The Poems of Hesiod

by Hesiod

  354. Earthshaker: Poseidon.

  368. . . . with his thunder: Hestia is the goddess of the hearth, the focus (Latin for “hearth”) of household activity; she has few myths. Demeter is the goddess of the grain harvest, whose daughter, Persephone, was snatched away by Hades (“unseen”), god of the underworld, to be his bride. Hera is the wife of Zeus, the goddess of marriage, who persecutes Zeus’s illegitimate offspring (especially Herakles). Poseidon is lord of the sea and is besides god of earthquakes and horses. Zeus is the Greek storm god. All ancient pantheons had a storm god, the power that causes rain and lightning.

  369. . . . its mother: Greek women gave birth in a squatting position.

  380. . . . he swallowed: Erinys (or the Erinyes) came into being when Kronos castrated his father, Sky, emerging from the drops of blood that fell on Earth (lines 149–50). Erinyes represent (sometimes) the spirits of vengeance when a wrong has been done, in this case by a father against his children. Sky and Kronos’ children have Erinyes because of Kronos’ evil behavior.

  389. . . . Mount Aigaion: Hesiod’s Succession Myth, inherited from the Near East, here attaches to local Cretan traditions, wherein a male year-spirit, who is born and dies annually, is raised in a cave and celebrated by young men banging shields. The Greeks identified this Minoan, non-Greek god with their own Zeus; the supposed grave of Zeus was shown in Crete during the Classical period. LYKTOS is in east-central Crete, on the western slope of Mount Lasithi. The cave that Hesiod refers to may be the Psychro Cave, off the high plateau of Mount Lasithi fairly near Lyktos, where votive offerings have been found, but others place the cave on Mount Ida, in central Crete. Mount Aigaion, “goat mountain,” is otherwise unattested but may be an ancient name for Mount Lasithi.

  398. . . . own son: Hesiod does not say how Zeus forced Kronos to vomit up his children, but later reports say that he administered an emetic drug.

  400. Pytho: Delphi.

  406. . . . deathless ones: Zeus’s uncles are the Cyclopês, who forged the thunderbolt by which Zeus overcame the Titans. Earlier they were imprisoned in Tartaros by Sky.

  412. . . . as his wife: Atlas is later punished—we do not know why—by being forced to hold up the sky on his shoulders. Menoitios (the same name as the father of Patroklos in the Iliad) is utterly obscure. The etymology of “Prometheus” is unclear, but Hesiod seems to have understood it as “forethinker.” Epimetheus, who may be Hesiod’s invention, means “afterthinker.” Epimetheus acts like a man, not a god, and in other accounts he is the husband of Pandora and the father of Pyrrha, who marries the son of Prometheus, Deukalion, the Greek Noah. Pandora is “molded” because Hephaistos made her from earth.

  413. Erebos: Darkness: that is, the underworld.

  431. . . . mind of Zeus: Mekonê is an old name for SIKYON, a town to the west of Corinth on the Gulf of Corinth in the PELOPONNESUS. This etiological myth, set in a time when men and gods dined together, explains why in Greek sacrificial ritual the gods are given the bones wrapped in fat, but men eat the delicious flesh and the entrails. The myth marks the division between men and gods.

  443. . . . to pass: No doubt in an earlier version Zeus was deceived by the trick, but Hesiod wants to preserve the great god’s omniscience.

  452. . . . for mortal men: Evidently referring to a widespread belief that fire lies hidden within trees, so that when you rub pieces of wood together vigorously you can start a fire. Also, lightning that strikes trees will often start a fire. The ash is a common tree in Greece.

  453. fennel: Not actually a fennel, the Giant Fennel (narthex) is a common plant near the Mediterranean. It has a brilliant yellow flower and a thick stalk whose pith can hold a coal without burning through to the outer rind. It was often used, and still is, to transport fire.

  469. for the good: The gift of fire.

  471. . . . loud-thundering Zeus: The “daughter” is Athena.

  474. . . . Plenty: Here Poverty and Plenty are personified, as if they were gods.

  493. . . . Gygês: The Hundred-Handers. Apparently Sky imprisoned them in Tartaros at the time of his oppression of Earth and her children.

  506. . . . bedding with Kronos: MOUNT OTHRYS (6,560 feet high), lies on the southwestern plain of THESSALY, and Mount Olympos (9,600 feet high) to its north, so that the battle between the gods and the Titans, the Titanomachy, must have taken place on the plain itself.

