Lane Cervantes Pre Quiz 2 1 Hesiod Presents the Muses as the daughters of Zeus They seem to perform the function of dancing as well as singing and telling of the greatness of all the gods They bring Zeus great pleasure with their songs Hesiod also tells of the birth of the nine muses Zeus laid with Mnemosyne for nine nights resulting in nine pregnancies and nine daughters which were of course the muses The names of the muses are Cleo Euterpe Thaleia Melpomene Terpsichore Erato Polyhymnia Urania and Calliope Hesiod explains that Calliope is in the highest position of authority amongst the muses 2 Uranus Sky and Earth give birth to three of what Hesiod calls 100 Handeds Uranus hate these children because they are so terrible and attempts to hide them away He tries to store them in a secret place in Earth When Earth learns of this Kronos is told to castrate Uranus And Kronos completes this deed Following the castration of Uranus his genitals are cast into the sea where Aphrodite the goddess of love is born out of a white foam Aphros 3 Styx is described as the deathless daughter of Ocean Styx gave birth to Rivalry Nike Victory Power Kratos and Force Bia Styx and all of her children resided in the house of Zeus and would later become primary figures who would aid Zeus in his battle against the Titans 4 Hesiod describes the birth of Athena beginning with Zeus and his wife Metis Zeus impregnates Metis And when she is about to bring about the birth of Athena Zeus deceives Metis and manages to put Athena in his own belly so that he could later give birth to her Zeus then gives birth to Athena from his own head 5 I think it makes sense that Hesiod has Aphrodite born from the genitals of Uranus and Athen born from the head of Zeus This makes sense as symbolic representations of the function of each of the goddesses Aphrodite was the goddess of love and thus she is born from the genitals of a god This may serve as a symbol of fertility and sexuality Athena was a goddess of wisdom and thus she was born of the head of a god This may serve as a symbol of intelligence and reason