The music of the spheres : $b A nature lover's astronomy — John Shaqi
The music of the spheres : $b A nature lover's astronomyGrondal, Florence Armstrong
Science
The music of the spheres : $b A nature lover's astronomy
Grondal, Florence Armstrong
Astronomy
After establishing his sovereignty over the world and rescuing his
brothers and sisters through the aid of a powerful potion, he called
Neptune and Pluto into his presence and made Neptune God of the Sea, and
Pluto God of the Underworld. These three deities were then armed with
powerful weapons for Jupiter could hurl his thunderbolts and flash his
lightnings, Pluto walk about in the security of a hat of darkness, and
Neptune stir up the sea, or calm it, by means of a three-pronged spear.
The Titans, now thoroughly cowed, were punished in various ways, some
being imprisoned in the Pit of Darkness with their brothers, the sons of
Uranus, while others were doomed to work without ceasing on servile
tasks for the gods. Atlas, the tallest, was commanded to stand on the
western extremity of the earth and bear the vault of heaven on his head
and shoulders. His station was later said to be in the Atlas mountains
in Africa. Aeschylus, an ancient writer, claims that the daughters of
Atlas and their mother, the nymph Pleone, fled to the sky in sorrow when
Atlas was forced to undergo this terrible punishment. The seven
daughters, now styled the Pleiades, represent one of our most beautiful
star groups.
Now when Mother Earth heard of the high-handed ways of her grandson,
Jupiter, she decided that she would give him a much needed lesson, so
gathering together the most terrible of the giants among Uranus' sons,
she incited them to start another great war. This war lasted ten years,
the giants proving so formidable that Jupiter summoned the one-eyed
Cyclops and the hundred-handed sons of grandfather Uranus to come to his
aid. The Hecatoncheires gave immediate assistance by flinging rocks with
all their three-hundred hands at once while the Cyclops forged
thunderbolts as fast as Jupiter could handle them. In the thick of this
bombardment, which left debris and bowlders strewn all over Thessaly,
the giants balanced Mount Pelion on the summit of Mount Ossa, which lay
between Pelion and Olympus, in a final effort to storm the home of
the Gods, but Jupiter, hurling his thunderbolts, struck Ossa from under
Pelion and buried the giants beneath the ponderous mass. The violence of
this battle shook the foundations of the world:
"the immeasurable sea
Roared: earth resounded: the wide heaven throughout
Groaned shattering: from its base Olympus vast
Reeled to the violence of the Gods: the shock
Of deep concussion rocked the dark abyss
Remote of Tartarus:"
--_The Theogony--Hesiod_.
(_Trans. by_ ELTON.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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