Page:Writings of Henry David Thoreau (1906) v5.djvu/387

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That not by power nor by strength

Would it be necessary, but by craft the victors should prevail.

Such I in words expounding,

They deigned not to regard at all.

The best course, therefore, of those occurring then

Appeared to be, taking my mother to me,

Of my own accord to side with Zeus glad to receive me;

And by my counsels Tartarus' black-pitted

Depths conceals the ancient Kronos,

With his allies. In such things by me

The tyrant of the gods having been helped,

With base rewards like these repays me;

For there is somehow in kingship

This disease, not to trust its friends.

What then you ask, for what cause

He afflicts me, this will I now explain.

As soon as on his father's throne

He sat, he straightway to the gods distributes honors,

Some to one and to another some, and arranged

The government; but of unhappy mortals account

Had none; but blotting out the race

Entire, wished to create another new.

And these things none opposed but I,

But I adventured; I rescued mortals

From going destroyed to Hades.

Therefore, indeed, with such afflictions am I bent,

To suffer grievous, and piteous to behold,

And, holding mortals up to pity, myself am not

Thought worthy to obtain it; but without pity

Am I thus corrected, a spectacle inglorious to Zeus.