The Poems of Hesiod

by Hesiod

  Such early Greek texts as Hesiod’s poetry were visible representations of a continuous stream of sound. By contrast, we read from sight, from the appearance of the writing on the page, where the text is richly supported by diacritical devices of all kinds. In general we do not sound out the words but understand them from their visual representation. Much misunderstanding of ancient Greek literature depends on modern scholars’ thinking that the ancient Greeks read texts as we do, but they did not.

  The Social Environment of Early Greek Poetry

  In the eighth and ninth centuries B.C., the days of Homer and Hesiod, texts circulated in small numbers among a restricted and refined upper class of wealthy amateurs—seafarers, warriors, aristocrats. There was no scribal class in ancient Greece, unlike in all earlier civilizations, where literacy was confined to one percent or less of the general population. In Mesopotamia and Egypt, where immensely complex systems of writing, only partly phonetic, were in use, and even in the Persian imperial bureaucracy, where the syllabic West Semitic system was in use, scribes were scarcely distinguished from the ruling class. In Palestine, writing was more widely used, but to be literate was always equivalent to being a possessor of power, and Eastern scribes guarded their power smugly and with arrogance.

  In Greece there was no book trade in early times and no general readership. Greek aristocrats socialized in the all-male symposium, the drinking party. If women were present, they were prostitutes. A small number of these men had learned the secrets of alphabetic literacy from one another, passed down from the Adapter’s hand. Possessing this secret, they were able painstakingly to puzzle out a small number of poetic texts that circulated in the symposium.

  Greek aristocrats read not for pleasure but in order that they might memorize poetry that had once been oral and represent it at the symposium to the accompaniment of the lyre. These texts, the schoolbooks of the literati, originated in the songs of aoidoi, oral poets, who had dictated their verse to someone who understood alphabetic writing. Such aoidoi—Homer and Hesiod—could not themselves read or write. This is how Greek, and Western, literacy began.

  Later, specialists gave up the lyre and accompanied their delivery to the beat of a staff. They were called rhapsodes, “staff singers,”3 and could speak in a learned way about the meaning of their texts. Plato (ca. 428–ca. 348 B.C.) makes fun of these pretenders to wisdom in his dialogue Ion. Rhapsodes were not oral poets, but they understood the secrets of alphabetic writing and bathed in the glory that came from reciting and commenting on memorized versions of great oral poets.

  Figure 1. A drunken symposiast reclines on a couch and vomits into a jar, assisted by a naked cupbearer. Such cupbearers were often the object of amorous attention by older Greeks. Notice the lyre on the wall, used to accompany the symposiast’s recitation of poetry. Athenian red-figure painting, ca. 500–470 B.C. National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen (Photo: Stefano Bolognini; https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Nationalmuseet_-_Cophenaghen_-_brygos_vomiting1.jpg)

  It is common to speak of rhapsodic interpolations in examining ancient texts, but they were probably uncommon. A rhapsode may make up verses to suit his pleasure, but unless they are written down in the tradition that becomes canonical—that is, copied and recopied—they do not survive. Therefore the texts of Homer and Hesiod that we possess must be substantially the texts that these poets composed, recorded by dictation at the dawn of alphabetic literacy. Of course such texts are liable to the usual distortions that come from copying and recopying, but these distortions are always minor and do not affect the main narrative, in spite of an inordinate amount of scholarly speculation about interpolated, nongenuine, portions of the Homeric and Hesiodic poems.

  By the seventh and sixth centuries B.C., those literate in the alphabet realized that they could compose fresh verse in writing, a revolutionary development. This is the age of the lyric poets: Archilochus, Alcaeus, Sappho, and many others. It is the beginning of modern alphabetic literacy. Still heavily influenced by their education in recorded epic, such poets often echo epic poetry in their language and themes, but their poetry was created in writing, not orally composed. These literate poets are much given to the creation of new words that, thanks to the genius of alphabetic writing, could be pronounced by absent readers. Such poetry was, however, still meant to be memorized and recited in public, and never read for pleasure as we read modern poetry. The greatest flower of this development was Greek tragedy, wherein several copies of a written, previously unknown text could be distributed to a company of actors, who could all be expected to pronounce and memorize it. Nothing like this had ever happened before in the history of culture, and some of these texts, from the fifth century B.C., have survived to this day.

