Page:Hesiod, and Theognis.djvu/95

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THE THEOGONY.
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And thence upbearing in her arms, concealedBeneath the sacred ground in sunless cave,Where shagged with densest woods the Ægean mountImpends. But to the imperial son of heaven,Whilom the King of gods, a stone she gaveInwrapt in infant swathes, and this with graspEager he snatched, and in his ravening breastConveyed away; unhappy! nor once thoughtThat for the stone his child remained behindInvincible, secure; who soon with handsOf strength o'ercoming him, should cast him forthFrom glory, and himself the immortals rule."—E. 641-659.

As the gods in ancient mythology grow apace, Zeus is soon ripe for the task of aiding his mother, whose craft persuades Cronus to disgorge first the stone which he had mistaken for his youngest-born, and then the five children whom he had previously devoured. A stone, probably meteoric, was shown at Delphi in Pausanias's day as the stone in question, and an object of old memorial to the devout Greek. The rescued brethren at once take part with, their deliverer. The first act of Zeus was, as we have seen, to advance Force and Strength, with their brothers Victory and Rivalry, to the dignity of "a bodyguard," and to give their mother Styx the style and functions of "oath-sanctioner." His next was to free from the prison to which their father Uranus had consigned them, the hundred-handed giants, and the Cyclopes, who furnished his artillery of lightnings and hot thunderbolts. His success in the struggle was assured by the oracles of Gæa (Earth), if only he could

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