Hesiod Writing Asignment

Hello.

Wow. Two posts from me in one day. You must feel privileged. I jest, I jest.

This one is on a new and exciting project, however. As might have been determined from the last few posts, we have, as a class, finished reading and analyzing Fahrenheit 451 (except for the essay that we have due). Therefore, we are moving on to a new topic: Greek myths.

We have started by reading a section from Hesiod’s “The Theogony”. The word “theogony” means, literally a genealogy of the gods. This particular part we read was about the birth of the Greek gods and their reaction to those that came before them, the Titans.

In the story, one of the things that it tells is the birth of the “head god” Zeus. Zeus was the son of Cronus, who was, in turn, the son of Uranus. Both Uranus and Cronus disposed of their children, Uranus because he was afraid, and Cronus because there was a prophecy that one of his children would overthrow him.

Cronus ate all of his children. When he had Zeus, his wife, Rhea, replaced the newborn with a rock wrapped in swaddling cloth. Cronus then ate this, and, unbeknownst to him, his son lived.

Some years later, after Zeus had grown, he returned to his father. He fed him a poison that caused him to vomit up all of his children, who were, by now, full grown. With his brothers and sisters, as well as the imprisoned children of Uranus, Zeus waged war against the other Titans, and after ten years of fighting, he won, taking the rule of the world.

In some ways, Zeus is similar to his father and grandfather. He is far kinder to his children that either of them were, but like Cronus, he defeated his own father. He also has a slight want of power, though not as strong as either Cronus or Uranus.

I think that the largest difference, however is that Zeus has a much less tenuous hold over his subjects. Unlike his father or grandfather, he is (or should I say “was”?) unlikely to be overthrown by any of his descendants. With my rather limited knowledge of the Greek gods, I can say that I don’t think that there are any of the gods who are strong enough, or would want to overthrow Zeus.

More on this subject to follow.

Goodbye.