As far as earth is from sky
so far is shadowy Tartarus from the earth.
Nine nights and days a bronze anvil could fall
from heaven striking earth on the tenth;
so also, nine nights and days could an anvil fall
from earth to Tartarus and strike on the tenth.
Around it runs a bronze fence, and night
is strung in a triple strands as around a neck,
while above hang earth’s roots and the barren sea.
There, the Titan gods under misty darkness
are hidden by the will of Zeus, gatherer of clouds,
in a damp place at the edges of the huge earth.
They cannot leave. A gate, erected by Poseidon,
of bronze, blocks it and a wall surrounds it.
There, Gyes, Cottus, and great hearted Obriareos
live, trusted wardens of Zeus Aegis-holder.
There, dark earth and murky Tartarus,
the barren sea, and starry heavens,
all arrayed, have their sources and their limits,
loathsome, damp, hated even by the gods.
There, a great chasm—one would never reach an end
on any side for a year if first one came within the gates,
but would be buffeted this way and that by gust
after powerful gust. Terrible even to the deathless gods,
this wonder. There, stands the fearful house
of dark night wrapped in stormy clouds.
There, standing before it the son of Iapetus bears
the wide heavens on his head and in his tireless hands,
unmoving, there, where night and day greet each other
as they move near the great bronze gate.
As one goes through the door, the other goes down
into the house, for the house never holds both within,
but always one is outside the house, passing
over the earth, while the other remains
within waiting for her journey to begin.
The one brings all-seeing light to earth,
while the other holds sleep and death in her arms,
noxious night, shrouded in cloud.
There, the children of dark night have their houses
Sleep and Death, fearsome gods. Never does
shining Helios look down on them with his beams,
neither as he rises into the sky nor as he descends.
The first of the two passes peacefully over earth
and the wide sea’s swells, and is sweet and honeylike
to people, but the latter has a heart of iron,
and a spirit hard as bronze. Whoever of men he first
seizes, he holds. He is hateful even to immortal gods.
There, to the front, stands the echoing home
of the underworld gods strong Hades and the awe-inspiring
Persephone, a terrible dog guards the house in front,
pitiless, he has a nasty trick, he wags his tail
and droops his ears for those going in,
but allows none to come back out again.
He keeps watch and devours whoever
he catches attempting to leave.
There, lives the goddess, hated by the immortals,
dread Styx, oldest daughter of backflowing Ocean:
She lives apart from the gods in a glorious house
with a vaulted roof of rock, supported all around
to the heavens by silver pillars. Rarely does
the daughter of Thaumas, swift-footed Iris,
come to her with a message over the sea’s wide back
But when strife and quarrels arise among the deathless ones,
and when any who live in the house of Olympus swears,
Zeus sends Iris to bring the great oath of the gods
from afar, the golden jar containing the famous
cold water that pours down from a towering rock.
Far under the wide-pathed earth
a sacred stream flows through the black night,
a tributary of Ocean, sharing ten percent of his waters
with her: with nine silver swirling streams he wraps
around the earth and the wide-backed sea
then falls back into the salty main, but the tenth
flows from a rock, miserable to the gods.
For whoever has sworn falsely and pours the water
of the immortals, of those who have the
peaks of snow-covered Olympus,
he must lie breathless until a year has passed,
nor come near to taste ambrosia or nectar,
but instead lie without breath, without voice
splayed on a bed, an evil trance overcoming him,
and, after finishing a long year in this sickness,
another, more difficult task follows the first.
For nine years he is deprived of the eternal gods,
nor ever participates in their councils or feasts,
the whole nine years, but in the tenth he joins
again the assembly of immortals who hold Olympus.
As such an oath-binder then, did the gods appoint
the imperishable and ancient waters of Styx
which flows through such a rugged place.
There, the dark earth and murky Tartarus
the fruitless sea and the starry heavens,
all in order, have their springs and limits,
dreadful and damp which even the gods hate.
There, are shining gates of bronze and a threshold
unmovable, having continuous roots,
grown of itself, and beyond, away from all the gods,
the Titans live, beyond gloomy chaos,
but the allies of famed, thundering Zeus
live in houses at the Ocean’s foundation
Cottus and Gyres, but Briareos being noble
the surf-pounding, earthshaker made him his
son-in-law giving him Cymopolea, his daughter to wed