Hymns

Hymn to Zeus. Born in Arcadia and raised on Crete, Zeus becomes king of the gods.

When we pour out wine as an offering to Zeus, what better subject is there to sing about than the god himself? He is powerful forever and king for all time. He drove back the Pelagonians, and he hands down justice to the children of Heaven.

How should we sing about him: as lord of Dicte or of Lycaeum? I can’t decide, because people disagree about where he was born. Zeus, some say you were born in the hills of Ida, and others, Zeus, say Arcadia. Which of them lied, Father? “Cretans are always liars.” The Cretans even built a tomb for you, Lord, but you did not die, because you live forever.⁠a

Rheia gave birth to you in Parrhasia, on a hill covered in dense brush. Ever since, the place has been sacred. No woman, and no four-legged animal that needs Eileithyia’s help in giving birth, goes near it, and the Apidanians call it Rheia’s ancient birthplace. After your mother set you down from her lap, she immediately went looking for a stream, so she could wash herself clean after the birth and bathe your body.

But the great river Ladon wasn’t flowing yet, and neither was the Erymanthus, the clearest of rivers. All of Arcadia was dry, though it would soon be known for its water. When Rhea gave birth, many hollow oaks grew where the Iaon now flows, wagons rolled where the Melas now flows, and snakes made their dens in the bed of the Carnion, full of water as it is today. A man could walk across the Crathis and the pebbly Metope and still be thirsty, with all that water lying under his feet.

Rheia was in distress, and she said, “Dear Earth, you give birth too! Your labor will be easy.” Then the goddess raised her strong arm and struck the mountain with her staff. It split wide open and released a great flood of water. In that water, Lord, she washed you, wrapped you in cloth and gave you to Neda to carry to a Cretan hiding place, so you could be raised in secret. Neda was the oldest of the nymphs who helped at the birth, born right after Styx and Philyra. The goddess repaid her generously by naming that stream Neda. I believe it still flows in full flood past the city of the Cauconians called Lepreion and mingles with Nereus, and the descendants of Lycaon’s daughter, the Bear, drink its ancient water.

Father Zeus, as the nymph was carrying you toward Cnosus and leaving Thenae, which is near Cnosus, your umbilical cord fell off. That is why the Cydonians call that plain the Plain of the Navel. Then the Dictaean Meliae, companions of the Cyrbantes, held you in their arms, Zeus, and Adrasteia put you to sleep in a golden cradle. You drank milk from the goat Amaltheia and ate sweet honeycomb, because on the hills of Ida, which people call Panacra, the work of the Panacrian bee suddenly appeared. The Curetes danced a vigorous war dance around you, banging on their armor, so that Cronus would hear the clash of shields and not your crying.

You grew up well, heavenly Zeus, and were well looked after. You grew quickly, and soon your first beard came in. While you were still a child, you were already planning everything a grown man does. So your older relatives didn’t object to you making heaven your home. They say the sons of Cronus drew lots to divide up their three domains. But who would draw lots for Olympos and Hades, except a fool? People draw lots when the shares are equal, and these two are worlds apart. If I’m going to tell a story, it should be one the listener can believe! You didn’t become king of the gods by drawing lots. You won it by your own actions, by your power and the strength you keep beside your throne. You made the greatest of birds the messenger of your signs; may the signs you send favor my friends! And of all people, you chose the best for yourself. You didn’t choose sailors, soldiers or singers. You left those to lesser gods right away, and other concerns to others. You chose the rulers of cities themselves, who are in charge of the farmer, the soldier, the rower and everyone else. What isn’t under a ruler’s control? So we say that blacksmiths belong to Hephaestus, soldiers to Ares, hunters to Artemis of the Tunic, and to Phoebus those who know the music of the lyre well. But kings come from Zeus, and nothing is more divine than the kings of Zeus. That’s why you chose them as your own share and gave them cities to protect. You sat in the high places of the cities, watching which rulers govern their people with corrupt judgments and which govern fairly. You have given them wealth and prosperity in abundance, to all of them, but not equally. Our own Ruler is proof of that, because he has far surpassed all the others. By evening he has finished what he thought of in the morning: by evening the biggest things, and the smaller ones as soon as he thinks of them. Others get some things done in a year, and some not even in that. For others still, you yourself block what they set out to do and frustrate their plans.

We salute you, highest Son of Cronus, with all our hearts, giver of good things and giver of safety! Who could sing about everything you have done? No one ever has, and no one ever will. We salute you, Father, again and again! Give us goodness and prosperity. Without goodness, wealth can’t make people happy, and goodness can’t either without prosperity. Give us goodness and prosperity.

Hymn to Apollo. Apollo arrives at his festival in Cyrene.

Look how Apollo’s laurel branch is shaking! Look how the whole temple shakes! Stay away, anyone who is impure! Phoebus must be knocking at the door with his beautiful foot. Can’t you see? The Delian palm tree suddenly nods gently, and the swan sings sweetly in the air. Bolts and bars, open up by yourselves now! The god is no longer far away. Young men, get ready to sing and dance.

Apollo doesn’t appear to everyone, only to good people. Anyone who has seen Apollo is great, and anyone who hasn’t is insignificant. We will see you, Archer, and we will never be insignificant. When Apollo visits his temple, the young men must not keep their lyres silent or their feet still, if they hope to marry and live long enough to have gray hair to cut, and if the city wall is to stay standing on its old foundations. Well done, young men, because the lyre isn’t sitting idle anymore.

Everyone listening, be quiet for the song to Apollo. Even the sea goes quiet when singers celebrate the lyre or the bow, the instruments of Lycoreian Phoebus. Even his mother Thetis stops mourning Achilles when she hears the cry Hië Paeëon, Hië Paeëon.

Even the weeping rock stops grieving, the wet stone in Phrygia, a marble rock shaped like a woman with her mouth open in a cry of pain. Shout Hië! Hië! It’s a bad idea to fight the Blessed Ones. Anyone who fights the Blessed Ones would fight my King, and anyone who fights my King would fight Apollo himself. Apollo will honor the choir because it sings the way he likes, and Apollo has power because he sits at Zeus’s right hand. The choir won’t sing about Phoebus for just one day. There is so much to sing about him. Who wouldn’t gladly sing about Phoebus?

