Zeus

Still, I have a strong misgiving that Thetis, daughter of the Old One of the Sea, has been talking you over, for she was with you and had hold of your knees this self-same morning.

Many a brave soul [ psukhê] did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so was the will of Zeus fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one another.

So Zeus, the Olympian Lord of Thunder, hied him to the bed in which he always slept;

For Zeus alone among the gods is named Father and King, and Guardian of the City, and God of Friendship and of Comradeship and of Kindred, and besides these God of Suppliants and of Refuge and of Strangers, having ten thousand other titles besides, all of them good and the causes of good things;

so likewise among kings, who, as I conceive, hold their power and stewardship from Zeus:

Of these the one was called the royal peak, sacred to Zeus the King, and the other the tyrannic, named after Typhon.

may Zeus never grant you to be chief in Ithaca as your father was before you.

but the other gods met in the house of Olympian Zeus, and the sire of gods and men spoke first.

it is Zeus, not they, who is responsible [ aitios], and who sends weal or woe upon humankind according to his own good pleasure.

Because, by Zeus, said he, I was afraid that poison had been mixed in the bowl.

Because, by Zeus, said he, I saw that you were unsteady both in mind and in body.

Because, by Zeus,

Under Sthenelus were both the kingdom of Amphictyon and the coming of Danaus to the Peloponnese, and the founding of Dardania by Dardanus, whom "first," says Homer, "the cloud-gatherer Zeus begot," and the carrying back of Europa from Phoenicia to Crete.

Leto, indeed, is in the time of Tityus, for "Leto he dragged, the glorious consort of Zeus";

"To Zeus the Atlantid Maia bore glorious Hermes, the herald of the immortals, having mounted the holy bed;

But one day a year, at the festival of Zeus, they cut in pieces and flay a single ram and put the fleece on the image of Zeus, as in the story;

they say that Heracles wanted very much to see Zeus and that Zeus did not want to be seen by him, but that finally, when Heracles prayed, Zeus contrived to show himself displaying the head and wearing the fleece of a ram which he had flayed and beheaded.

for the Egyptians call Zeus “Amon”.

and Xenophon said, I move, gentlemen, since at the moment when we were talking about deliverance an omen from Zeus the Saviour was revealed to us, that we make a vow to sacrifice to that god thank-offerings for deliverance as soon as we reach a friendly land;

More than that, he did not even reverence Zeus, the god of hospitality;

but looking at it in another way he was fearful, since the dream came, as he thought, from Zeus the King and the fire appeared to blaze all about, lest he might not be able to escape out of the King’s country, but might be shut in on all sides by various difficulties.

But as to the violation of the oaths and the truce by Pandarus, if anyone affirms it to have been brought about by the action of Athena and Zeus, we will not approve, nor that the strife and contention of the gods was the doing of Themis and Zeus;

Then, said I, we must not accept from Homer or any other poet the folly of such error as this about the gods when he says Two urns stand on the floor of the palace of Zeus and are filled with Dooms he allots, one of blessings, the other of gifts that are evil, and to whomsoever Zeus gives of both commingled— Now upon evil he chances and now again good is his portion, but the man for whom he does n …

Then, though there are many other things that we praise in Homer, this we will not applaud, the sending of the dream by Zeus to Agamemnon, nor shall we approve of Aeschylus when his Thetis avers that Apollo singing at her wedding, foretold the happy fortunes of her issue — Their days prolonged, from pain and sickness free, And rounding out the tale of heaven’s blessings, Raised the proud paean, making glad my heart.

Under this decree I urge you to try the generals, and, by Zeus, if it so please you, Pericles, my kinsman, first of them all;

And again, at a later time, when Agis was sent to sacrifice to Zeus in accordance with an oracle, the Eleans would not allow him to pray for victory in war, saying that even from ancient times it was an established principle that Greeks should not consult the oracle about a war with Greeks;

they did not, however, dispossess them of the presidency of the shrine of Olympian Zeus, even though it did not belong to the Eleans in ancient times, for they thought that the rival claimants were country people and not competent to hold the presidency.

But Zeus, appearing later — if he was a god, perhaps having got a share of the savour of the roasting flesh, the privilege which your gods admit they are allotted — blasted the Titans with the thunderbolt and entrusted the limbs of Dionysus to his son Apollo for burial.

The mysteries of Deo are the amorous embraces of Zeus with his mother Demeter, and the wrath — of the mother, or the wife, I no longer know which to call Deo — on account of which she is said to have been styled Brimo;

For example, there are some who record three Zeuses:

if a goat is being slain for King Zeus, there is a King-Bird, the wren, to whom the sacrifice of a male gnat is due before Zeus himself even.

Then, when this has been well done and completed, you demand back the empire from Zeus;

—Some friend would come knocking at the door quite early in the morning saying, By Olympian Zeus, be at my house early, as soon as you have bathed, and bring your children too.

this is why the poet makes Thetis not specify her services to Zeus;

This is why Homer styles Zeus father, for the ideal of kingship is paternal government.

