Works and Days

Hesiod's second poem, composed about 700 BC in Boeotia, in central Greece, is addressed to his brother Perses, who had wasted his share of their father's land, and then, by bribing the local "kings" who judged disputes, taken more than his share of Hesiod's. It is the oldest Greek poem about ordinary life: about justice, work, farming, sailing, marriage and luck. It is a single poem of about eight hundred lines, given here as one episode, with headings added to mark its parts. It is told in Hesiod's own voice; the English is made from the Greek, in places following closely the public-domain prose translation by H. G. Evelyn-White (1914).

Two Kinds of Strife

Muses of Pieria, who give glory by your songs, come here, tell of Zeus your father, and sing his praise. Through him mortal men are famed or unfamed, sung or unsung alike, as great Zeus wills. For easily he makes strong, and easily he brings the strong man low; easily he humbles the proud and raises the obscure; easily he straightens the crooked and withers the proud. Hear me, Zeus, who see and hear, and make judgements straight with justice; and I will tell true things to Perses.

There is not only one kind of Strife on the earth, but two. One a man would praise when he understood it; but the other is to be blamed; and they are wholly different in nature. For one fosters evil war and battle, being cruel: no man loves her, but men honour her by necessity. But the other is the elder daughter of dark Night, and the son of Kronos set her in the roots of the earth, and she is far kinder to men. She stirs up even the shiftless to work; for a man grows eager to work when he sees his neighbour, a rich man, who hastens to plough and plant and put his house in good order; and neighbour vies with neighbour as he hurries after wealth. This Strife is good for men. And potter is angry with potter, and craftsman with craftsman, and beggar is jealous of beggar, and singer of singer.

Perses, lay this up in your heart: do not let that Strife who delights in mischief hold your heart back from work, while you peep and peer and listen to the wrangles of the market place. For we have already divided our inheritance; but you seized the greater share and carried it off, greatly swelling the glory of our bribe-swallowing kings, who love to judge such a case as this. Fools! They do not know how much more the half is than the whole, nor what great advantage there is in mallow and asphodel.

Mallow and asphodel were the simplest food of the poor; Hesiod means that an honest little is better than a dishonest lot.

Prometheus and Pandora

For the gods keep hidden from men the means of life. Otherwise you would easily do work enough in a day to supply you for a full year even without working; soon you would put away your rudder over the smoke, and the fields worked by ox and sturdy mule would run to waste. But Zeus in the anger of his heart hid it, because Prometheus the crafty deceived him; therefore he planned sorrow and mischief against men. He hid fire; but the noble son of Iapetos stole it again for men from Zeus the counsellor in a hollow fennel stalk.

And Zeus, angry, said to him: "Son of Iapetos, surpassing all in cunning, you are glad that you have outwitted me and stolen fire — a great plague to you yourself and to men that shall be. But I will give men as the price for fire an evil thing in which they may all be glad of heart while they embrace their own destruction." So said the father of men and gods, and laughed aloud.

He told Hephaestus to mix earth with water quickly, and to put in it the voice and strength of a human being, and to make a sweet, lovely maiden-shape, like the immortal goddesses in face; and Athena to teach her needlework and weaving; and golden Aphrodite to shed grace upon her head, and cruel longing and cares that weary the limbs; and Hermes to put in her a shameless mind and a deceitful nature. And the gods dressed her and crowned her with flowers; and Hermes put lies in her breast, and crafty words, and called this woman Pandora — "All-Gifts" — because all who dwell on Olympus gave each a gift, a plague to men who eat bread.

Then Zeus sent her to Epimetheus, the afterthinker; and Epimetheus did not remember that Prometheus had told him never to take a gift from Olympian Zeus, but to send it back, lest it prove to be something harmful to men. He took the gift, and only afterwards, when the evil thing was already his, did he understand.

For before this the tribes of men lived on earth remote and free from ills, and from hard toil and heavy sicknesses which bring the Fates upon men. But the woman took off the great lid of the jar with her hands, and scattered all these, and her thought caused sorrow and mischief to men. Only Hope remained there, in an unbreakable home within, under the rim of the great jar, and did not fly out at the door; for before that, the lid of the jar stopped her, by the will of Zeus. But the rest, countless plagues, wander among men; for the earth is full of evils, and the sea is full. Of themselves diseases come upon men continually by day and by night, bringing mischief to mortals silently; for wise Zeus took away speech from them. So there is no way to escape the will of Zeus.

Pandora's "box" was originally a jar (pithos); the "box" comes from a sixteenth-century mistranslation. Whether Hope, kept inside the jar, is a comfort left to men or another evil kept from them has been argued ever since. Hesiod's account blames the first woman for the evils of the world, in keeping with the hostility to women found throughout his poems.

The Five Ages

Or if you will, I will sum you up another tale well and skilfully — and do you lay it up in your heart — how the gods and mortal men sprang from one source.

First of all the deathless gods who dwell on Olympus made a golden race of mortal men, who lived in the time of Kronos, when he was reigning in heaven. And they lived like gods without sorrow of heart, remote and free from toil and grief; miserable old age did not rest on them; but with legs and arms never failing they made merry with feasting beyond the reach of all evils. When they died, it was as though they were overcome with sleep, and they had all good things; for the fruitful earth unforced bore them fruit abundantly and without stint. And now they are good spirits on the earth, guardians of mortal men.