from Hesiod’s Works and Days
2015; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 8; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/thr.2015.0070
ISSN1939-9774
Autores Tópico(s)Biblical Studies and Interpretation
Resumofrom Hesiod’s Works and Days Hesiod Translated by A.E. Stallings (bio) The Greek poet Hesiod composed his didactic poem Works and Days sometime in the latter half of the eighth century B.C. He is the first Western poet to tell us directly about his life: we learn that he is in a lawsuit with his brother Perses over their father’s patrimony (and that Perses may be bribing the judges), that their father was unsuccessful in merchant shipping and emigrated from the Greek colony of Cymae in Asia Minor (modern Turkey) to mainland Greece, settling in back-of-beyond Boeotia in the village of Askra (“miserable in winter, wretched in summer, never pleasant”) in the shadow of Mount Helicon. Hesiod may know farming, but he is also proud of his poetry—his one sea voyage was to the island of Eubeia for a poetry contest (the poem he recited there may even have been his Theogony), whence he brought home the prize of a bronze tripod, dedicating it to the Muses. In his Works and Days, Hesiod gives his brother Perses (whom he constantly addresses as a fool or idiot) advice on farming and sailing, lectures him on justice and how to keep out of debt, and throws in an almanac of propitious and ill-omened days for assorted activities. The poem is composed, as are Homer’s poems, in unrhymed dactylic hexameter, in a literary dialect (not the language of Boeotian farmers). While often hewing to practical matters (when to sow or reap, how to build a plow, reckoning the seasons by the constellations), the poem has its moments of narrative (Pandora), allegory (indeed, it contains the first animal allegory in Western literature), and lyrical natural description. [End Page 372] Hesiod’s is the first telling we have of the story of Pandora and the Jar. (The idea that it is a box first appears in Erasmus; he seems to have conflated it with the Cupid and Psyche story.) Note too that here there is no injunction against opening the jar. The description of winter is justly famous for its visceral description of the cold weather out of doors for animals and men (the month of Lenaion corresponds roughly to our late January and early February), contrasted to a tender domestic scene of indoor luxury: a maiden taking a bath and a cozy nap on a winter’s day. Sans-a-Bone is usually thought to be the octopus. Some commenters find it odd that the octopus is included in this list of land-animals confronting the flensing wind, but of course it appears in its cold water haunts right after the virgin in her warm bath. In Greek, timeliness and beauty both come from the word for “hour.” The Hours are, in turn, beautiful goddesses, governing the seasons. They appear in the Pandora section, adorning this “well-endowed” creation with the flowers of spring to emphasize her nubile youth. Yet Hesiod’s is a harsh world, where timeliness is all. Plant or harvest too late and you will starve. The charge of misogyny is sometimes laid at Hesiod’s door, and he is of course a reflection of his culture and age. But in the Works and Days he seems more of a misanthrope. Pandora is trouble, but Epimetheus (another no-count brother, we notice) is to blame. A bad wife will age a man, but there is nothing better than a good one. We get a glimpse of life in a small village, where everyone will know if you’ve made a bad match and mock you. I am briefly, if incongruously, put in mind of Jane Austen: “For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn.” Even the blacksmith’s forge seems to me oddly familiar (I have lived in Greece since 1999), an exclusively male hangout for the retired, the under- and unemployed, to sit and warm themselves by the hearth of gossip, banter, and political debate. In modern Greece it is called the Kafeneion. The only difference is in Hesiod’s time, there was no coffee. —A. E. Stallings [End Page...
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