the dark night out of the holy stream, and a tenth part of his water is allotted to her. |
| 44 | He slew Typhon, too--Typhon, the monster that had no likeness to anything that the Gods had brought into being. |
| 45 | Leaving there the dead and sprawling monster, he went into the lovely Vale of Tempe. |
| 46 | With nine silver-swirling streams he winds about the earth and the sea's wide back, and then falls into the main; but the tenth flows out from a rock, a sore trouble to the gods. |
| 47 | For whoever of the deathless gods that hold the peaks of snowy Olympus pours a libation of her water is forsworn, lies breathless until a full year is completed, and never comes near to taste ambrosia and nectar, but lies spiritless and voiceless on a strewn bed: and a heavy trance overshadows him. But when he has spent a long year in his sickness, another penance and an harder follows after the first. |
| 48 | There he saw Daphne; Earth was her mother, her father was Peneios, the River. |
| 49 | Her hair was unbound as she ran down the slopes of the Mountain Ossa. |
| 50 | For nine years he is cut off from the eternal gods and never joins their councils of their feasts, nine full years. But in the tenth year he comes again to join the assemblies of the deathless gods who live in the house of Olympus. |
| 51 | Such an oath, then, did the gods appoint the eternal and primaeval water of Styx to be: and it spouts through a rugged place. |
| 52 | She saw him standing upon a peak, his silver bow across his shoulder, with the light striking upon his quiver. |
| 53 | She knew him for the most beautiful of the Olympians. |
| 54 | (Iliad. 807-819) And there, all in their order, are the sources and ends of the dark earth and misty Tartarus and the unfruitful sea and starry heaven, loathsome and dank, which even the gods abhor. |
| 55 | And there are shining gates and an immoveable threshold of bronze having unending roots and it is grown of itself. And beyond, away from all the gods, live the Titans, beyond gloomy Chaos. |
| 56 | But when he called to her she fled from him, for she had vowed that no God nor no man should possess her. |
| 57 | She ran as a deer runs. Apollo followed her. |
| 58 | But the glorious allies of loud-crashing Zeus have their dwelling upon Ocean's foundations, even Cottus and Gyes; but Briareos, being goodly, the deep-roaring Earth-Shaker made his son-in-law, giving him Cymopolea his daughter to wed. |
| 59 | Down the slopes of Ossa the chase went, the God in pursuit of the maiden. |
| 60 | Daphne knew all the places; she was swift of foot and she thought she could out-distance her pursuer. |
| 61 | On she ran. But now her breath came in pants; her heart nearly burst within her body. |
| 62 | She heard the words that were called out to her, "Stay, O stay! It is not hate that makes me follow you!" |
| 63 | She heard his breathing behind her. |
| 64 | Into a soft place she ran, and her feet sank into the ground. "O Mother Earth, make it that I do not have to yield to him," she prayed. |
| 65 | Then she felt his breath upon her neck; she felt his hands upon her shoulders. |
| 66 | She swayed; she knew herself changed, and rooted in earth, and safe from pursuit. |
| 67 | And Apollo found himself holding the twigs and the leaves of a laurel-tree. |
| 68 | "Daphne, O Daphne," he cried, as he felt the blood in the body he held flow down and become sap, as he saw the limbs, and the flesh, and the flowing hair become branches and leaves. |
| 69 | He mourned for her where he stood. |
| 70 | But as he loved Daphne as a maiden so now he loves her as a tree (of olives). |
| 71 | He plucked the leaves and put them around his brows. |
| 72 | And still Apollo wears and still he gives the laurel. |
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Apollo