Apollo’s tunic is gold, and so are his cloak, his lyre, his Lyctian bow and his quiver. His sandals are gold too. Apollo is rich in gold and in possessions, as you can tell from his temple at Pytho. He is always beautiful and always young. Not even the first fuzz of a beard has ever appeared on Apollo’s soft cheeks. His hair drips fragrant oil onto the ground, and what drips from Apollo’s hair isn’t ordinary oil but the Healing of All itself. In any city where those drops fall on the ground, everything is kept safe from harm.

No one has as many skills as Apollo. The archer belongs to him, and so does the singer, because both archery and song are in Apollo’s care. The lots used for prophecy are his, and so are the prophets, and it is from Phoebus that doctors learn how to hold off death.

We also call Phoebus Nomius, the Herdsman, ever since he looked after the harnessed mares beside the river Amphrysus, burning with love for young Admetus. When Apollo watched over the cattle as they grazed, the herd easily grew larger, and the goats in the flock were never short of kids. The ewes always had milk and were never barren. Every ewe had lambs at her side, and one that had given birth to a single lamb would soon have twins.

People follow Phoebus when they lay out cities, because Phoebus himself designs their foundations. Phoebus was four years old when he laid his first foundations in beautiful Ortygia, near the round lake.

Artemis went hunting and kept bringing back the heads of Cynthian goats, and Phoebus built an altar by fitting the horns together. He built the foundations out of horns, made the altar out of horns, and built the walls around it out of horns. That’s how Phoebus learned to lay his first foundations. Phoebus also told Battus about my own city with its rich soil. He took the form of a raven, a good sign for our founder, and guided his people as they entered Libya, and he swore he would give our kings a city with walls. Apollo always keeps his promises. Apollo! Many people call you Boëdromius, and many call you Clarius. Your name is on everyone’s lips everywhere. But I call you Carneius, because that is my ancestors’ custom. Sparta was your first home, Carneius, Thera was next, and the city of Cyrene was third. The sixth generation of Oedipus’s descendants brought you from Sparta to their colony on Thera, and from Thera the energetic Aristoteles brought you to the Asbystian land. He built you a very beautiful temple and established a festival in the city every year, where many bulls, Lord, sink to the ground for the last time. Hië, Hië, Carneius! Lord of many prayers, in spring your altars are covered with all the colorful flowers that the Hours bring out when Zephyrus breathes dew, and in winter with the sweet crocus. Your fire never goes out, and the ashes never pile up around last night’s coals. Phoebus was overjoyed when the armed soldiers of Enyo danced with the blond Libyan women at the set time of the Carnean festival. But the Dorians couldn’t reach the springs of Cyre yet. They lived in Azilis, with its wooded valleys. The Lord himself saw them and pointed them out to his bride as he stood on the hill of Myrtussa, where Hypseus’s daughter killed the lion that was attacking Eurypylus’s cattle. Apollo has never seen a more divine dance, and he has given no other city as many blessings as Cyrene, because he remembers carrying off its namesake long ago. And the descendants of Battus have honored no other god more than Phoebus.

We hear the cry Hië, Hië, Paeëon, because the Delphian people first made up this refrain when you showed off your skill with your golden bow. As you were going down to Pytho, a monstrous creature confronted you, a terrifying snake. You killed it, shooting fast arrows one after another, and the people shouted, “Hië, Hië, Paeëon, shoot an arrow!” Your mother gave birth to you to be a helper from the start, and people have praised you that way ever since.

Envy whispered secretly in Apollo’s ear: “I don’t admire a poet whose song isn’t as big as the sea.” Apollo kicked Envy away and said, “The Assyrian river has a powerful current, but it carries a lot of mud and trash in its water. The Melissae don’t bring water to Deo from just anywhere. They bring the trickle that flows up from a sacred spring, clean and pure, the very best water there is.” Our greetings to you, Lord! As for Blame, let him go where Envy lives!

Hymn to Artemis. The young goddess wins her powers from Zeus and arms herself for the hunt.

We sing about Artemis. Singers can’t afford to forget her. She cares about the bow, hunting hares, dancing in wide circles and playing in the mountains. We start from the time when she was still a little girl, sitting on her father’s knees, and said to him, “Father, let me stay a virgin forever, and let me have many names, so Phoebus can’t compete with me. Give me arrows and a bow. Wait, Father, I’m not asking you for a quiver or a big bow. The Cyclopes will make me arrows right away, and a nicely curved bow. But let me be the Bringer of Light, and let me wear a knee-length tunic with an embroidered hem, so I can hunt wild animals. Give me sixty daughters of Oceanus for my choir, all nine years old, all still young girls. And give me twenty nymphs from the river Amnisus as my attendants, to take good care of my hunting boots and look after my fast dogs when I’m done shooting lynxes and deer. Give me all the mountains. As for a city, give me any one you like, because I will hardly ever go down into town. I’ll live in the mountains and only visit human cities when women in the sharp pain of childbirth call on me for help. The Fates decided at the moment I was born that I would be their helper, because my mother felt no pain when she gave birth to me or while she was pregnant with me. She delivered me without any labor at all.” That’s what the child said, and she tried to touch her father’s beard, reaching up again and again but never getting there.

Her father smiled and nodded yes. As he stroked her, he said, “When goddesses give me children like this, I don’t have to worry much about jealous Hera’s anger. Take everything you’re asking for, child, with my blessing. Your father will give you even greater things besides. I will give you thirty cities and more than one fortress. Those thirty cities won’t honor any god but you, and they’ll be called Artemis’s cities. You will also be Watcher over Streets and Harbors.” With that, he nodded his head to confirm what he had said.

The girl went to the white mountain of Crete, thick with leafy woods, and from there to Oceanus, and she chose many nymphs, all nine years old, all still young girls. The river Caraetus was delighted, and so was Tethys, to send their daughters to attend the daughter of Leto.