It is quite clear therefore that all people have not the same claim upon us, and that even a father’s claim is not unlimited, just as Zeus does not have all the sacrifices.

You were fated, fated to have a life full of pain, when Zeus begot you on your mother, shining through the air on the wings of a snow-white swan.

but there is indeed a story that Zeus flew to my mother Leda, taking the form of a bird, a swan, which accomplished the deceitful union, fleeing the pursuit of an eagle, if this story is true.

The son of Zeus, of Zeus, brought me to the Nile.

Wert thou, wert Poseidon, and Zeus, the lord of heaven, to make atonement to mankind for every act of lawless love, ye would empty your temples in paying the fines for your misdeeds.

Again, dost see the massy thunderbolt all aflame in the far-darting hands of Zeus?

Atlas, who bears upon his brazen back the pressure of the sky, ancient dwelling of the gods, begat Maia from a daughter of one of those gods, and she bare me Hermes to mighty Zeus, to be the servant of the powers divine.

Tantalus, the reputed son of Zeus, flies in the air, quailing at the rock which looms above his head;

O Zeus, god of my fathers, and holy Justice, give success to him and me and her;

woe to Dardania, its wailing, wailing, for the horsemanship of Ganymede, bedfellow of Zeus.

The poet says, "Dear city of Cecrops";

" And he lives with the gods who continually shows them his soul content with what is allotted, and doing all that the guardian spirit wills — that spirit which Zeus has given to each man as his guardian and guide, a fragment of himself.

and so welcome all that comes to pass, even if it seem rather cruel, because it leads to that end, to the health of the universe and to the welfare and prosperity of Zeus.

For the sleepless eye of Zeus Morios watches over it, and gray-eyed Athena.

Then one day my slumbering and buried corpse, cold in death, will drink their warm blood, if Zeus is still Zeus, and Phoebus, the son of Zeus, speaks clear.

And he went on to warn me that signs of these things would come, in earthquake, or in thunder, or in the lightning of Zeus.

Now the sins of this Pittalacus against the person of Timarchus, and his abuse of him, as they have come to my ears, are such that, by the Olympian Zeus, I should not dare to repeat them to you.

and this man himself, not yet, by Zeus, repulsive to the sight as he is now, but still usable, begged, touching the fellow’ s chin, and saying he would do anything Pittalacus pleased.

And no wonder, by Zeus!

For health sacrifice and pray to Zeus Most High, to Heracles, and to Apollo the Protector;

to Zeus, the giver of wealth, a white bull.

he suffered me as head of the Sacred Embassy to lead it in the name of the city to the Nemean shrine of Zeus;

As for me, I assume that your city is the most fortunate in the world and the dearest to the gods, and I know that Zeus of Dodona and Dione and the Pythian Apollo are always saying this in their oracles and confirming with the seal of their approval the opinion that good fortune has her abode in the city among you.

O yes, by Zeus, all will agree that you are faring better than these, but worse, they declare, than the Thessalians, Argives and Arcadians, or certain others, who had the luck to be in alliance with Philip.

I do beseech you in the name of Zeus the god of friendship and by all the gods not to get me involved in any disagreeable and embarrassing predicament.

then then might she have left the dark abode and gates of Hades and have come again, for he would raise the dead to life, till that the thunderbolt’s forked flame, hurled by Zeus, smote him.

Outlive then Zeus himself!

Zeus was to blame;

be almighty Zeus my witness that it was not of my own free will I became her rival!

but from fear of my mistress I hold my peace, albeit I sympathize with thee, lest she, whom Zeus’s daughter bore, discover my good will toward thee.

what sorrows did the son of Zeus and Maia herald, in the day he came to Ida’s glen, guiding that fair young trio of goddesses, all girded for the fray in bitter rivalry about their beauty, to the shepherd’s fold, where dwelt the youthful herdsman all alone by the hearth of his lonely hut.

Immediately Zeus, Kronos’ son, received him in a chamber fit for birth, and having covered him in his thigh shut him up with golden clasps, hidden from Hera.

I, the son of Zeus, have come to this land of the Thebans—Dionysus, whom once Semele, Kadmos’ daughter, bore, delivered by a lightning-bearing flame.

And I see the tomb of my thunder-stricken mother here near the palace, and the remnants of her house, smouldering with the still living flame of Zeus’ fire, the everlasting insult of Hera against my mother.

Come to me, the unhappy one, as a deliverer from this pain, oh Zeus, Zeus, and as a defender for my father against his most hateful bloodshed;

Then, it was then that Zeus changed the radiant paths of the stars, and the light of the sun, and the bright face of dawn;

O Zeus, god of my fathers, be also the vanquisher of my enemies—