Chapter 1: The Early Gods
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♠ Homer, Odyssey 9.106-15
And we came to the land of the Cyclopes, an overweening and lawless folk, who, trusting in the immortal gods, plant nothing with their hands nor plough; but all these things spring up for them without sowing or ploughing, wheat, and barley, and vines, which bear the rich clusters of wine, and the rain of Zeus gives them increase. Neither assemblies for council have they, nor appointed laws, but they dwell on the peaks of lofty mountains in hollow caves, and each one is lawgiver to his children and his wives, and they reck nothing one of another. Greek Text
♠ Hesiod, Ehoai (Catalogue of Women) fr 52 MW – Fragmenta Hesiodea, pp. 34-35, ed. R. Merkelbach and M. L. West. Oxford 1967.
♠ Hesiod, Ehoai (Catalogue of Women) fr 54 MW – Fragmenta Hesiodea, p. 35, ed. R. Merkelbach and M. L. West. Oxford 1967.
♠ Pherekydes 3F35a – Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker 1, pp. 71-72, ed. F. Jacoby, 2d ed. Leiden 1957.
♠ Pindar fr 266 SM – Pindarus 2, p. 145, ed. B. Snell and H. Maehler. Leipzig 1975
that the Cyclopes had been killed by Zeus fearing that they might forge weapons for anyone else of the gods. (Transl. E. Bianchelli)
♠ Euripides, Alkestis 1-7
Apollo
House of Admetus! In you I brought myself to taste the bread of menial servitude, god though I am. Zeus was the cause: he killed my son Asclepius, striking him in the chest with the lightning-bolt, and in anger at this I slew the Cyclopes who forged Zeus’s fire. As my punishment for this Zeus compelled me to be a serf in the house of a mortal. Greek Text
♠ Epinemides, Theogony 3B19 – Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker 1, p. 36, ed. H. Diels and W. Kranz. 6th ed. Berlin 1951.
He says that the Eumenides come from Kronos:
From him beautiful-haired golden Aphrodite was born
and the immortal Moirai and the Erinyes gleaming with gifts. (Transl. by E. Bianchelli) Greek Text
♠ Aischylos, Eumenides 416
We are the eternal children of Night. Greek Text
♠ Homer, Iliad 9.453-56
I hearkened to her and did the deed, but my father was ware thereof forthwith and cursed me mightily, and invoked the dire Erinyes that never should there sit upon his knees a dear child begotten of me. Greek Text
♠ Homer, Iliad 9.571-72
and the Erinys that walketh in darkness heard her from Erebus, even she of the ungentle heart. Greek Text
♠ Homer, Iliad 15. 204
Thou knowest how the Erinyes ever follow to aid the elder-born. Greek Text
♠ Homer, Iliad 21.412-14
On this wise shalt thou satisfy to the full the Avengers invoked of thy mother, who in her wrath deviseth evil against thee, for that thou hast deserted the Achaeans and bearest aid to the overweening Trojans. Greek Text
♠ Homer, Odyssey 2.134-36
For from her father’s hand shall I suffer evil, and heaven will send other ills besides, for my mother as she leaves the house will invoke the dread Avengers; and I shall have blame, too, from men. Greek Text
♠ Homer, Odyssey 11.279-80
She made fast a noose on high from a lofty beam, overpowered by her sorrow, but for him she left behind woes full many, even all that the Avengers of a mother bring to pass. Greek Text
♠ Homer, Iliad 19.259-60
“Be Zeus my witness first, highest and best of gods, and Earth and Sun, and the Erinyes, that under earth take vengeance on men, whosoever hath sworn a false oath.” Greek Text
♠ Homer, Iliad 3.278-79
and ye rivers and thou earth, and ye that in the world below take vengeance on men that are done with life, whosoever hath sworn a false oath. Greek Text
♠ Homer, Iliad 19.418
When he had thus spoken, the Erinyes checked his voice. Greek Text
♠ Homer, Odyssey 17.475
Ah, if for beggars there are gods and avengers, may the doom of death come upon Antinous before his marriage. Greek Text
♠ Homer, Odyssey 15.233-34
Now Melampus meanwhile lay bound with bitter bonds in the halls of Phylacus, suffering grievous pains because of the daughter of Neleus, and the terrible blindness of heart which the goddess, the Erinys, who brings houses to ruin, had laid upon him. Greek Text
♠ Homer, Odyssey 20.77-78
meanwhile the spirits of the storm snatched away the maidens and gave them to the hateful Erinyes to deal with. Greek Text
♠ Homer, Odyssey 19.518-23
Even as when the daughter of Pandareus, the nightingale of the greenwood, sings sweetly, when spring is newly come, as she sits perched amid the thick leafage of the trees, and with many trilling notes pours forth her rich voice in wailing for her child, dear Itylus, whom she had one day slain with the sword unwittingly, Itylus, the son of king Zethus. Greek Text
♠ Scholia to Homer, Odyssey 19.518-23 – Scholia Graeca in Homeris Odysseam, ed. W. Dindorf, vol. 2, pp. 682-84. Oxford 1855.
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Edited by Elena Bianchelli, Senior Lecturer of Classical Languages and Culture, University of Georgia, July 2020
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