  510. ambrosia: Usually nectar is the drink, and ambrosia is the solid food, of the gods. The meaning of nectar seems to be “what overcomes death”; ambrosia means “undying.”

  521. . . . immediately: It is not obvious why Kottos should be spokesman.

  592. son of Iapetos: Atlas.

  609. . . . in front: Kerberos.

  617. Iris: “rainbow” a messenger of the gods.

  622. . . . high rock: That is, you can tell which god is lying by having each swear by the water of Styx, when the oath will bring punishment to the liar.

  635. . . . Olympos: No god ever actually undergoes this punishment, so far as we know.

  645. . . . Kymopoleia: Hesiod’s description is confused and hard to understand. Apparently the universe is made of four components: Earth, Sea, Sky, and Tartaros. Their sources are separate, but the roots of Earth and Sea lie above the prison of the Titans, located at the farthest end of Tartaros. Tartaros lies as far beneath the earth as the earth is beneath the sky. In front of Tartaros are Atlas; the houses of Night, Day, Sleep, and Death; the House of Hades, the hound Kerberos, and the river Styx. The gates and the threshold are the entrance to the underworld, from which there is no escape. The Hundred-Handers are set as guards over Tartaros. Chaos here seems to be an open space between Tartaros and Earth. Kymopoleia, “wave walker,” is found only here.

  647. Tartaros: Here thought of not as a place but as a god. The offspring of Earth and Tartaros is Typhon.

  706. . . . bad advice: Metis, an Oceanid, means “mind.” There was a prophecy that a child of Metis would be greater than the father (“a son with an overbearing spirit”), according to the logic of the Succession Myth (see the General Introduction). By swallowing Metis, Zeus interferes with this logic, making “mind” one of his own qualities. Athena, called here Tritogeneia—the meaning of the epithet is unknown—is therefore the child of Zeus alone, a powerful daughter with no mother.

  714. . . . their brows: Themis is a Titan; her name means “law” or “natural order,” the way things are. The Hours (Horai) are usually thought of as the seasons, the regular, unchanging progression of the year, but their names—Good Order (Eunomia), Justice (Dikê), and Peace (Eirenê)—indicate broader qualities. The Fates are here the Moirai, the “divisions,” originally of meat at a feast, but in myth the allotments that all people receive at birth (for their names, see note on line 180, above). The three Graces (Charites) are the feminine qualities that please the male and excite sexual desire (eros): Aglaia (“adornment”), Euphrosynê (“merriment”), and Thalia (“joyous festivities”). Eurynomê, an Oceanid, means “with wide rule.”

  731. . . . of Sky: Demeter is Zeus’s sister. The union of Hades and Persephone is the only sterile coupling of divine beings in Hesiod. Mnemosynê means “memory,” mother of the nine Muses, referring to the power by which the oral poet composes. Leto may be the name of a primordial mother goddess; with her children, Apollo and Artemis, she heads up a divine family, though in their origins the gods Apollo and Artemis were unrelated. The children of Zeus and Hera play little role in Greek myth: Hebê, “youth” personified, married Herakles after his divinization. Ares is a Thracian god known for his marriage to Aphrodite. Eileithyia is a Cretan goddess of childbirth (her name is probably not Greek). Athena, born without a mother from Zeus’s head, is rivaled by Hephaistos, born without a father by Hera to get even with her husband.

  Many scholars think that Hesiod’s Theogony ends someplace around here, but there is no agreement about where. The last two lines of the transmitted text of the Theogony—“And now, O sweet-voiced Muses of
Olympos, / daughters of Zeus, who carries the goatskin fetish, sing of the tribe of women”—are the beginning of what is called the Catalogue of Women, which described the genealogies of the heroes. Over 1,300 mostly fragmentary lines (not translated here) of this poem survive in papyri and in quotations of later authors, perhaps a third of the original poem. The theory is that someone composed a transition to the Catalogue and attached it to the end of the Theogony. Then, for mysterious reasons, the Catalogue itself was lost, and an unknown author created a new Catalogue of Women, fragments of which survive. In this scholastic approach to what, after all, was an oral poem, with its expected irregularities, it is never explained why a second unknown author would have wanted to replace the original poetry with an inferior imitation, or where exactly the hypothetical transition to the Catalogue begins. The argument is based on flimsy observations about style, when a survey of the epic language in the surviving fragments suggests that the Catalogue of Women is in fact very early, perhaps contemporary with Hesiod, or by Hesiod himself.

