Cleanthes' Hymn to Zeus
Most majestic of immortals, many-titled, ever omnipotent Zeus, prime
mover of nature, who with your law steer all things, hail to you. For
it is proper for any mortal to address you: we are your offspring, and
alone of all mortal creatures which are alive and tread the earth we
bear a likeness to god. Therefore I shall hymn you and sing for ever
of your might. All this cosmos, as it spins around the earth, obeys
you, whichever way you lead, and willingly submits to your sway. Such
is the double-edged fiery ever-living thunderbolt which you hold at
the ready in your unvanquished hands. For under its strokes all the
works of nature are accomplished. With it you direct the universal
reason which runs through all things and intermingles with the lights
of heaven both great and small . . . No deed is done on earth, god,
without your offices, nor in the divine ethereal vault of heaven, nor
at sea, save what bad men do in their folly. But you know how to make
things crooked straight and to order things disorderly. You love
things unloved For you have so welded into one all things good and
bad that they all share in a single everlasting reason. It is shunned
and neglected by the bad among mortal men, the wretched, who ever
yearn for the possession of goods yet neither see nor hear god's
universal law, by obeying which they could lead a good life in
partnership with intelligence. Instead, devoid of intelligence, they
rush into this evil or that, some in their belligerent quest for fame,
others with an unbridled bent for acquisition, others for leisure and
the pleasurable acts of the body . . . |
. Cambridge,
England: Cambridge University Press.