Next she went straight to visit the Cyclopes. She found them on the island of Lipara, which was called Meligunis at the time, working at Hephaestus’s anvils around a lump of red-hot iron. They were rushing to finish a big job, a water trough for Poseidon’s horses. The nymphs were terrified when they saw the frightening giants, who looked like the cliffs of Mount Ossa. Each of them had a single eye under his brow, as big as a shield made of four layers of leather, glaring out fiercely. The nymphs were terrified, too, by the loud, echoing clang of the anvil, the roar of the bellows and the heavy grunting of the Cyclopes. Aetna shouted, and Trinacia, home of the Sicanians, shouted, and so did their neighbor Italy, and Cyrnos let out a huge roar along with them, every time the Cyclopes raised their hammers over their shoulders and, working hard, struck the glowing bronze or iron from the furnace in rhythm. So the daughters of Oceanus couldn’t stand to look them in the face or put up with the noise. That’s nothing to be ashamed of. Even the daughters of the Blessed Ones can’t look at them without shuddering, though they are long past being children. When one of the girls disobeys her mother, the mother calls the Cyclopes, Arges or Steropes, to come for her child, and Hermes comes out from inside the house, smeared with soot. He immediately plays the monster to scare the child, and she runs to her mother’s lap and covers her eyes with her hands. But you, Artemis, were bolder than that, and much younger. When you were only three, Leto carried you in her arms to Hephaestus, who had invited her so he could give you a birth gift. Brontes sat you on his strong knees, and you grabbed the shaggy hair on his big chest and yanked it out. To this day, the middle of his chest is bald, like a man’s temples when mange sets in and eats the hair away.

That’s why you could talk to them so boldly that day: “Cyclopes, make me a Cydonian bow too, and arrows, and a hollow case to hold them, because I’m Leto’s child too, just like Apollo. If I shoot a wild animal or a monster with my bow, the Cyclopes can eat it.” They did what you asked, and you were armed in no time, Goddess. Then you quickly went to get dogs, and you came to Pan’s Arcadian farm. He was cutting up the meat of a lynx from Mount Maenalus to feed his female dogs. The Bearded God gave you two black-and-white dogs, three reddish ones and one spotted one. They could bring down even lions by grabbing their throats and drag them back to the farm still alive. He also gave you seven Cynosurian hounds that were faster than the wind. They were the fastest breed for chasing fawns and the hare that never closes its eyes, and the fastest at finding where a deer is lying, where a porcupine has its burrow, and at following a gazelle’s tracks.

When you left there, with your dogs racing alongside you, you found deer playing at the foot of the Parrhasian mountain, a huge herd. They always grazed along the banks of the river Anaurus with its black pebbles. They were bigger than bulls, and their horns shone with gold. You were amazed and said to yourself, “These would be a first catch worthy of Artemis.” There were five altogether. You caught four of them on foot, without your dogs chasing them, to pull your fast chariot. But one escaped across the river Celadon, because Hera arranged it, so that later it would be one of Heracles’ labors. The Ceryneian hill took her in.

Artemis, Lady of Virginity, killer of Tityus, your weapons and your belt were gold. You harnessed a golden chariot, Goddess, and put golden bridles on your deer. Where did your horned team first take you? To Thracian Haemus, where the storms of Boreas come from, bringing their freezing blasts to people without coats. Where did you cut the pine for your torch, and what fire did you light it from? It was on Mysian Olympus, and you lit it with the never-dying flame that comes off your father’s lightning bolts. How many times, Goddess, did you test your silver bow? First you shot at an elm, then at an oak, and third at a wild animal. The fourth time, soon after, you shot at a city of unjust people, who did many wrongs to each other and to strangers. They were arrogant people, and you will come down hard on them in your anger. Disease eats away at their cattle and frost at their crops. Their old men cut their hair in mourning for their sons. Their wives die suddenly or in childbirth, or if they survive, not one of their children stands straight on its ankles. But for the people you smile on kindly, the fields produce plenty of grain, the livestock does well, and their wealth grows and grows. They only go to the graveyard to bury the old. Family feuds, which can ruin even well-established households, don’t tear them apart. Instead, sisters-in-law pull up their chairs around the same table.

Lady, let every true friend of mine be one of these people, and let me be one too, Queen. And may I always care about poetry. That poetry will tell of Leto’s marriage. Your name will come up in it often, and so will Apollo, all your labors, your dogs, your bow and your chariot, which carries you easily in all your splendor when you drive to the house of Zeus. Hermes and Apollo meet you there at the entrance. Hermes, the Lord of Blessing, takes your weapons, and Apollo takes whatever animal you’ve brought. At least, Apollo did that before powerful Alcides arrived. Now Phoebus doesn’t have that job anymore, because the Anvil of Tiryns is always standing at the gates, waiting to see whether you’ll come home with some nice, fatty meat. All the gods laugh at him nonstop, especially his own mother-in-law, when he hauls a huge bull or a wild boar out of the chariot by its hind leg while it’s still kicking. He gives you this crafty advice, Goddess: “Shoot the dangerous animals, so people will call you their helper, the way they call me theirs. Leave deer and hares to graze in the hills. What harm can deer and hares do? It’s boars that wreck people’s fields and their orchards, and wild bulls are a big problem for people too. Shoot those as well.” He says this and quickly sets to work on the enormous animal. Even though his body was made divine under a Phrygian oak tree, he hasn’t given up his huge appetite. He still has the same stomach he had when he met Theiodamas plowing his field.

The nymphs of Amnisus rub down your deer for you once they’re out of harness, and they gather plenty of fast-growing clover from Hera’s meadow for them to eat, the same clover Zeus’s horses eat. They fill golden troughs with water so the deer can have a good drink. You go into your father’s house, and everyone asks you to sit with them, but you sit next to Apollo.

When the nymphs dance in a circle around you near the springs of the Egyptian Inopus, or at Pitane, which is yours too, or at Limnae, or at Alae Araphenides, where you came from Scythia to live after rejecting the rituals of the Tauri, Goddess, I hope my oxen aren’t hired out that day to plow a four-acre field for some stranger. If they were, they would come back to the barn limping, with sore necks, even if they were nine-year-old Stymphaean oxen that pull with their horns, the best breed by far for cutting a deep furrow. That’s because the god Helios never passes that beautiful dance without stopping his chariot to watch, and the days get longer.

Which island, which mountain, do you like best now? Which harbor? Which city? Which nymph do you love most, and which heroines have you taken as your companions? Tell me, Goddess, and I’ll sing your answer to others. Of the islands, you like Doliche best; of the cities, Perge; of the mountains, Taygeton; and the harbors of the Euripus. More than anyone, you love the nymph from Gortyn, Britomartis, the deer hunter and skilled archer. Long ago, Minos fell madly in love with her and chased her through the hills of Crete. The nymph hid sometimes under the shaggy oaks and sometimes in the low meadows. For nine months he chased her over rocks and cliffs and wouldn’t give up, until, almost caught, she jumped into the sea from the top of a cliff and landed in some fishermen’s nets, which saved her. That’s why the Cydonians later called the nymph Dictyna, the Lady of the Nets, and the mountain she jumped from Dictaeon, the Mountain of Nets. They set up altars there and offer sacrifices. On that day, people wear wreaths of pine or mastic, but nobody touches myrtle, because as she ran away, a myrtle branch got caught in the girl’s clothes, and she was furious with the myrtle. Upis, Queen, beautiful Bringer of Light, the Cretans name you after that nymph too.