  734. awful god: For Amphitritê, see fig. 6. Triton is a merman, half man, half fish, often portrayed in Greek art of every period.

  740. . . . are gods: Cythereia, “she of Cythera,” is an alternative name for Aphrodite; Cythera is an island off the south coast of mainland Greece, where there was a temple to Aphrodite. The sons of Ares and Aphrodite, Fear (Phobos) and Terror (Deimos), are today the names of the moons of the planet Mars (that is, Ares). Maia was one of the seven Pleiadês, the children of Atlas and the Oceanid Pleionê, today the name of one of the most prominent constellations in the sky. Hermes was a messenger of the gods (along with Iris) and presided over boundaries, including the boundary between life and death (Hermes Psychopompos, “soul guide”). Kadmos, the founder of Thebes, killed a dragon who was a son of Ares, then married Ares’ daughter, Harmonia. Semelê was a lover of Zeus and the mother of Dionysos; she was struck by lightning, but Zeus saved the unborn Dionysos from her burning body.

  750. . . . all his days: Zeus extended the night on which Herakles was conceived, making it three times its normal length, thus explaining Herakles’ great strength. In the Iliad (18.362) Hephaistos is married to Charis, another of the Graces. In the usual version, Ariadnê, daughter of Minos, king of Crete, helped Theseus to defeat the Minotaur but was then abandoned on the island of NAXOS, where Dionysos found her, married her, and conceived by her many children. Herakles’ marriage to Hebê, “youth,” is another way of saying that he achieved eternal life as the reward for his labors.

  764. . . . much wealth: Homer mentions Demeter’s union with Iasion in “a thrice-plowed field” (Odyssey 5.125–28), evidently a reference to a ritual to enhance the fertility of the fields. Ploutos means “wealth”: that is, the wealth of agriculture. He is often identified with Hades.

  766. well-girt Thebes: Kadmos is the founder of Thebes. Ino was the wicked stepmother of Phrixos and Hellê, who flew away on a golden ram. Ino was transformed into the goddess Leukothea, the “white goddess,” who saved Odysseus from drowning (Odyssey 5.333–53). Agavê was the mother of Pentheus, torn to pieces by the followers of Dionysos. The obscure Polydoros ruled Thebes after the death of Pentheus. Autonoê was the mother of Aktaion by Aristaios; Aktaion was torn to pieces by his own hounds after he saw Artemis naked.

  775. . . . shining spirit: Dawn was famous for her lust. Her son by Tithonos, Memnon, was king of the Ethiopians, who came to Troy as an ally against the Greeks. Achilles killed him in a celebrated duel. Herakles killed the obscure Emathion, also an Ethiopian king. Zeus granted Dawn’s wish that Tithonos, a Trojan prince, be made immortal, but she forgot to ask for eternal youth to accompany his immortality; he shriveled up into a cicada, babbling in a back room of Dawn’s house. Kephalos (“head”) was an Athenian prince who accidentally killed his wife, Prokris, while hunting. (She thought that he had gone out to meet Dawn.) Here Phaëthon is snatched up by Aphrodite, but in a better-known story his father was the Sun (Helios), and he was burned up when he drove his father’s chariot across the sky.

  783. in the mountains: Pelias was Jason’s evil uncle who compelled him to lead the Argonauts to seek the Golden Fleece in Colchis, at the eastern end of the Black Sea. Medea, the daughter of Aietês, who controlled the fleece, betrayed her father and ran off with Jason. She tricked Pelias’ daughters into killing their father when she and Jason returned from Colchis. Medeos is eponym of the Medes: that is, the Persians, who famously attacked Greece in the fifth century B.C. The good centaur Cheiron, who raised Medeos, also raised Jason and Achilles.

  788. . . . like a lion: Aiakos was king of AEGINA, the island just off Piraeus, the harbor of ATHENS. His son by the Nereid Psamathê, Phokos, was murdered by his half-brothers Telamon, the father of Ajax in the Iliad, and Peleus, the father of Achilles, because they were jealous of his athletic prowess. Thetis, mother of Achilles, is a major figure in Homer’s Iliad. Zeus fancied her but learned of a prophecy that the son would be greater than his father; thus he arranged that she marry Peleus. The son, Achilles, did become greater than the father.

  790. many gullies: The union of goddesses with mortal men is rare, but the offspring of this union, the great hero Aeneas, founded the Roman race, as told in Vergil’s Aeneid (ca. 19 B.C.).

