Hesiod ( or ;"Hesiod". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. Hēsíodos; ) was an Ancient Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer.M. L. West, Hesiod: Theogony, Oxford University Press (1966), p. 40.Jasper Griffin, "Greek Myth and Hesiod", J.Boardman, J.Griffin and O. Murray (eds.), The Oxford History of the Classical World, Oxford University Press (1986), p. 88.
Several of Hesiod's works have survived in their entirety. Among these are Theogony, which tells the origins of the gods, their lineages, and the events that led to Zeus's rise to power, and Works and Days, a poem that describes the five Ages of Man, offers advice and wisdom, and includes myths such as Pandora's box.
Hesiod is generally regarded by Western authors as 'the first written poet in the Western tradition to regard himself as an individual persona with an active role to play in his subject.'Barron, J. P., and Easterling, P. E., "Hesiod" in The Cambridge History of Classical Literature: Greek Literature,, P. E. Easterling and B. Knox (eds.), Cambridge University Press (1989), p. 51. Ancient authors credited Hesiod and Homer with establishing Greek religious customs.Andrewes, Antony, Greek Society, Pelican Books (1971), p. 254 f. Modern scholars refer to him as a major source on Greek mythology, farming techniques, early economic thought,Rothbard, Murray N., Economic Thought Before Adam Smith: Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, vol. 1, Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing (1995), p. 8; Gordan, Barry J., Economic Analysis Before Adam Smith: Hesiod to Lessius (1975), p. 3; Brockway, George P., The End of Economic Man: An Introduction to Humanistic Economics, 4th edition (2001), p. 128. Archaic Greek astronomy, cosmology, and ancient time-keeping.
Name
The etymology of (Hēsíodos) is uncertain. The name is generally analysed as a compound whose second element is -odos, but neither element has been securely identified, and Robert S. P. Beekes classifies it as of unknown origin.. Alternative dialect forms are attested: Aeolic and Boeotian .LSJ, s.v. .
The second element has been taken either as (hodós, "road, way") or as a reflex of the root of (audḗ, "voice"), the latter presupposing an earlier form *Hēsíwodos. Hjalmar Frisk, following Felix Solmsen, derived the first element from (híēmi, "to send forth"), giving a sense such as "he who strikes up the song"., citing Solmsen, Untersuchungen zur griechischen Laut- und Verslehre (1901), p. 81. Gregory Nagy reconstructs the name as *hēsi-wodos, "he who emits the voice", and, noting that it is scarcely attested for anyone other than the poet and that is not otherwise productive as a first element in Greek compound names, treats it as a descriptive name for a poetic persona rather than as an ordinary personal name.; . Michael Meier-Brügger instead retains and derives the first element from the root of (hḗdomai, "to take pleasure"), yielding "he who takes pleasure in the journey";. Glenn W. Most likewise derives the name from .. Jenny Strauss Clay observes that Nagy's analysis would have to account for other names in , such as (Hesione), and concludes that it is not necessary to deny all historicity to the poet on these grounds..
Life The dating of Hesiod's life is a contested issue in scholarly circles (see § Dating below). Epic narrative allowed poets such as Homer no opportunity for personal revelations. However Hesiod's extant work comprises several didactic poems in which he went out of his way to let his audience in on a few details of his life. There are three explicit references in Works and Days, as well as some passages in his Theogony, that support inferences made by scholars. The former poem says that his father came from Cyme in Aeolis (on the coast of Anatolia, a little south of the island of Lesbos) and crossed the sea to settle at a hamlet near Thespiae in Boeotia named Ascra, "a cursed place, cruel in winter, hard in summer, never pleasant" (Works 640). Hesiod's patrimony in Ascra, a small piece of ground at the foot of Mount Helicon, occasioned lawsuits with his brother Perses, who at first seems to have cheated him of his rightful share thanks to corrupt authorities or ‘kings’ but later became impoverished and ended up scrounging from the thrifty poet (Works 35, 396).
Unlike his father Hesiod was averse to sea travel, but he once crossed the narrow strait between the Greek mainland and Euboea to participate in funeral celebrations for one Amphidamas of Chalcis and there won a tripod in a singing competition.Jasper Griffin, 'Greek Myth and Hesiod' in The Oxford History of the Classical World, J. Boardman, J. Griffin and O. Murray (eds), Oxford University Press (1986), pp. 88, 95. He also describes meeting the Muses on Mount Helicon, where he had been pasturing sheep, when the goddesses presented him with a laurel staff, a symbol of poetic authority (Theogony 22–35). Fanciful though the story might seem, the account has led ancient and modern scholars to infer that he was not a professionally trained rhapsode or he would have been presented with a lyre instead.See discussion by M. L. West, Hesiod: Theogony, Oxford University Press (1966), p. 163 f., note 30, citing for example Pausanias IX, 30.3. Rhapsodes in post-Homeric times are often shown carrying either a laurel staff or a lyre but in Hesiod's earlier time the staff seems to indicate that he was not a rhapsode, a professional minstrel. Meetings between poets and the Muses became part of poetic folklore: compare, for example, Archilochus' account of meeting the Muses while leading home a cow and the legend of Cædmon.
