[157]Or in the dark abysses of the ground: Then Love most beauteous of immortals rose: He of each god and mortal man at once Unnerves the limbs, dissolves the wiser breast By reason steel’d, and quells the very soul. From Chaos, Erebus and sable Night: From Night arose the Sunshine and the Day: Offspring of Night from Erebus’ embrace. Earth first conceived with Heaven: whose starry cope, Like to herself immense, might compass her On every side: and be to blessed gods A resting-place immoveable for ever. She teem’d with the high Hills, the pleasant haunts Of goddess nymphs, who dwell within the glens Of mountains. With no aid of tender love She gave to birth the sterile Sea, high-swol’n In raging foam: and, Heaven-embraced, anon She teem’d with Ocean, rolling in deep whirls His vast abyss of waters. Crœus, then, Cæus, Hyperion, and Iäpetus, Themis, and Thea rose; Mnemosyne, And Rhea; Phœbe diadem’d with gold, And love-inspiring Tethys: and of these, Youngest in birth, the wily Saturn came, The sternest of her sons; for he abhorr’d The sire who gave him life. Then brought she forth [158]The Cyclops brethren, arrogant of heart, Undaunted Arges, Brontes, Steropes: Who forged the lightning shaft, and gave to Jove His thunder: they were like unto the gods: Save that a single ball of sight was fix’d In their mid-forehead. Cyclops was their name, From that round eye-ball in their brow infix’d: And strength and force and manual craft were theirs. Others again were born from Earth and Heaven: Three giant sons: strong, dreadful but to name, Children of glorying valour: Briareus, Cottus and Gyges: from whose shoulders burst A hundred arms that mock’d approach, and o’er Their limbs hard-sinew’d fifty heads upsprang: Mighty th’ immeasurable strength display’d In each gigantic stature: and of all The children born to earth and heaven these sons Were dreadfullest: and they, e’en from the first, Drew down their father’s hate: as each was born He seized them all, and hid them in th’ abyss Of Earth: nor e’er released them to the light. Heaven in his evil deed rejoiced: vast Earth Groan’d inly, sore aggrieved: but soon devised A stratagem of mischief and of fraud. Sudden creating for herself a kind Of whiter iron, she with labour framed A scythe enormous: and address’d her sons: She spoke emboldening words, though grieved at heart. “My sons! alas! ye children of a sire Most impious, now obey a mother’s voice: So shall we well avenge the fell despite Of him your father, who the first devised Deeds of injustice.” While she said, on all Fear fell: nor utterance found they, till with soul Embolden’d, wily Saturn huge address’d His awful mother. “Mother! be the deed My own: thus pledged I will most sure achieve