th Hermes to increase the stock. The droves
of kine and wide herds of goats and flocks of fleecy sheep, if she will,
she increases from a few, or makes many to be less. So, then. albeit her
mother's only child [1617], she is honoured amongst all the deathless
gods. And the son of Cronos made her a nurse of the young who after
that day saw with their eyes the light of all-seeing Dawn. So from the
beginning she is a nurse of the young, and these are her honours.

(ll. 453-491) But Rhea was subject in love to Cronos and bare splendid
children, Hestia [1618], Demeter, and gold-shod Hera and strong Hades,
pitiless in heart, who dwells under the earth, and the loud-crashing
Earth-Shaker, and wise Zeus, father of gods and men, by whose thunder
the wide earth is shaken. These great Cronos swallowed as each came
forth from the womb to his mother's knees with this intent, that no
other of the proud sons of Heaven should hold the kingly office amongst
the deathless gods. For he learned from Earth and starry Heaven that
he was destined to be overcome by his own son, strong though he was,
through the contriving of great Zeus [1619]. Therefore he kept no blind
outlook, but watched and swallowed down his children: and unceasing
grief seized Rhea. But when she was about to bear Zeus, the father of
gods and men, then she besought her own dear parents, Earth and starry
Heaven, to devise some plan with her that the birth of her dear child
might be concealed, and that retribution might overtake great, crafty
Cronos for his own father and also for the children whom he had
swallowed down. And they readily heard and obeyed their dear daughter,
and told her all that was destined to happen touching Cronos the king
and his stout-hearted son. So they sent her to Lyetus, to the rich land
of Crete, when she was ready to bear great Zeus, the youngest of her
children. Him did vast Earth receive from Rhea in wide Crete to nourish
and to bring up. Thither came Earth carrying him swiftly through the
black night to Lyctus first, and took him in her arms and hid him in a
remote cave beneath the secret places of the holy earth on thick-wooded
Mount Aegeum; but to the mightily ruling son of Heaven, the earlier king
of the gods, she gave a great stone wrapped in swaddling clothes. Then
he took it in his hands and thrust it down into his belly: wretch!
he knew not in his heart that in place of the stone his son was left
behind, unconquered and untroubled, and