Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Poems of Hesiod: Theogony, Works and Days, and The Shield of Herakles
    The Poems of Hesiod: Theogony, Works and Days, and The Shield of Herakles
    The Poems of Hesiod: Theogony, Works and Days, and The Shield of Herakles
    Ebook302 pages3 hours

    The Poems of Hesiod: Theogony, Works and Days, and The Shield of Herakles

    By Hesiod

    4/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    In this new translation of Hesiod, Barry B. Powell gives an accessible, modern verse rendering of these vibrant texts, essential to an understanding of early Greek myth and society. With stunning color images that help bring to life the contents of the poems and notes that explicate complex passages, Powell’s fresh renditions provide an exciting introduction to the culture of the ancient Greeks.

    This is the definitive translation and guide for students and readers looking to experience the poetry of Hesiod, who ranks alongside Homer as an influential poet of Greek antiquity.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of California Press
    Release dateAug 1, 2017
    ISBN9780520966222
    The Poems of Hesiod: Theogony, Works and Days, and The Shield of Herakles
    Author

    Hesiod

    Barry B. Powell is Halls-Bascom Professor of Classics Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of Homer and the Origin of the Greek Alphabet; Classical Myth; Writing: Theory and History of the Technology of Civilization; and many other books.

    Read more from Hesiod

    Related authors

    Related to The Poems of Hesiod

    Related ebooks

    Poetry For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Odyssey and the Other

      Nov 14, 2017

      The Odyssey and the Other
      6 min read

    • Article

      Professor Edith Hall

      Nov 5, 2020

      Edith Hall is professor in the Classics Department at King’s Collect London, specialising in Ancient Greek literature and cultural history. She has published several books including Aristotle’s Way: Ten Ways Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life (The B

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Humanity Of Horace

      Nov 30, 2023

      IF I TOLD YOU THAT A COLLECTION OF POEMS written 2,000 years ago was sent by his wife to a man serving in the trenches of the First World War, and he replied to her that he was devoting five minutes a day amid the fighting to reading them, you might

      6 min read

    • Article

      Native American Poetry Anthology Vibrates With Powerful Voices

      Sep 16, 2020

      U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo serves as lead editor of this new collection, which showcases a range of poems as vast as the continent.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Music For The People

      Jun 15, 2021

      THE ANCIENT GREEK WORLD: ca. 500 – 300 BC Apollo’s heavenly lyre, Orpheus’ enchanting voice, Pan’s reed pipes, and the Muses’ ethereal songs and dances: the prevalence of music in the myths, legends, and lore of ancient Greece’s heroes and deities be

      6 min read

    • Article

      Back Draft: Emily Wilson

      Feb 24, 2020

      Back Draft: Emily Wilson
      6 min read

    • Article

      Greek Knowledge Of The Scythians

      Dec 8, 2023

      Greek Knowledge Of The Scythians
      8 min read

    • Article

      Book Reviews

      Aug 24, 2021

      By James M. Banner, Jr. ISBN: 978-0300238457 Yale University Press (2021) - $28.00 www.yalebooks.yale.edu Historians examine their subjects with respect to their political leanings, or themes such as colonialism, resistance, race, sexual orientation,

      5 min read

    • Article

      Reviews

      Jan 5, 2024

      ISBN: 978-1641893916 ARC Humanities Press | Past Imperfect, 2022 $17.95 (paperback) www.arc-humanities.org Andrew Schell's Beowulf: A Poem is the kind of book that fans of the poem have long needed. Beyond the other specialties and disciplines that i

      6 min read

    • Article

      Fun And Games

      Aug 5, 2021

      Fun And Games
      3 min read

    • Article

      Formal Poetry Is Not a Museum Piece: The Millions Interviews Aaron Poochigian

      Apr 19, 2021

      There was some tension at Columbia over my formalism. I was at one point told not to write that way. Because formal poetry is what lights up my synapses, gets me high, I could not accommodate that suggestion. The post Formal Poetry Is Not a Museum Pi

