Boreas, most adverse, whose breath is frost,
Who catches all abroad and does accost
Them; bitter cold you bring upon the air,
And woodland creatures you won’t deign to spare.
Whoe’er would face you meets a biting foe,
Who ceases not to hinder and to blow.
But yet, like all the gods, your harshest face
Through trials strengthens all the human race.
What’s more you break the summer’s burning heat,
And send the former warmth into retreat,
And thus, auspicious, grant a sweet respite,
On ether taking as you will your flight.
Month: March 2022
Hephaistos II
Hephaistos, god investing nature’s frame
With energies residing in the flame,
And fashioning with Aphrodite’s aid
Forms fit for use, on gods and men arrayed;
You fitted Eros with his deadly darts,
Zeus’ mighty aegis was forged by your arts,
You built the chariot driven by the Sun,
And Venus’ girdle by your hands was spun.
The sandals Hermes wears upon his feet,
The arms with which Achilles was replete,
By cunning craft, you made within the fire.
Automatons that work and never tire
You placed within Olympus. All whose hands
Are masterful both here, and in foreign lands,
These have their gifts from you; their minds are dressed
With needfulness, by which men’s souls are blest.
Hermes II
Hermes, cunning, the trickster god supreme,
Making suppositions, serpentine, to seem
As truth, and traveling to the underworld,
The knowledge cloaked in darkness is unfurled.
You pierce illusions, friend to man, and guide
To esoteric secrets, which you hide
From souls unworthy of the sacred arts,
But showering guile on deserving hearts.
By this are riches, seen and unseen, won.
Your skill with words sees stories charming spun.
Your sandals speeding through the Aether bright,
To Earth descending from Olympus’ height,
You herald all that Zeus would bid you say,
But many secrets still you store away.
Through traps guide all suppliants who embark
Into the underworld: steer them through the dark.
Songs of the Gods 