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Encyclopedia Britannica

HESIOD

This article appears in Volume V13, Page 408 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: HEG-HIG

HESIOD , the father of Greek didactic poetry, probably flourished during the 8th century B.C. His father had migrated from the Aeolic Cyme in Asia

Minor

to Boeotia; and Hesiod and his brother Perses were born at Ascra, near

mount

MOUNT, WILLIAM SIDNEY (1807-1868)

Helicon (Works and Days, 635). Here, as he fed his father's flocks, he received his commission from the Muses to be their prophet and poeta commission which he recognized by dedicating to them a tripod won by him in a contest of song (see below) at some funeral games at Chalcis in Euboea, still in existence at Helicon in the age of Pausanias (T'heogony, 20-34, W. and D., 656; Pausanias ix. 38. 3). After the death of his father Hesiod is said to have left his native land in disgust at the result of a law-suit with his brother and to have migrated to Naupactus. There was a tradition that he was murdered by the sons of his host in the sacred enclosure of the Nemean Zeus at Oeneon In Locris (Thucydides 96; Pausanias ix. 31); his remains were removed for burial by command of the Delphic oracle to Orchomenus in Boeotia, where the Ascraeans settled after the destruction of their town by the Thespians, and where, according to Pausanias, his grave was to be seen.
Hesiod's earliest poem, the famous Works and Days, and according to Boeotian testimony the only genuine one, embodies the experiences of his daily life and

work

WORK

, and, interwoven with episodes of fable, allegory, and personal history, forms a sort of Boeotian shepherd's calendar. The first portion is an ethical enforcement of honest labour and dissuasive of strife and idleness (1-383); the second consists of hints and rules as to husbandry (384-764); and the third is a religious calendar of the months, with remarks on the days most lucky or the contrary for rural or nautical employments. The connecting link of the whole poem is the author's advice to his brother, who appears to have bribed the corrupt judges to deprive Hesiod of his already scantier inheritance, and to whom; as he wasted his substance lounging in the agora, the poet more than once returned good for evil, though he tells him there will be a limit to this unmerited kindness. In the Works and Days the episodes which rise above an even didactic level are the " Creation and Equipment of Pandora," the " Five Ages of the World " and the much-admired " Description of Winter " (by some critics judged post-Hesiodic). The poem also contains the earliest known fable in Greek literature, that of " The Hawk and the Nightingale." It is in the Works and Days especially that we glean indications of Hesiod's rank and condition in life, that of a stay-at-home farmer of the lower class; whose sole experience of the sea was a single voyage of 40 yds. across the Euripus, and an old-fashioned bachelor whose misogynic views and prejudice against matrimony have been conjecturally traced to his brother Perses having a wife as extravagant as himself.
The other poem attributed to Hesiod or his school which has come down in great part to modern times is The Theogony, a

work

WORK

of grander scope, inspired alike by older traditions and abundant local associations. It is an attempt to work into system, as none had essayed to do before, the floating legends of the gods and goddesses and their offspring. This task Herodotus (ii. 53) attributes to Hesiod, and he is quoted by Plato in the Symposium (178 B) as the author of the Theogony. The first to question his claim to this distinction was Pausanias, the geographer (A.D. 200). The Alexandrian grammarians had no doubt on the subject; and, indications of the hand flat wrote the Works and Days may be found in the severe strictures on women, in the high esteem for the wealth-giver Plutus and in coincidences of verbal expression. Although, no doubt, of Hesiodic origin, in its present form it is composed of different recensions and numerous later additions and interpolations. The Theogony consists of three divisions(1) a cosmogony, or creation; (2) a theogony proper, recounting the history of the dynasties of Zeus and Cronus; and (3) a brief and abruptly terminated heroogony, the starting-point not improbably of the supplementary poem, the tcaraToyos, or " Lists of Women n
who wedded immortals, of which all but a few fragments are lost.' The proem (1-116) addressed to the Heliconian and Pierian muses, is considered to have been variously enlarged, altered and arranged by successive rhapsodists. The poet has inter-woven several episodes of rare merit, such as the contest of Zeus and the Olympian gods with the Titans, and the description of the prison-

house

HOUSE
HOUSE (O. Eng. hiss, a word common to Teutonic languages, cf. Dut. huis, Ger. Haus; in
Gothic
- GOTHIC
it is only found in gudhiss, a temple; it may be ultimately connected with the root of " hide," conceal)

in which the vanquished Titans are confined, with the Giants for keepers and Day and Night for janitors
(735 seq.).
The only other poem which has come down to us under Hesiod's name is the Shield of Heracles, the opening verses of which are attributed by a nameless grammarian to the fourth book of Eoiai. The theme of the piece is the expedition of Heracles and Iolaus against the robber Cycnus; but its main object apparently is to describe the shield of Heracles (141-317) It is clearly an imitation of the Homeric account of the shield of Achilles (Iliad, xviii. 479) and is now generally considered spurious. Titles and fragments of other lost poems of Hesiod have come down to us: didactic, as the Maxims of Cheiron; genealogical, as the Aegimius, describing the contest of that mythical ancestor of the

Dorians

DORIANS

with the Lapithae; and mythical, as the

Marriage

MARRIAGE

of Ceyx and the Descent of Theseus to Hades.

Recent

RECENT

editions of Hesiod include the 'A76v 'Oilpov ai 'Hvu bov, the contest of song between Homer and Hesiod at the funeral games held in honour of King Amphidamas at Chalcis. This little tract belongs to the time of Hadrian, who is actually mentioned as having been present during its recitation, but is founded on an earlier account by the sophist Alcidamas (q.v.). Quotations (old and new) are made from the works of both poets, and, in spite of the sympathies of the audience, the judge decides in favour of Hesiod. Certain biographical details of Homer and Hesiod are also given.
A strong characteristic of Hesiod's style is his sententious and proverbial philosophy (as in Works and Days, 24-25, 40, 218, 345, 371). There is naturally less of this in the Theogony, yet there too not a few sentiments take the form of the saw or adage. He has undying fame as the first of didactic poets (see DIDACTIC POETRY), the accredited systematizer of Greek mythology and the rough but not unpoetical sketcher of the lines on which Virgil wrought out his exquisitely finished Georgics.
On the subject generally, consult G. F. Schumann, Opuscula, ii. (1857); H. Flach, Die Hesiodischen Gedichte (1874); A. Rzach, Der Dialekt des Hesiodos (1876) ; P. O. Gruppe, Die griechischen Kulte and Mythen, i. (1887); O.

Friedel

FRIEDEL, CHARLES (1832-1899)

, Die Sage vom rode Hesiods (1879), from Jahrbiicher fur classische Philologie (loth suppl. Band, 1879); J.

Adam

, Religious Teachers of Greece (1908). There is a full bibliography of the publications relating to Hesiod (18841898) by A. Rzach in Burma's Jahresbericht 'fiber die Fortschritte der
assischen Altertumswissenschaft, xxvii. (,goo).
' Part of the poem was called Eoiai, because the description of each heroine began with i aid, " or like as." (Sec Bibliography.)
There are translations of the Hesiodic poems in English by Cooke (1728), C. A. Elton (1815), J. Banks (1856), and specially by A. W. Mair, with introduction and appendices (Oxford Library of Translations, 1908) ; in German (metrical version) with valuable introductions and notes by R. Peppmuller (1896) and in other modern languages. (J. DA.; J. H. F.)

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