      11 min read

    • Article

      Greek Gods

      May 19, 2022

      Greek Gods
      12 min read

    • Article

      Into Battle

      Oct 6, 2023

      Into Battle
      3 min read

    • Article

      Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea

      Jun 3, 2019

      Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea
      18 min read

    • Article

      The Leiden Amun Papyrus

      Aug 22, 2022

      The Leiden Amun Papyrus
      5 min read

    • Article

      Hellenism in Rome

      Feb 29, 2024

      ‘‘TO A WISE MAN,” SAID THE FIRST-century wonderworker Apollonius of Tyana, “everywhere is Greece.” That is to say, Greece is not a mere place, but a special state of mind. For Apollonius, on his extensive travels around the Greco-Roman world, the pur

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Poems of Hesiod

    4/5

    88 ratings4 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      I like Lattimore's translations a great deal (but I am no one to judge accuracy).
    • 5/5
      This is the real thing. A man (or the narrator) talking about Greek life 2500 years ago, with absolute authority, because he lives it. The Works and Days is down-to-earth advice to a younger brother about how to get on in life, the Theogony contains tales of the gods, tales of their origins, their relationships to each other and to the Ancient Greeks. Again, the real thing, not as retold by Hollywood, but straight from the mind of someone who lives there.
    • 5/5
      Hesiod's timeless wisdom flows gracefully through this exquisite translation, a poetic journey that beckons the soul.
    • 4/5
      A partial guide to the gods is provided, which is somewhat helpful. Gaia is one of the original four gods (along with Chaos, Darkness, and Night), and she and her offspring made more and more offspring. Theogony outdoes the Bible in listing the names of all of these by the dozens upon dozens upon dozens. It must have been quite a feat to recite all of this by memory but that's what was done.Works and Days is full of aphorisms, and Shield describes the imaginatively profuse artwork on the shield of Herakles, which includes all sorts of scenes of war, peace and strife.Tbh, I found it all pretty dry compared to the works Xenophon, Sophocles, Homer or Virgil, but it was still worthwhile given its age, and relatively short. Well over half of this particular book was commentary on the texts.

    Book preview

    The Poems of Hesiod - Hesiod

    The Poems of Hesiod

    In honor of beloved Virgil—

    O degli altri poeti onore e lume . . .

    —Dante, Inferno

    The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Classical Literature Endowment Fund of the University of California Press Foundation, which was established by a major gift from Joan Palevsky.

    The Poems of Hesiod

    Theogony, Works and Days, and The Shield of Herakles

    A NEW TRANSLATION BY Barry B. Powell

    UC Logo

    UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

    University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.

    University of California Press

    Oakland, California

    © 2017 by The Regents of the University of California

    LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

    Names: Hesiod, author. | Powell, Barry B., translator, writer of introduction. | Container of (expression): Hesiod. Theogony. English. | Container of (expression): Hesiod. Works and days. English. | Container of (expression): Hesiod. Shield of Heracles. English.

    Title: The poems of Hesiod : Theogony, Works and days, and The Shield / a new translation by Barry B. Powell.

    Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

    Identifiers: LCCN 2016056629 (print) | LCCN 2017000427 (ebook) | ISBN 780520292857 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780520292864 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780520966222 (eBook)

    Subjects: LCSH: Hesiod—Translations into English. | Hesiod—Criticism and interpretation.