  Hesiod’s Debt to the Near East

  Hesiod, and Homer, share in a community of Near Eastern literary themes and styles, and we cannot doubt a direct connection, although the details of transmission remain obscure. The relationships of humans to gods are similar in East and West, as are such specifically poetic themes as the origin of the cosmos, the loss of a golden age, women’s introduction of evil into the world, and the necessity of labor in order to survive in a fallen world distant from the paradise in which humans once lived. In Eastern literature and Western, human suffering comes from the gods’ anger, as do human blessings and divine favor granted to certain people. Kingship comes from heaven in both traditions. The division of the universe into heaven, earth, sea, and underworld is Eastern, as is the picture of a world bounded by water and a land of no return ruled by a king or queen, a place of gloom and filth, where reside the bloodless dead and the enemies of the gods.

  Narrative strategies are similar too: for example, the initiation of an action by describing an unsatisfactory situation, followed by a complaint to the gods, the gods’ deliberation, then measures taken. Messengers drive the action. Stereotyped formulas introduce direct speech. There are scenes of feasting, wherein singers entertain and visitors arrive, and scenes of arming and journeys by chariot. In descriptions of war, single combat is waged, as between Zeus and Typhon, and similes, long or short, enhance vividness. Resemblances between actual verbal formulations can be surprisingly close.

  The Theogony, a description of the creation of the present world order, owes a great deal to Mesopotamian myth. Euboean tradesmen, in addition to their exploration of the far West, had established a colony in the eastern Mediterranean, at a place called AL MINA on the north Syrian coast, near the mouth of the ORONTES RIVER (see Map 1). Apparently it was hereabouts that Euboeans learned of such Eastern stories as how the storm god overcame an earlier generation of gods and monsters in a battle to establish his own power.

  Although Zeus is Indo-European in origin—his name means something like “shiner”—his office, epithets, and forms of behavior are taken from Eastern archetypes. Just north of Al Mina is MOUNT CASIUS, which the Hurrians of northern Syria, a people who spoke a language of unknown affinity, considered the home of their storm god, Teshub. Teshub is pictured in art holding a triple thunderbolt and an axe or mace, just as does Zeus (figs. 2 and 3). The Hurrians took over stories from the very ancient Sumerians of southern MESOPOTAMIA, who also spoke a language of unknown affinity, and from the Akkadians, a Semitic people who lived in southern and central Mesopotamia, and handed these stories to the Indo-European Hittites, who lived in the central plateau of ANATOLIA. Then, in the ninth to the seventh centuries B.C., the Hittites occupied the lands of the Hurrians. From this tradition must come Hittite-Hurrian stories about the storm god Teshub.

  Figure 2. Eastern storm god, perhaps the Hurrian Teshub. In his right hand he holds a mace and in his left hand a forklike implement, evidently representing a thunderbolt. He is bearded and wears a conical cap and a sword. Late Hittite stele from Kürtül, ca. 700 B.C.; Archeological Museum Kahramanmaraş, Turkey (Photo: Klaus-Peter Simon; https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/Kahramanmaras_Museum_Kürtül.jpg)

  Figure 3. The
storm god Zeus hurls his thunderbolt from his right hand, a weapon with a triple prong at either end. An eagle(?) perches on his left hand. Athenian red-figure water jar, ca. 480 B.C.; Musée du Louvre, Paris (Photo: Bibi Saint-Pol; https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Zeus_Louvre_G204.jpg)

  The Hittite-Hurrian Kingship in Heaven and The Song of Ullikummi

  Teshub’s victory over earlier generations of gods, which scholars call the Succession Myth, is told in several tablets found in the Hittites’ central Anatolian capital, HATTUSA, from around 1300 B.C. Small portions survive of one poem, Kingship in Heaven, which has clear relevance to Hesiod’s Greek story. The poem tells how in earlier years a certain Alalu was king in heaven, and Anu (Sky) was his servant. For nine years Alalu was king in heaven. Then Anu made war against Alalu, defeated him, and sent him under the dark earth. Then Anu was king, and Kumarbi was his servant. Kumarbi gave Anu things to eat and drink and bowed down at his feet. For nine years Anu ruled. Then Kumarbi warred against him. Anu flew into the sky. Kumarbi, close behind him, grabbed Anu’s feet and bit off his genitals. Anu’s sperm went into Kumarbi’s stomach, but Anu laughed and said that Kumarbi was now pregnant with Teshub (the Hurrian storm god), the river TIGRIS, and another god.