  794. . . . holy islands: In the Odyssey Circe does not bear children to Odysseus. Agrios may be the same as the Faunus of Roman myth. Latinos is king of Latium when Aeneas arrives in Italy, according to the account in Vergil’s Aeneid (7.45). According to the tradition that Circe also bore Telegonos, Telegonos was said to have traveled to Ithaca in search of his father, Odysseus, but killed him accidentally. The Tyrsenians are the Etruscans, who lived north of ROME. By saying that they lived in “a recess of the holy islands,” Hesiod betrays his ignorance of western geography.

  795. . . . Nausinoös: Kalypso, “concealer,” was probably an invention of Homer. In the Odyssey she keeps Odysseus imprisoned on her island, Ogygia, “the navel of the sea,” for seven years (Odyssey 7.259). In the Odyssey Nausithoös was the first king of the Phaiakians on Scheria, the never-never land that Odysseus visits after escaping from Kalypso (Odyssey 6.4–5, 7.56–66, 8.564). Nausinoös is otherwise unknown.

  798. of women: Here begins the lost Catalogue of Women.

  INTRODUCTION TO THE WORKS AND DAYS

  1. Based on M. V. Fox, “Ancient Egyptian Rhetoric,” Rhetorica 1 (1983): 20.

  WORKS AND DAYS

  1. Pieria: A region of southeastern Macedonia, north of MOUNT OLYMPOS, named after a primordial tribe who once lived there. There seems to have been a shrine to the Muses in Pieria.

  12. are two: In Theogony line 183, Hesiod refers to a single Strife (Eris), the child of Night (Nyx).

  32. Demeter: The goddess of the wheat harvest.

  35. to do this: Apparently to act without the quarrel between Hesiod and Persês being settled, but the Greek is obscure.

  41. . . . asphodel: “Better the half than the whole” is a proverb meaning that it is better to have little gained justly than much gained unjustly. Mallow and asphodel are flowering plants that grow in the Mediterranean, traditionally the cheap food of the poor.

  44. . . . in the smoke: A part of the annual cycle was the marketing of grain across the sea. Tools not being used were stored above the fireplace, so the rudder is put “up in the smoke” once the need for overseas travel is suspended.

  50. . . . fennel stalk: For the story of Prometheus’ deception of Zeus at the division of meats in sacrifice, see Theogony lines 452–456.

  64. killer of Argos: The Greek is Argeïphontês (ar-je-i-fon-tez), an obscure and ancient epithet usually interpreted as referring to a myth in which Hermes killed Argos, a many-eyed monster who guarded the princess Io; but the actual meaning is unknown.

  71. . . . spring flowers: The “Lame God” is Hephaistos. The Graces (Charites) are spirits that bestow beauty and feminine charm. Persuasion (Peitho) is a personification of the power to persuade a lover. The Hours (Horai) bring to f
ulfillment the fruits of the earth and the beauty of women. All often accompany the great goddess Aphrodite.

  77. . . . grain: Hesiod takes Pandora as meaning “all-gifted,” but probably it is an early name for the Earth mother meaning “she who gives all.”

  89. . . . out the door: The Greek for “jar” is pithos, a large storage jar, but through a mistranslation by the Dutch scholar Erasmus (1466–1536) it has popularly been called a box. The story is odd because evils have been let out into the world, but Hope remains confined in the jar. Still, Hesiod’s meaning must be that in the midst of misfortune there is hope that evil can be overcome.

  99. . . . humans: The “deathless ones” here are the Titans, not the later Olympian gods: Olympos is the throne of divine sovereignty.

  124. second place: That is, after the spirits of the Golden Race.

  174. . . . humans: Shame (Aidos) and Retribution (Nemesis) are the forces that oppose wickedness, one from within, the other from without.

  190. . . . has suffered: The Greek for “Justice” is Dikê, and for “violence,” hybris. These concepts are not really translatable. Dikê comes from a root meaning “to point out”: that is, Justice is “the way things are normally done.” Hybris refers both to violent acts and to the mental attitude that produces them, when one has no respect for the rights of others. By calling the nightingale a “singer” (aoidos) Hesiod associates her with himself. The hawk would be the “bribe-devouring elders.” Thus it is in nature, where violence rules, but in the world of men other laws must apply. Justice must rule over violence, Hesiod says to Persês: Don’t be like the hawk in the fable.