The Grey Flint Sickle

In the Theogony, Gaia, groaning inside herself, makes grey flint and shapes a great jagged sickle, then puts the plan to her children. They are all seized with fear and none will speak — except the youngest, Kronos, who says he will do it, because he does not respect his father either. The ambush is domestic and specific: Ouranos comes at nightfall, spreading himself over Earth, and Kronos, hidden, reaches out with his left hand, takes the sickle in his right, and cuts. The poem notes the left hand. From the blood that falls come the Furies, the Giants and the ash-tree nymphs; from what falls in the sea, Aphrodite.