the
 Muses of Olympus , daughters
 of Zeus who holds the aegis: “Shepherds of the wilderness,
 wretched things of shame, mere bellies, we know how to speak many
 false things as though they were true; but we know, when we will, to
 utter true things.”
 

 
 So said the ready-voiced daughters of great Zeus, and they plucked and
 gave me a rod, a shoot of
 sturdy laurel, a marvellous thing, and breathed into me a divine voice
 to celebrate things that shall be and things that were aforetime; and
 they bade me sing of the race of the blessed gods that are eternally,
 but ever to sing of themselves both first and last. But why all this about oak or
 stone? A proverbial saying
 meaning, “why enlarge on irrelevant topics?” 
 Come you, let us begin with the Muses who gladden the great spirit of
 their father Zeus in Olympus 
 with their songs, telling of things that are and that shall be and
 that were aforetime with consenting voice. 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 spreads abroad, and the peaks
 of snowy Olympus resound, and
 the homes of the immortals. And they, uttering their immortal voice,
 celebrate in song first of all the revered race of the gods from the beginning, those whom Earth
 and wide Heaven begot, and the gods sprung of these, givers of good
 things. Then next, the goddesses sing of Zeus, the father of gods and
 men, as they begin and end their strain, how much he is the most
 excellent among the gods and supreme in power.