Chapter 1 The Early Gods
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♠ Homer, Iliad 21.211-385
And yet more of the Paeonians would swift Achilles have slain, had not the deep-eddying River waxed wroth and called to him in the semblance of a man, sending forth a voice from out the deep eddy:“O Achilles, beyond men art thou in might, and beyond men doest deeds of evil; for ever do the very gods give thee aid. If so be the son of Cronos hath granted thee to slay all the men of Troy, forth out of my stream at least do thou drive them, and work thy direful work on the plain. Lo, full are my lovely streams with dead men, nor can I anywise avail to pour my waters forth into the bright sea, being choked with dead, while thou ever slayest ruthlessly. Nay, come, let be; amazement holds me, thou leader of hosts.” Then swift-footed Achilles answered him, saying: “Thus shall it be, Scamander, nurtured of Zeus, even as thou biddest. Howbeit the proud Trojan will I not cease to slay until I have pent them in their city, and have made trial of Hector, man to man, whether he shall slay me or I him.” So saying he leapt upon the Trojans like a god. Then unto Apollo spake the deep-eddying River: “Out upon it, thou lord of the silver bow, child of Zeus, thou verily hast not kept the commandment of the son of Cronos, who straitly charged thee to stand by the side of the Trojans and to succour them, until the late-setting star of even shall have come forth and darkened the deep-soiled earth.” Continue Greek Text
♠ Akousilaos 2F34 – Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker 1, p. 56, ed. F. Jacoby, 2d ed. Leiden 1957.
Deukalion, under whom the flood occurred, was the son of Prometheus and of his mother Klymene, as most say; however according to Hesiod he is the son of Pronoe; according to Akousilaos he is the son of Hesione, daughter of Okeanos, and of Prometheus. (Transl. E. Bianchelli) Greek Text
♠ Aischylos, Prometheus Desmotes (Prometheus Bound) 555-60
this song and that, which, about your bridal bed and bath, I raised to grace your marriage, when you wooed with gifts and won my sister Hesione to be your wedded wife. Greek Text
♠ Hesiod, Theogony 389-401
For so did Styx the deathless daughter of Ocean plan on that day when the Olympian Lightning god called all the deathless gods to great Olympus, and said that whosoever of the gods would fight with him against the Titans, he would not cast him out from his rights, but each should have the office which he had before amongst the deathless gods. And he declared that he who was without office or right under Cronos, should be raised to both office and rights as is just. So deathless Styx came first to Olympus with her children through the wit of her dear father. And Zeus honored her, and gave her very great gifts, for he appointed her to be the great oath of the gods, and her children to live with him always. Greek Text
♠ Homer, Iliad 1.525-26
This from me is the surest token among the immortals; no word of mine may be recalled, nor is false, nor unfulfilled, to which I bow my head. Greek Text
♠ Homer, Iliad 14.271
Come now, swear to me by the inviolable water of Styx. Greek Text
♠ Homer, Iliad 15.37-38
Hereto now be Earth my witness and the broad Heaven above, and the down-flowing water of Styx, which is the greatest and most dread oath for the blessed gods. Greek Text
♠ Homer, Odyssey 5.185-86
and the down-flowing water of the Styx, which is the greatest and most dread oath for the blessed gods, that I will not plot against thee any fresh mischief to thy hurt. Greek Text
♠ Homeric Hymn to Apollo 3.85-86
“Now hear this, Earth and wide Heaven above, and dropping water of Styx （this is the strongest and most awful oath for the blessed gods）, surely Phoebus shall have here his fragrant altar and precinct, and you he shall honor above all.” Greek Text
♠ Homeric Hymn to Demeter 2.259
be witness the oath of the gods, the relentless water of Styx. Greek Text
♠ Homeric Hymn to Hermes 4. 518-19
Now if you would only swear me the great oath of the gods, either by nodding your head, or by the potent water of Styx. Greek Text
♠ Hesiod, Theogony 780-806
Rarely does the daughter of Thaumas, swift-footed Iris, come to her with a message over the sea’s wide back. But when strife and quarrel arise among the deathless gods, and when any one 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. 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. 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. For whoever of the deathless gods that hold the peaks of snowy Olympus pours a libation of her water and is forsworn, must lie breathless until a full year is completed, and never come near to taste ambrosia and nectar, but lie 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 more hard follows after the first. For nine years he is cut off from the eternal gods and never joins their councils or 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. Such an oath, then, did the gods appoint the eternal and primeval water of Styx to be: and it spouts through a rugged place. Greek Text
♠ Empedokles 31B115 – Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker 1, pp. 356-58, ed. H. Diels and W. Kranz. 6th ed. Berlin 1951.
♠ fr 295 Kern – Fragments of the Orphic writers cited according to O. Kern. Orphicorum Fragmenta, p. 307. Berlin 1922.
♠ Hesiod, Theogony 775-79
And there dwells the goddess loathed by the deathless gods, terrible Styx, eldest daughter of backflowing 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. Greek Text
♠ Hesiod, Theogony 786-92
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. 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. Greek Text
♠ Homer, Iliad 8.369
then had he not escaped the sheer-falling waters of Styx. Greek Text
♠ Homer, Odyssey 10.514
There into Acheron flow Periphlegethon and Cocytus, which is a branch of the water of the Styx. Greek Text
♠ Homeric Hymn to Demeter 2.418-23
All we were playing in a lovely meadow, Leucippe and Phaeno and Electra and Ianthe, Melita also and Iache with Rhodea and Callirhoe and Melobosis and Tyche and Ocyrhoe, fair as a flower, Chryseis, Ianeira, Acaste and Admete and Rhodope and Pluto and charming Calypso; Styx too was there and Urania and lovely Galaxaura. Greek Text
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Edited by Elena Bianchelli, Senior Lecturer of Classical Languages and Culture, University of Georgia, July 2020
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