  Kumarbi spit out the semen—but here the tablet breaks off. When it resumes, we learn that Anu (Sky) argued with Teshub (the storm god), still inside Kumarbi, over how Teshub should escape from Kumarbi’s body. Kumarbi felt dizzy and asked Ea (ē-a, the clever Near Eastern god of fresh water and magic) for something to eat. Kumarbi ate something that hurt his mouth. At last the storm god Teshub, being warned not to come out through various openings, especially not through Kumarbi’s anus, came out of the “good place,” apparently Kumarbi’s penis. The rest is lost, but somehow Teshub escaped from Kumarbi’s body, overthrew Kumarbi, and became king of heaven.

  Another Hittite-Hurrian tale, called The Song of Ullikummi, tells us more about the celestial kingship and Kumarbi’s struggle for power, as in Hesiod’s description of Zeus’s fight with the monster Typhon, a child of Earth who threatens the creation. Kumarbi was not at all happy with the way things had gone, and he planned to destroy Teshub. Kumarbi “took wisdom into his mind,” rose from his chair, took a staff, put sandals on his feet, and set out to a place called Cool Pond. There Kumarbi had intercourse with a huge rock: “Five times he possessed it, and again ten times he possessed it.” The rock became pregnant and gave birth to a stone child. The child was placed on Kumarbi’s knees; Kumarbi named him Ullikummi, “destroyer of Kummiya,” the city of the storm god Teshub.

  Kumarbi then delivered the child to Ubelluri, a giant who, like the Greek Atlas, carried heaven and earth. Ubelluri placed the child Ullikummi on his shoulder, where he grew an acre each month. Soon he was so big that the sea came up only to his waist and his head reached the sky. To get a good look at the monster, Teshub climbed up Mount Casius. Overwhelmed, Teshub sat down and cried. The goddess Ishtar tried to enchant Ullikummi by her womanly charms, but her attempts were in vain because the stone monster Ullikummi was deaf and blind.

  The storm god Teshub decides to fight Ullikummi. He marshals seventy gods, but they are powerless. Ullikummi reaches Kummiya, Teshub’s home, in the mountains of southeastern Anatolia. Teshub goes for help to Ea, the always-helpful god who lives in the apsu, the subterranean fresh water. Ea orders the gods of the old generations, who live in the underworld, to produce the tool by which heaven and earth once had been cut apart. With this tool Teshub cuts Ullikummi from the body of Ubelluri, breaking his power. Teshub now takes heart and mounts his chariot to fight again. Here the tablet breaks off, but certainly Teshub, highest god of the Hittite-Hurrian pantheon, overcame the monstrous Ullikummi to become king of heaven.

  The Babylonian Enuma elish

  The Succession Myth of the Theogony is also found in the famous Babylonian poem Enuma elish, “When on high,” which tells of the victory of the Babylonian storm god, Marduk, over the watery chaos demon Tiamat. The text reached its present form well before 1100 B.C., although it preserves far older material. The poem was recited at the Babylonian New Year festival. Telling of the first days of the creation, the story had the magical power to renew the world at the critical joining of one year with the next.

  The poem opens with the gods of the primordial waters, male Apsu, fresh water, and female Tiamat (tē-a-mat), salt water, mingled together in an indeterminate mass. From Apsu and Tiamat came forth four generations of gods, including Anu (Sky) and the powerful and clever Ea. The new gods came together to dance. Their activity and noise disturbed Apsu’s rest. With his officer Mummu, Apsu went to Tiamat to suggest that the new gods be destroyed. Although the loving mother Tiamat vigorously opposed Apsu’s wish, Mummu urged it, and Apsu kissed his officer in gratitude.

  When the younger gods heard of the plan to destroy them, they fell into a panic. Only Ea, “who knows everything, the skillful, the wise,” kept his head. He cast a spell over Apsu and Mummu, sending them into a deep sleep, killed Apsu, and strung a rope through Mummu’s nose. On top of the dead Apsu, Ea built his house, into which he moved with his wife, who gave birth to the real hero of the poem, Marduk, god of BABYLON.