You also made Cyrene your friend, and once gave her two hunting dogs, which Hypseus’s daughter used to win the prize at the Iolcian tomb. Lady, you made the blond wife of Cephalus, son of Deioneus, your hunting partner, and they say you loved beautiful Anticleia as much as your own eyes. These women were the first to carry the fine bow and the quiver of arrows on their shoulders. The quiver strap went over their right shoulder, and their right breast was always bare. You also had high praise for fast-running Atalanta, the boar hunter, daughter of Iasius of Arcadia, and you taught her how to hunt with dogs and shoot well. The men who were called to hunt the boar of Calydon don’t complain about her, because the trophies of the victory went to Arcadia, which still has the animal’s tusks. And I don’t think Hylaeus and foolish Rhoecus, much as they hated her, look down on her archery even in Hades, because the wounds in their sides, whose blood ran down the heights of Maenalus, won’t back up that lie.

Lady of many temples and many cities, our greetings! Goddess of the Tunic, who lives in Miletus, Neleus made you his guide when he sailed out from the land of Cecrops. Lady of Chesion and of the river Imbrasus, enthroned on high, Agamemnon dedicated his ship’s rudder to you in your temple, as a good-luck charm against bad weather, because you held back the winds for him when the Achaean ships sailed to attack the cities of the Teucri, angry about Rhamnusian Helen.

Proetus built two temples for you. One was to Artemis of Virginity, because you brought his young daughters back to him when they were wandering in the Azanian hills. He built the other at Lusa, to Artemis the Gentle, because you took away the wildness that had possessed his daughters. The Amazons, who live for war, also set up a statue of you under an oak tree in Ephesus, by the sea, and Hippo performed a sacred ritual for you. Queen Upis, the Amazons themselves danced a war dance around the statue, first carrying shields and wearing armor, and then forming a wide circle. The pipes played a high, shrill tune so they could dance in step. (People didn’t yet drill holes in fawn bones to make pipes, Athena’s invention and bad news for deer.) The sound echoed all the way to Sardis and the Berecynthian mountains. Their feet stamped loudly, and their quivers rattled as they danced.

Later, a temple with wide foundations was built around that statue. The dawn will never see anything more divine or more magnificent. It could easily outshine Pytho. That’s why, in his madness, the arrogant Lygdamis threatened to destroy it. He brought an army of Cimmerians against it, mare-milking people as countless as grains of sand, who live near the strait named for the cow, Inachus’s daughter. What a foolish king, and how terribly wrong he was! Neither he nor any of the others whose wagons stood on the Caystrian plain would ever make it back to Scythia, because your arrows always stand guard over Ephesus.

Lady of Munychia, guardian of harbors, Lady of Pherae, our greetings! No one should look down on Artemis. When Oeneus neglected her altar, the struggles that came to his city were not pleasant ones. No one should compete with her at hunting deer or at archery. The son of Atreus paid a high price when he bragged about that. No one should try to win the Virgin’s love. Otus and Orion tried, and it did them no good. No one should skip the yearly dance. Hippo refused to dance around the altar, and she paid for it in tears. Our greetings, great Queen, and may you welcome my song.

Hymn to Delos. Turned away everywhere else, Leto gives birth to Apollo on Delos.

My soul, when will you sing about sacred Delos, the island that nursed Apollo? All the Cyclades, the most sacred islands in the sea, deserve songs, but Delos would win first prize from the Muses, because she bathed Apollo, the lord of singers, wrapped him up and was the first to accept him as a god. The Muses hate anyone who doesn’t sing about Pimpleia, and in the same way Phoebus hates anyone who forgets Delos. So now I’ll give Delos her share of song, and Cynthian Apollo will praise me for remembering the island that cared for him.

She sits in the sea, windswept and rugged. Battered by waves, she’s better suited to seagulls than to racehorses. The sea churns all around her and throws spray from the Icarian waters over her, which is why fishermen who make their living at sea have settled there. But no one should mind her being named among the first whenever the islands gather before Oceanus and the Titan Tethys, because she always leads the way. Behind her come Phoenician Cyrnus, no small island, Abantian Macris of the Ellopians, lovely Sardo and the island Cypris swam to first when she rose from the sea, which she protects in return for letting her land. Those islands are strong because of their fortified towers, but Delos is strong because Apollo protects her. What defense is more secure than that? Walls and stones can fall when Strymonian Boreas blasts down, but a god can never be shaken. Dear Delos, that is the protector who surrounds you!

With so many songs already about you, what song should I make for you? What would you like to hear? Should it be the story of how, at the very beginning, the mighty god struck the mountains with the three-pronged sword the Telchines made for him and created the islands in the sea? He pried them all up from their deepest foundations as if with a crowbar and rolled them into the sea. Then he anchored them in the depths so they would forget the mainland. But nothing tied you down. You floated freely on the open sea. Your name back then was Asteria, because you jumped from the sky into the deep sea like a shooting star to escape marrying Zeus. Golden Leto hadn’t come to you yet. You were still Asteria, not yet called Delos. Sailors traveling from the town of Troezen, known for its blond people, to Ephyra in the Saronic Gulf would often spot you, and on their way back from Ephyra they wouldn’t see you there anymore. You had raced off to the fast-moving straits of the narrow Euripus, with its roaring current. The same day you would turn your back on the waters off Chalcis and swim to the Sunian headland of the Athenians, or to Chios, or to the wave-washed shore of the Maiden’s Island, not yet called Samos, where the nymphs of Mycalessos, neighbors of Ancaeus, made you welcome.

But when you offered your soil as the place where Apollo would be born, sailors gave you this new name, because you no longer floated around unseen (adêlos) but put down roots among the waves of the Aegean Sea.

