Prayer to Eileithyia

The opening of the seventh Nemean, and the loftiest address to Eileithyia in this corpus — beside it stand a comic ruse in Aristophanes (aristophanes-eileithyia-001) and an order for the next child in Callimachus (callimachus-eileithyia-001).

Πάρεδρε Μοιρᾶν βαθυφρόνων — enthroned beside the deep-thinking Fates. Eileithyia sits next to the Moirai, and this is exact: the moment of birth is the very moment at which a portion is assigned. Delivery and destiny are placed on one bench, and midwifery turns out to be part of the distribution of fate.

The argument is then made by negation: without you we should have seen "neither the light nor the black kindly night". The whole of human life is named in two words — light and darkness, that is, simply days. To exist is to alternate day and night, and nothing is added to that.

Τεὰν ἀδελφεὰν … Ἥβαν — your sister, bright-limbed Hebe. Birth and Youth are sisters, both daughters of Hera; one hands over to the other. To be born and to grow up are, by Greek reckoning, different deities, and the passage between them must be allotted separately.