74 HESIOD.

Unnerves the limbs, dissolves the wiser breast By reason steeled, and quells the very soul." E. 171-175. At first Chaos spontaneously produces Erebus and Night, the latter of whom gives birth to Ether and Day; whilst Earth creates in turn the heaven, the mountains, and the sea, the cosmogony so far corre- sponding generally with the Mosaic. But at this point Eros or Love begins to work. The union of Earth with Heaven results in the birth of Oceanus and the Titans, the Cyclopes, and the hundred- handed giants. The sire of so numerous a progeny, and first ruler of creation, Uranus, conceiving that his sovereignty is imperilled by his offspring, resorts to the expedient of relodging each child, as soon as it is born, within the bowels of its mother, Earth. Groan- ing under such a burden, she arms her youngest and wiliest son, Cronus, with a sickle of her own product, iron, and hides him in an ambush with a view to his mutilating his sire. The conspiracy is justified on the principle of retributive justice. Uranus is disabled and dethroned, and, by a not very clear nor present- able legend, the foam -born goddess Aphrodite is fabled to have sprung from his mutilation. Here is the poet's account of her rise out of the sea : " So severing with keen steel The sacred spoils, he from the continent Amid the many surges of the sea Hurled them. Full long they drifted o'er the deeps, Till now swift-circling a white foam arose From that immortal substance, and a nymph