You weren’t afraid of Hera’s anger. She raged against every woman who had children with Zeus, but above all against Leto, because Leto alone was going to give Zeus a son he would love even more than Ares. So Hera kept watch from the sky herself, more furious than words can say, and she kept Leto from giving birth while she was in labor. She also posted two lookouts to watch the earth. Bold Ares watched the mainland, sitting in full armor on the high peak of Thracian Haemus, with his horses stabled by the seven-chambered cave of Boreas. The other lookout, Thaumas’s daughter, watched the scattered islands from Mount Mimas, where she had rushed. There they sat and threatened every city Leto approached, so none of them would take her in. Arcadia ran away. Parthenium, Auge’s sacred mountain, ran away. Old Pheneius ran away after her. The whole land of Pelops near the Isthmus ran away, except Aegialos and Argos, because Leto didn’t go that way, since the river Inachus belonged to Hera. Aonia ran the same way too, and so did Dirce and Strophia, holding the hands of their father, the river Ismenus with its dark pebbles. Far behind came the river Asopus, moving slowly, because a lightning bolt had crippled him. The nymph Melia, born from the earth, spun around, stopped dancing and went pale, gasping for the oak tree that was as old as she was, when she saw the leaves on Mount Helicon shake. Muses, my goddesses, tell me: were the oaks born at the same time as the nymphs? The nymphs are happy when the rain makes the oaks grow, and the nymphs cry when the oaks lose their leaves. Apollo, still in his mother’s womb, was furious with them, and he made a threat against Thebe that would come true: “Thebe, you miserable city, why are you asking for the fate you’re about to get? Don’t make me prophesy yet when I don’t want to. I don’t have my prophet’s seat at Pytho yet, and the great serpent isn’t dead yet. That beast with its horrible jaws still crawls down from the river Pleistus and wraps its nine coils around snowy Parnassus. Still, I’ll tell you something clearer than any message from the laurel tree. Go ahead and run! I’ll catch up with you soon and wash my bow in blood. You’re looking after the children of a woman with a slanderous tongue. You won’t be the one who raises me, and neither will Mount Cithaeron. I am pure, and I want to be cared for by people who are pure.” That’s what he said, and Leto turned back. But when the Achaean cities refused her too, Helice, Poseidon’s companion, and Bura, the farm of Dexamenus, son of Oeceus, she turned around and headed for Thessaly. The river Anaurus ran away, and so did great Larisa and the cliffs of Cheiron. The river Peneius ran away too, winding through the valley of Tempe.

But even then, Hera, your heart was still merciless. You didn’t give in or feel any pity when Leto stretched out both arms and begged, with no result, “Nymphs of Thessaly, daughters of a river, tell your father to calm his powerful current. Throw your arms around his beard and beg him to let Zeus’s children be born in his waters. Phthiotian Peneius, why are you racing the winds now? Father, you’re not riding a racehorse. Are your feet always this fast, or just for me? Did you suddenly learn to fly today?” But he didn’t listen to her. “My baby, my burden, where can I take you? The muscles in my poor feet are worn out. Pelion, where Philyra had her wedding, wait for me, please wait, because even wild lionesses have often given birth early on your slopes.” Then, crying, the river Peneius answered her: “Leto, Necessity is a powerful goddess. I’m not the one refusing you a place to give birth, Lady. I know other women who have washed themselves in my waters after giving birth. But Hera has made terrible threats against me. Look at the lookout keeping watch on the mountaintop. He could easily drag me up out of my riverbed. What can I do? Or would you like to see the Peneius destroyed? Let my fate come when it comes. I’ll put up with it for your sake, even if I have to flow on forever as a thin, dried-up stream and be known as the least respected of all rivers. Here I am! What more do you need? Just call on Eileithyia.” He said this and stopped his powerful current. But Ares was about to rip the peaks of Mount Pangaeum from their base, throw them into the swirling water and bury the river. He made a noise like thunder from high above and banged his shield with the tip of his spear, and it rang out with the sound of war. The hills of Ossa shook, and so did the plain of Crannon and the windswept slopes of Pindus. All of Thessaly shook with fear at the echoing noise from his shield. It was like Mount Aetna smoldering with fire, when all its hidden depths shake as the giant under the earth, Briares, rolls over onto his other shoulder, and Hephaestus’s furnaces roar under his tongs along with all his work, and metal basins and tripods made in the fire clang horribly as they fall on one another. That’s how loudly the round shield clattered then. But the Peneius didn’t back down. He stood his ground as steadily as before and held his swirling current still, until Coeüs’s daughter called out to him: “Save yourself, and goodbye! Save yourself. Don’t get hurt for my sake because you were kind to me. You will be repaid for your kindness.”

With that, after many hardships, she came to the islands of the sea. But they wouldn’t take her in either. The Echinades, with their calm harbor for ships, refused her, and so did Cercyra, the most welcoming of all the islands, because Iris, up on Mount Mimas, was angry at all of them and stopped them completely. Every island Leto came to was frightened by Iris’s warnings and ran off across the water together. Then she came to the ancient island of Cos, the island of Merops and the sacred home of the heroine Chalciope. But her son’s words stopped her: “Mother, don’t give birth to me here. I don’t blame this island or have anything against it, because it’s a bright island with as much good pasture as any. But the Fates have another god in store for it, from the highest line of the Saviors. Both continents and the islands in the sea will come under his crown, as far as the end of the earth and the place where the sun’s fast horses rise, and they won’t mind being ruled by a Macedonian. He will follow his father’s ways.

“Someday in the future we will all face a common struggle, when the Titans of a later age raise barbarian swords and launch a Celtic war against the Hellenes. They will rush in from the far west like snowflakes, as many as the stars when they crowd most thickly in the sky. Forts, the villages of the Locrians, the Delphian heights, the Crisaean plains and the valleys of the mainland will be surrounded on every side, and people will see their neighbors’ towns burning, the smoke rising thick, and not just hear about it. Already they will see the enemy’s ranks beside the temple, and already beside my tripods the swords, the savage belts and the hated shields that will send the foolish tribe of the Galatians on a disastrous journey. Some of those shields will be my prize. Others, after their owners have been seen dying in the fire, will be put on display by the banks of the Nile as trophies for a king who worked hard for them. Ptolemy, you who are yet to be born, I am making these prophecies for you. For the rest of your days you will praise the one who prophesied about you while he was still in his mother’s womb.

“But look, Mother: there’s a tiny island you can see in the water, drifting over the seas. She never stays in one place, but floats with the tide like stalks of asphodel, wherever the south wind or east wind blows, wherever the sea takes her. Take me there, because she will welcome you.”

When he had said this, the other islands in the sea ran away. But you, Asteria, who love songs, had come down from Euboea to visit the circle of the Cyclades not long before, and the seaweed of Geraestus was still trailing behind you . . . because your heart went out to her when you saw the poor woman in the terrible pain of labor: “Hera, do whatever you want to me, because I’m not listening to your threats. Come across, Leto, come across to me.”

