Homeric Hymn to Lady Athena 🗡️🦉✨
I begin to sing of Pallas Athena, the glorious goddess,
bright-eyed, inventive, unbending of heart, pure virgin,
saviour of cities, courageous, Tritogeneia.
From his awful head wise Zeus himself bore her
arrayed in warlike arms of flashing gold,
and awe seized all the gods as they gazed.
But Athena sprang quickly from the immortal head
and stood before Zeus who holds the aegis, shaking a sharp spear:
great Olympus began to reel horribly at the might
of the grey-eyed goddess, and earth round about cried fearfully,
and the sea was moved and tossed with dark waves,
while foam burst forth suddenly:
the bright Son of Hyperion stopped his swift-footed horses a long while,
until the maiden Pallas Athena had stripped
the heavenly armor from her immortal shoulders.
Hail to you, daughter of Zeus who holds the aegis!
Art: Pallas Athene by Gustav Klimt (1898) and Pallas Athena by Rembrandt (1657)