Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

After the Titanomachy Hesiod turns aside to honor Hecate, daughter of the Titan Perses and Asteria. Alone among the older generation she retains—and Zeus confirms—honors in all three realms: earth, heaven, and sea. Whoever propitiates her with due sacrifice finds her a ready helper; whoever neglects her finds no aid. She stands by kings in judgment, by speakers in the assembly, by warriors whom she wills to glorify or withhold glory, by horsemen and by athletes in contest, by fishermen casting nets, and by herdsmen whose flocks she increases or thins at will. She is *kourotrophos*—nurse and increaser of the young—when she chooses. Hesiod insists that Zeus did not strip her of the portion she held among the Titans; rather he gave her still more. She has a share in every sacrifice, and no human enterprise is secure without her goodwill. The passage functions as a theogonic hymn embedded in cosmogony: after the division of the cosmos and before the catalogue of Zeus’s marriages, it elevates a Titaness whom later cult would make mistress of ghosts and magic, but whom Hesiod presents as a universal helper whose power the new order ratified intact.