That’s what you said, and she was glad to end her painful wandering. She sat down by the stream of the Inopus, which wells up out of the ground at its fullest when the Nile comes rushing down from the Aethiopian highlands. She loosened her belt and leaned her shoulders back against the trunk of a palm tree, overwhelmed by pain, and sweat poured down her body like rain. Weakly, she said, “Child, why are you weighing your mother down? There, my dear, is your island floating on the sea. Be born, be born, my child, and come out of the womb gently.” Wife of Zeus, you whose anger runs so deep, you weren’t going to go long without hearing about this, because a messenger rushed to you right away. Still out of breath, she said, in a voice full of fear, “Respected Hera, by far the greatest of the goddesses, I am yours, everything is yours, and you are the rightful queen of Olympus. We aren’t afraid of any other woman, and you, Queen, will soon know who has made you angry. Leto is loosening her belt on an island. All the others turned her away and wouldn’t take her in, but Asteria called her by name as she went by. Asteria, that worthless trash of the sea. You know all about her. But, dear Lady, you have the power, so stand up for your servants, who travel the earth on your orders.”

With that, she sat down beside the golden throne, like one of Artemis’s hunting dogs that sits at her feet after a fast chase, its ears pricked up, always ready for the goddess to call it. That is how Thaumas’s daughter sat beside the throne. She never leaves her seat, not even when sleep spreads its wing of forgetfulness over her. She sleeps right there at the edge of the great throne, with her head tilted a little to one side. She never takes off her belt or her fast hunting boots, in case her mistress suddenly gives her an order. Hera was furious and said to her, “All right, then, you shameful lovers of Zeus. I hope you all marry in secret and give birth in the dark, not even where poor women who work the mills give birth in hard labor, but where seals give birth, among the lonely rocks. But I’m not angry with Asteria at all for this offense, and I can’t punish her as harshly as I should, even though she was very wrong to help Leto. Still, I respect her a great deal, because she didn’t sleep with my husband. She chose the sea over Zeus.”

She said this, and the swans, the gods’ own singers, left the Maeonian Pactolus and flew around Delos seven times, singing over the birth. They are the Muses’ birds, the most musical of all birds that fly. That is why the child later put seven strings on the lyre, because the swans sang seven times over his birth. They didn’t sing an eighth time, because before they could, the child sprang out, and the nymphs of Delos, daughters of an ancient river, sang Eileithyia’s sacred song in voices that carried far. Right away the bronze sky echoed back the song, and Hera didn’t resent it, because Zeus had taken away her anger. At that moment, Delos, your whole foundation turned to gold. Your round lake ran with gold all day long, your olive tree, which saw the birth, put out golden leaves, and the winding Inopus flowed deep with gold.

You yourself picked the child up from the golden ground, laid him in your lap and said, “Great and generous earth, with your many altars and many cities, you rich continents and you islands all around me, look at me! I’m just as you see me, hard to farm. But Apollo will be called ‘of Delos’ after me, and no other place will be loved as much by any other god. Cerchnis isn’t loved that much by Poseidon, lord of Lechaeum, or the hill of Cyllene by Hermes, or Crete by Zeus, as I am by Apollo. And I won’t be a drifting island anymore.” That’s what you said, and the child nursed at your sweet breast.

That is why, from that day on, you have been known as the most sacred of islands, the one that nursed Apollo when he was young. Enyo, Hades and the horses of Ares never set foot on you. Instead, every year a tenth of the first harvest is sent to you, and every city sends choirs to you: the cities that have drawn their place in the east, those in the west, those in the south, and the peoples who live beyond the northern shore, a race that lives very long. These are the first to bring you stalks of grain and sacred bundles of grain heads. The Pelasgians of Dodona, who sleep on the ground and look after the bronze bowl that is never silent, are the very first to receive these offerings as they arrive in their country from far away. Next the offerings come to the sacred town and the mountains of the Malian land, and from there they sail across to the fine Lelantian plain of the Abantes. From Euboea the voyage is short, because your harbors are close by. The first to bring you these offerings from the blond Arimaspi were Upis, Loxo and fortunate Hecaerge, the daughters of Boreas, along with the best young men of that time. They never went home again, but they were blessed, and they will never lose their fame. In fact, when the sweet wedding song makes the young women of Delos nervous, the girls offer locks of their hair to those young women, and the boys offer the first growth of their beards to the young men.

Asteria, island of incense, the islands have formed a circle all around you, like a choir. You are never silent or still when Hesperus with his curly hair looks down on you. You are always ringing with sound. The men sing the song of the old man from Lycia, the same song the prophet Olen brought you from Xanthos, and the girls in the choir stamp on the solid ground. Then the sacred statue is loaded with wreaths, the famous statue of ancient Cypris, which Theseus and the young people with him set up long ago as he sailed back from Crete. They had escaped the savage roaring of Pasiphaë’s wild son and the twisting home of the winding labyrinth. Around your altar, Lady, they played music on the lyre and danced in a circle, and Theseus led the choir. That is why the descendants of Cecrops send Phoebus the ever-living offerings of the Pilgrim Ship, the rigging of that ship.

Asteria, island of many altars and many prayers, what merchant sailing the Aegean ever passes you by in his fast ship? No wind blows hard enough to drive him past. Even when sailors need to make the fastest trip they possibly can, they quickly take down their sails and don’t go back on board until they have run around your great altar while being hit, and have bitten the sacred trunk of the olive tree with their hands tied behind their backs. The nymph of Delos came up with these customs as fun and games for the young Apollo.

Fortunate hearth of the islands, our greetings to you! Our greetings also to Apollo and to the daughter Leto gave birth to!

On the Bath of Pallas. Teiresias sees Athena bathing and loses his sight.

All you women who take part in the Bath of Pallas, come out, come out! I just heard the sacred horses snorting, and the goddess is ready to go. Hurry up now, blond daughters of Pelasgus, hurry! Athena has never washed her strong arms before cleaning the dust off her horses’ sides, not even when she came back from the battle with the lawless Giants with her armor covered in filth. Instead, the first thing she did was free her horses’ necks from the harness, wash off the flecks of sweat in the springs of Oceanus and clean the caked-on foam from their mouths, where they had chewed the bit.

