Muses
The dominant expressive mode in the text is metaphor. Figurative language abounds to the point of being the major point of construction in nearly every sentence. The muse which speaks loudest is that of figurative imagery.
"Unwearying flows the sweet sound from their lips, and the house of their father Zeus the loud-thunderer is glad at the lily-like voice of the goddesses as it spread abroad, and the peaks of snowy Olympus resound, and the homes of the immortals."
Wrath of Zeus
Zeus is a typical leader. Proud and arrogant when he is winning. Petty and petulant when crossed. Some might even say that his smallness of character makes his qualified to become President.
"Thus spoke Zeus who knows imperishable counsels, angered.
From this time, always mindful of his wrath,
he would not give the strength of weariless fire
to the ash trees for mortal men who dwell on earth."
The Hive
Pandora—she of the infamous box—is another work of petty vengeance enacted by Zeus. From here is descended the race of women. Metaphor of an extensive breed compares women and men to the bee hierarchy.
"As when, in hives overhung from above, bees
feed drones, conspirators in evil deeds,
all day until the setting sun,
they busy themselves and pack white honeycombs,
while the drones, staying within the sheltered nest,
scrape into their stomachs the fruits of another's weariness,
thus women, conspirators of grievous deeds"
Cyclops
The Cyclops (or Cyclopes or Kyklopes, depending on the version) are not quite gods. They do come close. In fact, they come much closer than most other mythic creatures, but they are lacking one particular godly attribute, it seems:
"in all else they were like the gods, but one eye only was set in the midst of their fore-heads."
Typhoeus
Gaia (or Earth) produces a final son with oddly unexpected assistance of Aphrodite as an expression of love for the underworld of Tartarus. As might be expected, the offspring of this union is not exactly an ice cream cone filled with sweet delights:
“And there were voices in all his dreadful heads which uttered every kind of sound unspeakable…the noise of a bull bellowing aloud in proud ungovernable fury; and at another, the sound of a lion, relentless of heart; and at another, sounds like whelps, wonderful to hear; and again, at another, he would hiss, so that the high mountains re-echoed.”
