[118] μείδησε δὲ Γαἶ ὑΠένερθεν: so Theognis 9 “ἐγέλασσε δὲ γαῖα πελώρη, γήθησεν δὲ βαθὺς πόντος ἁλὸς πολιῆς”. The idea of earth “smiling” is Homeric, cf. Il. 19.362 “ γέλασσε δὲ πᾶσα περὶ χθὼν χαλκοῦ ὑπὸ στεροπῆς”, where, however, the original meaning of “γελᾶν” (= shine) may be predominant. As Leaf (ad loc.) notes, the two ideas pass naturally into one another. In the present passage as often in later Greek, the personification of smiling Nature is clear; cf. h. Dem. 14, P. V. 90, Apoll. Arg. 1.880 “, Δ” 1169. For the joy of Nature at the birth of a god, compare also the Delphic hymn (quoted on 117) “πᾶς δὲ γάθησε πόλος οὐράνιο[ς, ἀννέφελος, ἀγλαός, ν]ηνέμους δ᾽ ἔσχεν αἰθὴρ ἀ[ελλῶν ταχυπετ]εῖς [δρό]μους κτλ.” (of Apollo); paean to Dionysus (B. C. H. 1895 p. 393, Smyth Melic Poets p. 524) “πάντες δ᾽ [ἀστέρες ἀγχ]όρευσαν, πάντες δὲ βροτοὶ χ[άρησαν σαῖς], Βάκχιε, γένναις”. For other exx. see Adami de poet. scaen. p. 232 f.
This text is part of:
The Homeric Hymns, edited, with preface, apparatus criticus, notes, and appendices. Thomas W. Allen. E. E. Sikes. London. Macmillan. 1904.
The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.
This text was converted to electronic form by professional data entry and has been proofread to a medium level of accuracy.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.