Come on, daughters of Achaea, and don’t bring perfume or alabaster jars. (I can hear the wheels creaking on their axles!) Women of the Bath, don’t bring perfume or alabaster jars for Pallas, because Athena doesn’t like mixed ointments. And don’t bring a mirror. Her face always looks beautiful. Even when the Phrygian judged the contest on Mount Ida, the great goddess didn’t look into polished metal or into the clear, swirling water of the river Simois, and neither did Hera. But Cypris took the shiny bronze mirror and kept rearranging the same lock of hair over and over. Pallas ran a hundred and twenty laps, like the Lacedaemonian Stars beside the river Eurotas, and then skillfully rubbed herself with plain olive oil, which comes from her own tree. And, girls, a rosy glow came over her skin, the color of an early-morning rose or a pomegranate seed. So now, too, bring only the plain olive oil that men use, the kind Castor and Heracles rub on themselves. And bring her a comb made all of gold, so she can comb her hair once she has oiled her shining locks.

Come out, Athena! A group you’ll be happy to see is waiting for you, the young daughters of the powerful sons of Acestor. The shield of Diomedes is being carried in the procession too, Athena, because that is the Argive custom Eumedes taught them long ago. He was a priest you favored. Once, when he found out that the people were plotting to kill him, he ran away with your sacred statue and settled on the hill of Creion. He settled on the hill of Creion and set you up, Goddess, on the rugged rocks that are now called the Pallantid Rocks.

Come out, Athena, Sacker of Cities, with your golden helmet, you who love the clatter of horses and shields. Water carriers, don’t dip your jars in the river today. People of Argos, drink from the springs today, not from the river. Servant women, carry your jars to the spring of Physadeia today, or to Amymone, daughter of Danaus. The river Inakhos will come down from his hills, where the flocks graze, mixing his water with gold and flowers, to bring good water for Athena’s bath. But be careful, Pelasgian, not to see the Queen, even by accident. Anyone who sees Pallas, Keeper of Cities, naked will see Argos for the last time. Lady Athena, come out, and in the meantime I’ll tell these women a story. It isn’t mine; I heard it from others.

Girls, long ago in Thebes, Athena loved one nymph very much, more than all her other companions. She was the mother of Teiresias, and the two of them were always together. Whenever Athena drove her horses to ancient Thespiae, or Coroneia, or Haliartus, passing through the farmland of Boeotia, or to Coroneia, where her fragrant grove and altars stand beside the river Coralius, the goddess often had the nymph ride in her chariot. When the nymphs got together to talk or to arrange their lovely dances, Chariclo always took the lead.

But even she had many tears ahead of her, though Athena loved her dearly as a companion. One day the two of them undid the clasps of their robes beside the beautiful flowing Fountain of the Horse on Helicon, and went bathing. It was noon, and the whole mountain was completely quiet. The two of them were bathing; it was the middle of the day, and the mountain was completely quiet. Only Teiresias, who was just starting to grow a beard, was still roaming the sacred place with his dogs. He was desperately thirsty, and the poor young man came to the flowing spring and, without meaning to, saw what no one is allowed to see. Athena was angry, but she said to him, “Son of Everes, what god led you down this terrible path? You’ll never take your eyes away from here again!”

As she said this, darkness fell over the young man’s eyes. He stood there unable to say a word, because pain froze his knees and shock took away his voice. But the nymph screamed, “What have you done to my boy, Lady? Is this what friendship with you goddesses is worth? You’ve taken away my son’s eyes. My poor child! You’ve seen Athena’s breasts and body, but you will never see the sun again. How miserable I am! Mountain, Helicon, where I can never set foot again, you have taken a high price for so little. For a few gazelles and deer, you have taken my child’s eyes.”

The mother wrapped both arms around her beloved child and led him away, crying out with the deep, sorrowful cry of the nightingale. The goddess Athena felt sorry for her friend and said to her, “Dear woman, take back everything you said in anger. I am not the one who made your child blind. Athena gets no pleasure from taking away children’s eyes. But the laws of Cronius [Zeus] say this: anyone who sees one of the immortals when the god doesn’t choose to be seen will pay a heavy price for it. Dear woman, what has happened can’t be undone, because this is how the Fates spun the thread of his life when you first gave birth to him. But now, son of Everes, accept the outcome you were owed. How many burnt offerings will the daughter of Cadmus make in the days to come, and how many will Aristaeus make, praying that their only son, young Actaeon, had only been blinded! He will hunt alongside great Artemis. But neither the hunting nor all the time they spend shooting together in the mountains will save him when, without meaning to, he sees the goddess bathing in all her beauty. Instead, his own dogs will eat the master they once served, and his mother will collect her son’s bones, searching through every thicket. She will call you the luckiest and most fortunate of women, because you got your son back from the mountains blind. So don’t grieve, my friend. Many other honors from me are waiting for your son, for your sake. I will make him a prophet that people will sing about in the future, greater than any other. He will understand the birds, which of all the countless birds that fly are good signs and which birds’ flight means bad luck. He will deliver many prophecies to the Boeotians, many to Cadmus and later many to the powerful sons of Labdacus. I will also give him a sturdy staff to guide his feet wherever he needs to go, and I will give him a long life. And when he dies, he alone will walk among the dead with his mind still sharp, honored by the great Leader of Peoples.”

She said this and nodded, and whatever Pallas nods to comes true, because, women of the Bath, Zeus has allowed Athena alone of all his daughters to have everything that belongs to her father. No mother gave birth to her; she came out of Zeus’s head. Zeus’s head doesn’t nod to anything false, and his daughter doesn’t either.

Now Athena really is coming. Girls, this is your job: welcome the goddess with respectful greetings, with prayers and with shouts of thanks. Greetings, Goddess! Watch over Inachian Argos. Greetings to you as you drive your horses out, and may you drive them home again happy. Keep the whole land of the Danaans safe.

Hymn to Demeter. Erysichthon cuts down her sacred grove and is cursed with hunger.

As the Basket passes by, women, call out to it: “Demeter, our warmest greetings! Lady who feeds so many, who gives so much grain.” As the Basket passes by, you who haven’t been initiated must watch it from the ground. Don’t stare down at it from the roof or from up high, whether you’re a child, a wife or a girl with her hair let down, not then and not when we spit from mouths dry with fasting. Hesperus watches from the clouds for the moment it arrives. He was the only one who could persuade Demeter to drink when she was following the unknown trail of her kidnapped daughter.

