Zeus and Hades Dispute the Soul of Man
Upon Olympus’ storm-crowned throne,
Zeus spoke in thunder, wrathful tone:
“Let me shape them, bold and bright,
With minds like flame and hearts of light.
They’ll build with stone, they’ll climb the skies,
Their dreams as vast as eagles rise.”
From shadowed halls and molten floor,
Rose Hades, Lord of Death and War:
“You give them fire, but I give fate.
Each heartbeat ticks toward my gate.
You build them high, but I make whole.
What good is man without his soul?”
“They are not yours!” the thunder cried,
“They breathe beneath the open sky!
Let them rejoice in song and feast,
Let love and war be theirs at least!”
Hades laughed, in low despair:
“And yet, they whisper me in prayer.
You give them hope, I give them truth
The mirror time holds up to youth.
Their gods may lie, their hearts may roam,
But every man comes crawling home.”
“They shall defy you!” Zeus proclaimed,
“With temples, towers, songs unnamed!
They’ll name me Father, King of Kings,
Their lives uplifted on my wings!”
“But when the wine runs dry,” said he,
“They’ll find their way from gods to me.
Let them rise but not forget
Their roots are born in ash and debt.
For what you raise, I shall receive
The last to hold them as they leave.”
And so the world was born of strife
Between the spark and end of life.
One gave will, the other doom,
And Man walked bravely toward his tomb.
With dreams from Zeus and dusk from shades,
A creature of both light… and grave.
This poem imagines a primordial dispute between Zeus, the god of the sky and supreme ruler of Mount Olympus, and Hades, the ruler of the Underworld. Drawing from Greek mythology, it dramatizes the eternal tension between aspiration and mortality. Zeus representing human ambition, creation, and divine light, while Hades symbolizes the inescapable truth of death, fate, and the unseen. Together, they mirror the dual nature of human existence: the pursuit of greatness shadowed by inevitable decline. In this imagined myth, mankind is not shaped by one god alone, but forged in the tension between hope and ending.
