I begin my song with the Helikonian Muses whose domain
is Helikon, the great god-haunted mountain;
their soft feet move in the dance that rings
the violet-dark spring and the altar of mighty Zeus.
They bathe their lithe bodies in the water of Permessos or of
Hippokrene or of god-haunted Olmeios.
On Helikon’s peak they join hands in lovely dances
and their pounding feet awaken desire.
From there they set out and, veiled in mist,
glide through the night and raise enchanting voices to exalt
aegis-bearing Zeus and queenly Hera,
the lady of Argos who walks in golden sandals;
gray-eyed Athena, daughter of aegis-bearing Zeus,
and Phoibos Apollon and arrow-shooting Artemis.
They exalt Poseidon, holder and shaker of the earth,
stately Themis and Aphrodite of the fluttering eyelids,
and gold-wreathed Hebe and fair Dione.
And then they turn their song to Eos, Helios, and bright Selene,
to Leto, Iapetos, and sinuous-minded Kronos,
to Gaia, great Okeanos, and black Night,
and to the holy race of the other deathless gods.
It was they who taught Hesiod beautiful song
as he tended his sheep at the foothills of god-haunted Helikon.
Here are the words the daughters of aegis-bearing Zeus,
the Muses of Olympos, first spoke to me.
“Listen, you country bumpkins, you pot-bellied blockheads, we
know how to tell many lies that pass for truth,
and when we wish, we know to tell the truth itself.”
So spoke Zeus’s daughters, masters of word-craft,
and from a laurel in full bloom they plucked a branch,
and gave it to me as a staff, and then breathed into me
divine song, that might spread the fame of past and future,
and commanded me to hymn the race of the deathless gods, but
always begin and end my song with them.