Athena

My temples throb, my pulses boil
I'm sick of Song, and Ode, and Ballad—
So, Thyrsis, take the Midnight Oil
And pour it on a lobster salad.

My brain is dull, my sight is foul,
I cannot write a verse, or read—
Then, Pallas, take away thine Owl,
And let us have a Lark instead.

Thomas Hood

When Odysseus encounters the disguised Athena soon after he finally arrives on Ithaca,
he tells her a long, rambling lie about who he is and how he came to be where he is. In
return, the goddess smiles in amusement and says, “You liar, we two are just alike.”
What a remarkable statement for this virgin patron of wisdom and the arts.

Literature

Aliesan, Jody. "Arachne." InLeaving theBough: 50 A merican Poets of t he 80s. Ed. Roger
Gaess. New York: International, 1982. 27-28

Arnold, Matthew. "Palladium." New Poems. London: Macmillan, 1867.

Bertschi, Jon S. "Some Further Myth Takes: Athena Broods in Her Chamber." Classical
Outlook(Spring 1996) 111. [A limerick.]

Boland, Eavan. “Athene’s Song.” Contemporary Irish Poetry: An Anthology. Ed.
Anthony Bradley. Berkeley: U of California P, 1980. 344-45.

Bottrall, Ronald. "Athenian Owls." Against a Setting Sun. London: Allison & Busby,
1984.

Byron, George Gordon, Lord. "The Curse of Minerva." London, 1811. [Against the
removal of the Parthenon marbles.]

Chapman, George. “Al the Hymnes of Homer: To Pallas.” Chapman’s Homer. Vol. 2.
The Odyssey and the Lesser Homerica. Ed. Allardyce Nicoll. 2nded. London:
Routledge, 1967. 587, 596. [Two different poems of identical name.]

Clampitt, Amy. "Athena." Archaic Figure. New York: Knopf, 1987. 27.

Davie, Donald. "The Owl Minerva." Collected Poems 1950-1970. New York: Oxford,
1972. 16.

De Vere Aubrey. "The Acropolis of Athens." Poetical Works. London: Kegan Paul,
Trench, 1884.

Fowler, Gene. "Athena." Fires. Berkeley: Thorp Springs, 1971. [26-27.]

Freeman, Edward Augustus. "Poseidon and Athena." Poems, Legendary and Historical.
London: Longman, 1850.

Gustafson, Ralph. Ámong the Elgin Marbles." Ixion's Wheel. Toronto: McClelland and
Stewart, 1969. 99.

H. D. "Helios and Athene." Iowa Review12 (Spring/Summer 1981). [Prose epigrams,
1920.]

---. "Pallas." Collected Poems. New York: Boni & Liveright, 1925.

---. "Triplex." Red Roses for Bronze. London: Chatto & Windus, 1931. [Athena, Artemis,
Aphrodite.]

Herrick, Robert. "A Vow to Minerva." Hesperides.London: Williams & Eglesfield,
1648.

Hood, Thomas. "To Minerva, from the Greek." Selected Poems of Thomas Hood. Ed.
John Clubbe. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1970.

Lowell, James Russell. "Invita Minerva." Under the Willows and Other Poems. Boston:
Fields, Osgood, 1868.

Merwin, W. S. "Memory." The Miner's Pale Children. New York: Atheneum, 1970.

Moore, T. Sturge. "Pallas and the Centaur." Pageant I.1896. [After Botticelli's painting.]

Pound, Ezra. Canto 79. The Pisan Cantos. New York: New Directions, 1948.

Ruskin, John.TheQueenof the A r, B einga Studyofthe Greek Myths of Cloudand Storm.
New York: William L. Allison, [1869].

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. "Homer's Hymn to Minerva." Poetical Works. [1818, a translation
of the second Homeric Hymn to Athena.]

Swift, Jonathan. "Cadenus and Vanessa." Works.Dublin: Faulkner, 1735. [Contest
between Minerva and Venus.]

---."The Storm; Minerva's Petition." Poems on Several Occasions. London: J. Bromage,
1749.

Wilde, Oscar. "Charmides." Poems. London: Bogue, 1881.

Wordsworth, William. "Owl of Athena." Evening Voluntaries7.26-34. In Poetical
Works.London: Moxon, 1835.

Yeats, William Butler. "A Thought from Propertius. "Selected Poems and Two Plays of
William Butler Yeats. Ed. M. L. Rosenthal. New York: Collier, 1962. 65.

---. "Colonus' Praise" stanza 2. The Tower. London: Macmillan,1928.

---. "Michael Robartes and the Dancer." Michael Robartes and the Dancer.Churchtown,
Dundrum: Cuala, 1920.

---. Two Songs from a Play." The Tower. London: Macmillan, 1928.

Children's Books

Espeland, Pamela. The Story of Arachne.Illus. Susan Kennedy. Minneapolis: Carolrhoda
Books, 1980. [32p.]

Gates, Doris. The Warrior Goddess: Athena. Illus. Don Bolognese. New York: Viking,
[1972]. 121p.

Criticism

Clay, Jenny Strauss.The W rathofAthena:Godsand Meninthe Odyssey.Princeton:
Princeton UP, 1983.

Loraux, Nicole. The Children of Athena: Athenian Ideas about Citizenship and the
Division between the Sexes. Trans Caroline Levine. Foreword Froma I Zeitlin.
1994. 288p.

Eyer, Shawn. Ancient Greek Hymns to Athena, 1996. Available:
globaltown.com/shawn/athena.html>