The Hand That Rocks the Cradle

Today's episode takes a unique turn as we join Odysseus in his journey into the underworld in Book XI in the Odyssey.

Excerpts from The Odyssey taken from Robert Fagels translation.

Artwork: Persopine, Gabrielle Dante Rosetti, Tate Gallery, London.

Love that spends itself over and over again. Kathleen Norris

How foolish to think you can tell your children about yourself before they’re at least fifty. To ask to be seen by them as a person and not as a function. —Leda, The Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante, translated by Ann Goldstein (2008)

But behind all your stories is your mother’s story, for hers is where yours begins. Mitch Albom, For one More Day

“Perhaps it takes courage to raise children.” John Steinbeck, East of Eden

I am sure that if the mothers of various nations could meet, there would be no more wars. EM. Forster, Howards End.

Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to ‘jump at de sun.’ We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground. — Zora Neale Hurston, A Biography of the Spirit

Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother’s love is not.

— James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow.

— Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

William Ross Wallace (1819-1881)

THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE IS

    THE HAND THAT RULES THE WORLD.

      BLESSINGS on the hand of women!

        Angels guard its strength and grace.

      In the palace, cottage, hovel,

          Oh, no matter where the place;

      Would that never storms assailed it,

          Rainbows ever gently curled,

      For the hand that rocks the cradle

          Is the hand that rules the world.

      Infancy's the tender fountain,

          Power may with beauty flow,

      Mothers first to guide the streamlets,

          From them souls unresting grow—

      Grow on for the good or evil,

          Sunshine streamed or evil hurled,

      For the hand that rocks the cradle

          Is the hand that rules the world.

      Woman, how divine your mission,

          Here upon our natal sod;

      Keep—oh, keep the young heart open

          Always to the breath of God!

      All true trophies of the ages

          Are from mother-love impearled,

      For the hand that rocks the cradle

          Is the hand that rules the world.

      Blessings on the hand of women!

          Fathers, sons, and daughters cry,

      And the sacred song is mingled

          With the worship in the sky—

      Mingles where no tempest darkens,

          Rainbows evermore are hurled;

      For the hand that rocks the cradle

          Is the hand that rules the world.

Northrop, H.D. Beautiful Gems of Thought and Sentiment. Boston, MA: The Colins-Patten Co., 1890.