The New Gospel

… tell me all this, you Muses who have your homes on Olympos

from the beginning, and tell who was first to come forth from among them.

First of all there came Chaos and after him came

Gaia of the broad breast, to be the unshakable foundation

of all the immortals who keep the crests of snowy Olympos,

and Tartarus the foggy in the pit of the wide-wayed earth,

and Eros, who is love, handsomest among all the immortals,

who breaks the limbs’ strength, who in all gods, in all human beings

overpowers the intelligence in the breast, for all their shrewd planning.

… but blessed is the one whom the Muses 

love, for the voice of his mouth runs and is sweet, and even

when a man has sorrow fresh in the troublement of his spirit

and is struck to wonder over the grief in his heart, the singer,

the servant of the Muses singing the glories of ancient

men, and the blessed gods who have their homes on Olympos,

he no longer remembers sorrow, for the gifts of the goddesses

soon turn his thoughts elsewhere.