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Zeus
Kronos, one of the antagonists of the poem, is the son of Heaven and Earth. He is a central player in the myths of succession detailed in the Theogony, as he overthrows his own father, Heaven, and then is subsequently overthrown by his son, Zeus. Early in the poem, when Heaven traps Earth and her children inside a cave in order to prevent them from usurping his power, Kronos and Earth conspire to ambush and defeat him. While Earth proposes to all of her children that they overthrow him together, only Kronos is courageous enough to take her up on the offer. With Earth’s help, Kronos ambushes Heaven and castrates him with a sickle made of adamant, both physically and symbolically casting him from power. Kronos subsequently takes his father’s place as king of the gods, but continues his father’s attitude of healthy skepticism toward one’s children: Kronos swallows all of his children by Rhea after they are born, so that none of them might one day contest his power. Only his son Zeus, hidden away by Rhea through trickery, is able to escape this fate. Zeus later overthrows Kronos and, after a prolonged conflict, banishes him to Tartarus along with the rest of his allies.
Kronos Quotes in Theogony
The Theogony quotes below are all either spoken by Kronos or refer to Kronos. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Theogony Quotes
From the Muses of Helicon let us begin our singing, that haunt Helicon's great and holy mountain, and dance on their soft feet round the violet-dark spring and the altar of the mighty son of Kronos.
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Beginning the poem with a traditional invocation to the Muses, Hesiod asks that they bless him as a poet and allow him to compose a skillful work of art. In doing so, he situates the Muses as the daughters of Zeus, emphasizing the ways in which their genealogy gives them their power and significance, along with the ability to bestow artistic skill upon humans. Similarly, Hesiod describes Zeus in relation to his own father, Kronos, foreshadowing the events that will take place later in the poem and emphasizing the importance of genealogy from the outset. Even though he is the Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem a
For all those that were born of Earth and Heaven were the most fearsome of children, and their own father loathed them from the beginning. As soon as each of them was born, he hid them all away in a cavern of Earth, and would not let them into the light; and he took pleasure in the wicked work, did Heaven, while the huge Earth was tight-pressed inside, and groaned.
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Earth and Heaven, two of the initial deities of the poem, give birth to a succession of gods and goddesses, “fearsome children,” known as the Titans. From the beginning, Heaven is suspicious of these children, and, fearing that they pose a threat to his power and authority, locks them and their mother in a cave. Heaven is immediately depicted as an antagonist to be overthrown, taking “pleasure in wicked work” and exacting violence upon Earth, who is uncomfortably contained inside the cave, and his children, who are similarly imprisoned. This is an almost unnatural subversion of the mandate established early Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum vol
Great Heaven came, bringing on the night, and, desirous of love, he spread himself over Earth, stretched out in every direction. His son reached out from the ambush with his left hand; with his right he took the huge sickle with its long row of sharp teeth and quickly cut off his father's genitals, and flung them behind him to fly where they might.
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In this quote, Kronos ambushes, castrates, and ultimately defeats his father, Heaven. But the violence isn’t only one-sided. Hesiod uses a polite euphemism, “desirous of love,” to describe Heaven’s rape of Earth against her control or wishes, illustrating the sometimes shockingly casual attitude of the poem toward sexual violence. While on a human level the poem describes an act of violence, at the same time it illustrates Heaven “stretched out in every direction” against Earth, imitating the relationship between the planet and the night sky. In this way, the identity of the natural and the divine is blurred, and Heaven Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque o
For he learned from Earth and starry Heaven that it was fated for him to be defeated by his own child, powerful though he was, through the designs of great Zeus. So he kept no blind man's watch, but observed and swallowed his children.
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Like his father before him, Kronos is fearful and suspicious of his children, lest they overtake take him and usurp his power. Although he knows that his downfall has already been foretold, he does everything in his power to try to escape his fate. Unlike Kronos, however, he does more than simply imprison his children. Instead, he swallows them back into himself, effectively negating their very births. In doing so, he is able to pause the cycle of succession, essentially halting the generative process in its tracks so that he can be king forever, without having to worry about any Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dol
Then she wrapped a large stone in babycloth and delivered it to the son of Heaven, the great lord, king of the Former Gods. Seizing it in his hands, he put it away in his belly, the brute, not realizing that thereafter not a stone but his son remained, secure and invincible, who before long was to defeat him by physical strength and drive him from his high station, himself to be king among the immortals.
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Despite his best efforts, here Kronos is ultimately unable to halt the cycle of succession forever, and Rhea tricks him into swallowing a stone rather than his son, Zeus. Hesiod depicts this deception with an air of inevitability: Kronos is the king of the “Former Gods,” and Zeus is “secure and invincible.” While Kronos is successful in gaining power from Heaven, he cannot hold on to it forever, and must eventually cede it to his own son. Kronos is also depicted in an unflattering light, described as “the brute” who would put a child “in his belly” without a second Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Un
The Olympian Lightner called all the immortal gods to long Olympus, and said that whoever of the gods would fight the Titans with him, he would not smite any of them down from his privileges, but each one would keep the honour he had had before among the immortal gods. And he said that whoever was unhonoured by Kronos and unprivileged, he would set him in the path of honour and privileges, as is right and proper.
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Here Zeus exhorts the other gods to join him in the struggle against the Titans in order to ensure victory over Kronos. Unlike his father and his grandfather before him, Zeus does not take on the struggle of succession alone; instead, he enlists the help of others, including both Olympian and Titan gods in his fight, as long as they’re willing to respect his rule. Zeus is the first instance in the poem of this sort of generous, consensus-based leadership, one in which allies are rewarded for their service with “honour and privileges, as is right and proper.” Zeus also Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus volupta
Great Olympus quaked under the immortal feet of the lord as he went forth, and the earth groaned beneath him. A conflagration held the violet-dark sea in its grip, both from the thunder and lightning and from the fire of the monster, from the tornado winds and the flaming bolt. All the land was seething, and sky, and sea; long waves raged to and fro about the headlands from the onrush of the immortals, and an uncontrollable quaking arose. Hades was trembling, lord of the dead below, and so were the Titans down in Tartarus with Kronos in their midst, at the incessant clamour and the fearful fighting.
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After he has cast down the Titans and banished them to Tartarus, Zeus still has to face continued threats to his power. One of the most potent threats comes in the form of Typhoeus, the son of Earth and Tartarus. Like Zeus, Typhoeus is extremely powerful, and is poised to grow even more so as he grows up. Zeus, however, sees in Typhoeus his potential downfall, and jumps at the chance to destroy Typhoeus before he can grow too powerful. While Zeus used compromise and consensus to topple Kronos from power, his victory over Typhoeus is one of pure, brute Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimu
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Kronos Character Timeline in Theogony
The timeline below shows where the character Kronos appears in Theogony. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Theogony
Earth bears Heaven, and together they have many children, including Kronos, Rhea, and Kottos, Briareos, and Gyges From the start, Heaven is wary of his children...
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...entreats her children to conspire with her against him and set up an ambush. Only Kronos is courageous enough to take Earth up on her offer, vowing to exact revenge upon...
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Kronos, along with his mother, Earth, sets up an ambush for the next time Heaven comes...
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Rhea and Kronos have many children but, fearing the same fate as his father, Heaven, Kronos swallows them...
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When Zeus matures, he begins to pose a significant threat to his father, Kronos. He even tricks Kronos into spitting back up the children—Zeus’ siblings—that he has swallowed, thereby...
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Zeus and the other Olympian gods wage war against Kronos and the other Titans for control of the divine realm. Zeus enlists the aid of...
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