The droves of kine and wide herds of goats and flocks of fleecy sheep, if she will, she increases from a few, or makes many to be less. So, then, albeit her mother's only child,Van Lennep explains that Hecate, having no brothers to support her claim, might have been slighted.she is honored amongst all the deathless gods.And the son of Cronos made her a nurse of the young who after that day saw with their eyes the light of all-seeing Dawn. So from the beginning she is a nurse of the young, and these are her honors. But Rhea was subject in love to Cronos and bore splendid children, Hestia,The goddess of thehearth(the RomanVesta), and so of the house. Cp.Homeric Hymnsv. 22 ff.; XXIX. 1 ff.Demeter, and gold-shod Heraand strong Hades, pitiless in heart, who dwells under the earth, and the loud-crashing Earth-Shaker, and wise Zeus, father of gods and men, by whose thunder the wide earth is shaken. These great Cronos swallowed as eachcame forth from the womb to his mother's knees with this intent, that no other of the proud sons of Heaven should hold the kingly office amongst the deathless gods. For he learned from Earth and starry Heaven that he was destined to be overcome by his own son,strong though he was, through the contriving of great Zeus.The variant reading “of his father” (sc.Heaven) rests on inferior MS. authority and is probably an alteration due to the difficulty stated by a Scholiast: “How could Zeus, being not yet begotten, plot against his father?” The phrase is, however, part of the prophecy. The whole line may well be spurious, and is rejected by Heyne, Wolf, Gaisford and Guyet.Therefore he kept no blind outlook, but watched and swallowed down his children: and unceasing grief seized Rhea. But when she was about to bear Zeus, the father of gods and men,