1.1.0The Titans and the Twelve Great Olympians

CHAPTER I The Gods

Strange clouded fragments of an ancient glory,

[streɪndʒ]不熟悉的[ˈklaʊdɪd] 使模糊[fræɡˈments] 碎片[ˈeɪnʃənt] [ˈɡlɔːri]

 Late lingerers of the company divine,

[dɪˈvaɪn] 神的

Theybreathe of that far world wherefrom they come,

Losthalls of heaven and Olympian air.

[hɔːlz]门厅 [əˈlɪmpiən] 超凡的威严的

THE Greeks did not believe that the godscreated the universe. It was the other way about: the universe created thegods. Before there were gods heaven and earth had been formed. They were thefirst parents. The Titans were their children, and the gods were their grandchildren. [ˈgræntʃɪldrən]

THE TITANS AND THE TWELVE GREAT OLYMPIANS

The Titans, often called the Elder Gods,were for untold ages supreme in theuniverse.

[suːˈpriːm] 至高无上的

They were of enormous size and of incrediblestrength. There were many of them,

[ɪˈnɔːməs] [ɪnˈkredəbl] [streŋθ]

 butonly a few appear in the stories of mythology.[mɪˈθɒlədʒi]

The most important was CRONUS, in LatinSATURN. He ruled over the other Titans until his son Zeus dethroned him and seized the power for himself. [ˌdiːˈθrəʊnd] 废黜 [siːzd] 夺

The Romans said that when Jupiter, theirname for Zeus, ascended the throne, [əˈsendɪd] 上升Saturn fled to [fled tu] 逃往Italy andbrought in the Golden Age, a time of perfect peace and happiness, which lastedas long as he reigned. [reɪnd] 统治

The other notable Titans were OCEAN, 名人the river that wassupposed to encircle [ɪnˈsɜːkl] 环绕the earth;his wife TETHYS;

HYPERION, the father of the sun, the moon,and the dawn;

 MNEMOSYNE, which means Memory; THEMIS, usuallytranslated by Justice;

and IAPETUS, important because of his sons,ATLAS, who bore [bɔː(r) ] 承受the worldon his shoulders [ˈʃəʊldəz], and PROMETHEUS, who was the savior of mankind. ['seɪvjə(r)] 救世主

These alone among the older gods were notbanished with the coming of Zeus, but they took a lower place.

The twelve great Olympians were supremeamong the gods who succeeded to the Titans. They were called the Olympiansbecause Olympus [əʊˈlɪmpəs] wastheir home.

What Olympus was, however, is not easy tosay. There is no doubt that at first it was held to be a mountain [ˈmaʊntən] top, and generally identified [aɪˈdentɪfaɪd] with Greece’s highest mountain, Mt.Olympus in Thessaly, in the northeast of Greece.

 Buteven in the earliest Greek poem [ˈpəʊɪm]the Iliad, this idea is beginning to give way to the idea of an Olympus in some mysterious [mɪˈstɪəriəs] 神秘的region [ˈriːdʒən]farabove all the mountains of the earth. In one passage of the Iliad Zeus talks tothe gods from “the topmost peak [piːk]顶峰of many-ridged [rɪdʒd ]有隆凸线条的Olympus,”clearly a mountain. But only a little further on he says that if he willed hecould hang earth and sea from a pinnacle [ˈpɪnəkl] 顶峰of Olympus, clearly no longer a mountain. Even so, it is not heaven.Homer makes Poseidon say that he rules the sea, Hades the dead, Zeus theheavens, but Olympus is common to all three.

Olympus Wherever it was, the entrance [ɪnˈtrɑːns] to itwas a great gate of clouds kept by the Seasons. Within were the gods’ dwellings [ˈdwɛlɪŋz] 住所, wherethey lived and slept and feasted [ˈfiːstɪd] 尽情享用on ambrosia [æmˈbrəʊziə] 神肴and nectar [ˈnektə(r)] 花蜜andlistened to Apollo’s lyre [ˈlaɪə(r)] 里尔琴.

It was an abode [əˈbəʊd] 住所of perfect blessedness. No wind, Homer says, ever shakes摇动theuntroubled无忧无虑的peace of Olympus; no rain ever falls there or snow; but thecloudless firmament [ˈfɜːməmənt] 苍穹stretches[ˈstretʃɪz] 撑大 around iton all sides and the white glory of sunshine is diffused [dɪˈfjuːzd] 漫射upon its walls.

The twelve Olympians made up a divinefamily:

 (1)ZEUS (JUPITER), the chief; his two brothers next,

(2) POSEIDON (NEPTUNE), and

(3) HADES, also called PLUTO;

(4) HESTIA (VESTA), their sister;

(5) HERA (JUNO), Zeus’s wife, and

 (6)ARES (MARS), their son; Zeus’s children:

(7) ATHENA (MINERVA),

 (8)APOLLO,

(9) APHRODITE (VENUS),

(10) HERMES (MERCURY), and

 (11)ARTEMIS (DIANA); and Hera’s son

 (12)HEPHAESTUS (VULCAN), sometimes said to be the son of Zeus too.