Some scholars have seen Perses as a literary creation, a foil for the moralizing that Hesiod develops in Works and Days, but there are also arguments against that theory.Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns and Homerica (= Loeb Classical Library, vol. 57), Harvard University Press (1964), p. xiv f. For example, it is quite common for works of moral instruction to have an imaginative setting as a means of getting the audience's attention,Jasper Griffin, 'Greek Myth and Hesiod' in The Oxford History of the Classical World, Oxford University Press (1986), cites for example the Book of Ecclesiastes, a Sumerian text in the form of a father's remonstrance with a prodigal son, and Egyptian wisdom texts spoken by viziers, etc. Hesiod was certainly open to oriental influences, as is clear in the myths presented by him in Theogony. but it could be difficult to see how Hesiod could have traveled around the countryside entertaining people with a narrative about himself if the account was known to be fictitious.Griffin, 'Greek Myth and Hesiod' in The Oxford History of the Classical World, p. 95. Gregory Nagy, on the other hand, sees both Pérsēs ("the destroyer" from , pérthō) and Hēsíodos as fictitious names for poetical personae (see § Name above).Gregory Nagy, Greek Mythology and Poetics, Cornell (1990), pp. 36–82.
It might seem unusual that Hesiod's father migrated from Anatolia westwards to mainland Greece, the opposite direction to most colonial movements at the time, and Hesiod himself gives no explanation for it. However, around 750 BC or a little later, there was a migration of seagoing merchants from his original home in Cyme in Anatolia to Cumae in Campania (a colony they shared with the Euboeans), and possibly his move west had something to do with that, since Euboea is not far from Boeotia, where he eventually established himself and his family.Barron and Easterling, 'Hesiod' in The Cambridge History of Classical Literature: Greek Literature, p. 93. The family association with Aeolian Cyme might explain his familiarity with Eastern myths, evident in his poems, though the Greek world might have already developed its own versions of them.A. R. Burn, The Pelican History of Greece, Penguin (1966), p. 77.
In spite of Hesiod's complaints about poverty, life on his father's farm could not have been too uncomfortable if Works and Days is anything to judge by, since he describes the routines of prosperous yeomanry rather than peasants. His farmer employs a friend (Works and Days 370) as well as servants (502, 573, 597, 608, 766), an energetic and responsible ploughman of mature years (469 ff.), a slave boy to cover the seed (441–6), a female servant to keep house (405, 602) and working teams of oxen and mules (405, 607f.).Barron and Easterling, 'Hesiod' in The Cambridge History of Classical Literature: Greek Literature, p. 93 f. One modern scholar surmises that Hesiod may have learned about world geography, especially the catalogue of rivers in Theogony (337–45), listening to his father's accounts of his own sea voyages as a merchant.West, Hesiod: Theogony, p. 41 f. The father probably spoke in the Aeolian dialect of Cyme but Hesiod probably grew up speaking the local Boeotian, belonging to the same dialect group. However whilst his poetry features some Aeolisms there are no words that are certainly Boeotian. His basic language was the main literary dialect of the time, Homer's Ionian.West, Hesiod: Theogony, p. 90 f.
It is probable that Hesiod wrote his poems down, or dictated them, rather than passing them on orally, as rhapsodes did; otherwise, the pronounced personality that now emerges from the poems would surely have been diluted through oral transmission from one rhapsode to another. Pausanias asserted that Boeotians showed him an old tablet made of lead on which the Works were engraved.Pausanias, Description of Greece, IX, 31.4. If he did write or dictate, it was perhaps as an aid to memory or because he lacked confidence in his ability to produce poems extempore, as trained rhapsodes could do. It certainly was not in a quest for immortal fame since poets in his era had probably no such notions for themselves. However, some scholars suspect the presence of large-scale changes in the text and attribute it to oral transmission.West, Hesiod: Theogony, pp. 40 f., 47 f. Possibly he composed his verses during idle times on the farm, in the spring before the May harvest or in the dead of winter.
The personality behind the poems is unsuited to the kind of "aristocratic withdrawal" typical of a rhapsode but is instead "argumentative, suspicious, ironically humorous, frugal, fond of proverbs, wary of women."Griffin, 'Greek Myth and Hesiod' in The Oxford History of the Classical World, p. 88. He was in fact a "misogynist" of the same calibre as the later poet Semonides.Barron and Easterling, 'Hesiod' in The Cambridge History of Classical Literature: Greek Literature, p. 99. He resembles Solon in his preoccupation with issues of good versus evil and "how a just and all-powerful god can allow the unjust to flourish in this life". He recalls Aristophanes in his rejection of the idealised hero of epic literature in favour of an idealized view of the farmer.Andrewes, Greek Society, pp. 218 f., 262. Yet the fact that he could eulogize kings in Theogony (80 ff., 430, 434) and denounce them as corrupt in Works and Days suggests that he could resemble whichever audience he composed for.West, Hesiod: Theogony, p. 44.
Various legends accumulated about Hesiod and they are recorded in several sources: the story about the Contest of Homer and Hesiod;Translated in Evelyn-White, Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns and Homerica, pp. 565–597. a vita of Hesiod by the Byzantine grammarian John Tzetzes; the entry for Hesiod in the Suda; two passages and some scattered remarks in Pausanias (IX, 31.3–6 and 38.3 f.); a passage in Plutarch Moralia (162b).
Death