Lady, how did your feet carry you all the way to the west, to the dark-skinned people and the place where the golden apples grow? All that time you didn’t drink, you didn’t eat and you didn’t wash. Three times you crossed the Achelous with its silver currents, and just as many times you crossed every river that never runs dry. Three times you sat on the ground beside the spring of Callichorus, parched, without drinking, and you didn’t eat or wash.

No, no, let’s not talk about what made Deo cry! It’s better to tell how she gave cities good laws. It’s better to tell how she was the first to cut straw and sacred bundles of grain and set oxen to trample them, when Triptolemus learned the good skill of farming. It’s better to tell, as a warning to people to stay away from wrongdoing, how she made the son of Triopas hateful and pitiful to look at.

The Pelasgians didn’t live in the land of Cnidus yet but still in sacred Dotium, and they planted a beautiful grove for you, full of trees, so thick an arrow could hardly have gotten through. It had pines and tall elms, pear trees and sweet apples, and water as clear as amber gushed up from the channels. The goddess was wild about the place, as much as Eleusis, Triopum and Enna.

But when the good luck of the Triopidae turned against them, Erysichthon got the worst idea possible. He rushed off with twenty servants, all in the prime of life, all huge men strong enough to lift a whole city, and armed them with double-headed axes and hatchets, and they charged shamelessly into Demeter’s grove. There was a poplar there, a huge tree reaching up to the sky, where the nymphs used to play at noon. That poplar was the first tree they hit, and it cried out in pain to the others. Demeter sensed that her sacred tree was hurting. She was angry and said, “Who is cutting down my beautiful tree?” Right away she made herself look like Nicippe, whom the city had appointed as her public priestess, with her ribbons and her poppy in her hand and her key hanging from her shoulder. Trying to calm the wicked, shameless man down, she said, “My child, you who are cutting down trees dedicated to the gods, stop, my child, child your parents prayed so hard for. Stop and call back your servants, or Lady Demeter will be angry, because you are destroying her sacred place.”

But he glared at her more fiercely than a lioness with newborn cubs glares at a hunter in the hills of Tmarus, and they say no eye is more terrifying than hers. He said, “Get back, or I’ll bury my big axe in your body! These trees will make me a sturdy house, where I’ll always throw great parties for my friends.” That’s what the young man said, and Nemesis wrote down his evil words. Demeter was angrier than words can say, and she took on her true form as a goddess. Her feet touched the ground, but her head reached Olympus. The servants nearly died of fright when they saw the goddess, and they ran away at once, leaving their bronze axes stuck in the trees. She let them go, because they were only following their master’s orders, but she answered their arrogant master: “Yes, yes, you dog, you dog, build your house, where you’ll throw your parties. You’ll have plenty of feasts from now on.” That’s all she said, and she planned terrible things for Erysichthon.

Right away she struck him with a cruel, terrible hunger, a burning, overpowering hunger, and he was tormented by a horrible disease. The poor man wanted more the more he ate. Twenty servants cooked for him, and twelve poured his wine, because whatever makes Demeter angry makes Dionysus angry too; Dionysus shares Demeter’s anger. His parents were too ashamed to send him to any shared meal or party, and they came up with all kinds of excuses. The sons of Ormenus came to invite him to the games of Itonian Athene, but his mother turned the invitation down: “He’s not home. He left for Crannon yesterday to collect a debt of a hundred oxen.” Polyxo, Actorion’s mother, came to invite both Triopas and his son, because she was planning her child’s wedding. But the lady answered in tears, with a heavy heart, “Triopas will come, but a boar wounded Erysichthon on Pindus, with its beautiful valleys, and he’s been in bed for nine days.” Poor mother, you loved your child so much. What lie didn’t you tell? Someone was throwing a party: “Erysichthon is out of town.” Someone was bringing home a bride: “Erysichthon was hit by a discus,” or “He fell out of his chariot,” or “He’s counting his flocks on Mount Othrys.” Meanwhile, he stayed inside the house, eating all day long, and ate more than anyone could count. But the more he ate, the more his miserable stomach craved, and all the food poured into it for nothing, without any thanks, as if into the bottom of the sea. Like the snow on Mount Mimas, like a wax doll in the sun, and even worse than those, he wasted away to nothing but tendons. The poor man had only tendons and bones left. His mother cried, his two sisters groaned out loud, and so did the nurse who had breastfed him and the ten servant women, again and again.

Triopas himself tore at his gray hair and called on Poseidon, who paid no attention, with words like these: “You fake father, look at this, the third generation of your family, if I really am your son and the son of Canace, daughter of Aeolus, and this miserable child is mine. I wish Apollo had shot him dead and I had buried him with my own hands! Instead he sits in front of me, a cursed glutton. Either take this cruel disease away from him, or take him and feed him yourself, because I have nothing left to put on the table. My sheep pens are deserted and my barns have no animals left, because the cooks have already told me there is nothing more.”

They even unharnessed the mules from the big wagons, and he ate the heifer his mother was fattening up for Hestia, and the racehorse and the warhorse, and the cat that the little mice were afraid of.

As long as there was food stored in Triopas’s house, only the rooms inside knew about the disaster. But when his teeth had drained the rich house dry, the king’s son sat at the crossroads, begging for scraps and the leftovers thrown out after feasts. Demeter, I hope no one you hate is ever my friend or shares a wall with me as my neighbor. I can’t stand bad neighbors.

Sing, girls, and mothers, join in: “Demeter, our warmest greetings! Lady who feeds so many, who gives so much grain.” Just as the four white horses pull the Basket, so the great goddess who rules far and wide will come to us and bring a bright spring and a bright summer, winter and fall, and keep us safe for another year. Just as we walk through the city barefoot and with our hair loose, so we will keep our feet and heads safe from harm forever. Just as the women carrying winnowing baskets carry baskets full of gold, so may we have gold without limit. The uninitiated may follow as far as the City Chambers, but the initiated may go all the way to the goddess’s temple, as long as they are under sixty. But women who are pregnant, women who are reaching out to Eileithyia in labor and women who are in pain only need to go as far as their knees will carry them. Deo will give them everything in abundance, just as if they had come to her temple.

Our greetings, Goddess! Keep this community safe, united and prosperous, and bring us every good thing from the fields! Feed our cattle, bring us flocks, bring us grain, bring us a harvest! And help peace grow, so that whoever sows the seed also reaps the crop. Be kind to us, Queen of goddesses, you whom we pray to three times over!