  Marduk was in every way extraordinary and mighty, and he had four mouths and four ears. Marduk’s grandfather Anu (Sky) was so proud of his grandson that he fashioned four winds for Marduk’s plaything, appropriately for the future storm god. The winds blew constantly back and forth, once more stirring the waters of Tiamat. Again the older gods complained. Tiamat, who had earlier defended the younger gods, now determined to destroy them. She gave birth to an army of monsters. To lead the horde, she chose a new husband, Kingu, “her only lover,” placed him on a throne, and armed him with the mysterious Tablets of Destiny, which confer power over the universe.

  When Ea hears of the fresh preparations, he loses his nerve and consults the other new gods, who demand that Ea war against Tiamat. At this point the tablet is broken, but apparently Ea was unsuccessful, for when the text resumes, it is Anu who attacks Tiamat. She puts her hand against him, and Anu runs away in terror. The gods lose all hope and sink into despair.

  Then Marduk comes forth. He agrees to fight Tiamat and her army of monsters, but only on condition that he be granted absolute power. He takes a bow and arrows, a mace and a net, and with lightning flashing before him and seven winds at his back he mounts his chariot—the image of a thunderstorm. Marduk roars down the road toward Tiamat, but when he sees her, he loses his nerve (like Ea and Anu before him). Then he regains his courage and so insults her that Tiamat is seized by uncontrollable rage. She gives out a roar and attacks. Marduk spreads out his net, drives a storm into her mouth, puffs her up, and kills her with an arrow. He throws down her corpse and catches the army of monsters in his net, fixes them with nose ropes, and binds their arms.

  Marduk imprisons Kingu and seizes the Tablets of Destiny. Then he smashes Tiamat’s skull and splits open her corpse like a clamshell. He raises up the parts, making the sky and earth. He makes the constellations, establishes the calendar, puts the North Star in the sky, and brings forth the sun and moon. From Tiamat’s spittle he makes the clouds, the wind, the rain, and from her poison the billowing fog. He heaps a mountain over her head and pierces her eyes, from which flow the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. He heaps other mountains over her breasts, then bends her tail into the sky to make the Milky Way. With her crotch he holds up the sky.

  Marduk returns home in triumph, delivers the Tablets of Destiny to Anu, and presents his captives before the gods. He washes off the gore of battle, dresses in royal attire, and sits on a high throne to receive homage from the gods. He proclaims that he will build a great temple, a luxurious dwelling for himself and all the gods. He brings the rebel Kingu before the assembly, executes him, and from his blood makes human beings.

  Marduk then divides the gods into those who live in the sky and those beneath the earth. The grateful gods eagerly build the palace of which Marduk had s
poken, and after two years they complete the great ziggurat of Babylon. A banquet is held, and Marduk is proclaimed lord of the universe. The story ends with a long list of the fifty names of Marduk (over a fourth of the total poem), with detailed explanations of each of them. In this way the world was made, and the same order of kingship was established among the gods as in Babylon itself.

  Prominent Themes in Eastern Creation Stories

  In Enuma elish and other Mesopotamian myths, the original creative element is watery, feminine, and ambivalent, both life-giving and life-destroying. The dangerous, chaotic waters may be represented by a monster or dragon that is overcome by a hero, who fashions the cosmos. There is a complex association between water, chaos, monsters, and death. Creation and dragon combat can be one and the same. The hero establishes the world order and his own permanent reign over the corpse of the monster.

  Eastern myths, like Hesiod’s story in the Theogony, envision the formation and organization of the world and of human society as process and change. The world has not always been the way it is now. Its initial unity in the primeval waters has moved to diversity. Creation is not from nothing but, as in Hesiod, from a primordial something by means of sexual reproduction and a series of successively more powerful generations. A younger generation opposes, overcomes, and controls or destroys an older generation until the present world order comes into being.

  Similarities between the Hittite-Hurrian and Hesiodic myths are striking. According to Kingship in Heaven, first a primordial god (Alalu) was ruler, then the sky god (Anu) ruled, then another god (Kumarbi), and then, probably, the storm god (Teshub). The same sequence of generations appears in Hesiod. First came Chaos (= Alalu?), then Sky/Ouranos (= Anu), then Kronos (= Kumarbi), then the storm god Zeus (= Teshub). Both Anu (Sky) and Ouranos (Sky) were castrated by their sons, and gods were born from the severed organs.