    Classification: LCC PA4010 .E5 2017 (print) | LCC PA4010 (ebook) | DDC 881/.01—dc23

    LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016056629

    Printed in China

    24  23  22  21  20  19  18  17

    10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

    Contents

    List of Illustrations

    Acknowledgments

    Spelling, the Pronunciation of Ancient Names, and Map References

    Maps

    General Introduction: Hesiod and His Poems

    Introduction to the Theogony

    Theogony

    Introduction to the Works and Days

    Works and Days

    Introduction to The Shield of Herakles

    The Shield of Herakles

    Notes

    Bibliography

    Glossary/Index

    Illustrations

    MAPS

    1. The Mediterranean

    2. The Aegean Sea

    3. Central Greece

    FIGURES

    1. Drunken symposiast and lyre

    2. Anatolian storm god

    3. Zeus throwing lightning at Typhon

    4. use playing the lyre

    5. The birth of Aphrodite

    6. Amphitritê stands before Poseidon

    7. The head of Medusa

    8. The Chimaira

    9. The punishment of Atlas and Prometheus

    10. Hades and Persephone

    11. Zeus fights Typhon

    12. Dawn pursues the Trojan prince Tithonos

    13. Egyptian relief of t

    14. Pandora born from the Earth

    15. The Cretan princess Ariadnê and Retribution

    16. A naked plowman

    17. A winged North Wind ( eas ) rapes Oreithyia

    18. A satyr presents a tripod with handles to Dionysos

    19. The theater and reconstructed columns of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi

    20. The Lapith Kaineus being destroyed by a centaur

    21. A centaur tries to carry off Hippodameia

    22. The Gorgons pursue Perseus

    23. Zeus parts Athena and Ares

    GENEALOGICAL CHARTS

    1. The primordial gods

    2. The children of Earth and Sky

    3. The off spring of Earth and the blood of Sky and the birth of Aphroditê

    4. The descendants of Night ( Nyx ) and Strife ( s )

    5. The descendants Earth and Sea

    6. The descendants of Phorkys and Keto

    7. Other descendants of Phorkys and Keto

    8. The children of Okeanos and Tethys

    9. The descendants of Theia and Hyperion and Kreios and Eurybia

    10. The children of Pallas and Styx

    11. The descendants of Koios and Phoibê

    12. The children of Kronos and Rhea

    13. The descendants of Iapetos and Klymenê

    14. The off spring of Zeus and his many wives

    15. The descendants of Ares and Aphrodite

    16. The descendants of Helios and Perseïs

    17. Other children of Kadmos and Harmonia

    18. The children of Dawn ( Eos )

    19. The descendants of Kalypso, Circe, and Aiëtes

    20. The descendants of Perseus and Andromeda

    Acknowledgments

    I would like to thank Mary Kay Gamel, Silvia Montiglio, and Carolina Lopez-Ruiz for their encouragement and helpful comments. In my introduction to the Theogony, I have made use of critical material published earlier in my Classical Myth, 8th edition (Boston: Pearson, 2014), and in my Writing and the Origins of Greek Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). My introduction to Works and Days owes much to my teacher Joseph Fontenrose (1903–1986); see especially his Work, Justice, and Hesiod’s Five Ages, Classical Philology 69 (1974): 1–16, and Python (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1959). My introduction to the Shield of Herakles is indebted to R. Janko, The Shield of Herakles and the Legend of Cycnus, Classical Quarterly 36 (1986): 38–59. My thanks to Eric Schmidt of the University of California Press for his cheerful support. I also wish to thank Paul Psoinos for his expert copyediting of a difficult manuscript.

    Spelling, the Pronunciation of Ancient Names, and Map References

    How to spell the names is always a problem in the translation of ancient texts. The older Latin system is recommended, because those are the forms usually found in dictionaries, but modern style has on the whole preferred a Greek spelling. I have adopted a middle way, following the practice of Margalit Finkelberg’s The Homer Encyclopedia (Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), where common names are given in the Latin style (hence Achilles, not Akhilleus), but less common names in the Greek (hence Kalliope, not Calliope). I have in general (though not always) given place names in their Latin or modern form (hence Crete, not Kreta; Boeotia, not Boiotia). I place a circumflex over a final -e (or -es) when it is to be pronounced (hence Mnemosynê, Brontês), except in such common names as Achilles, Aphrodite, or Persephone.

    Because there is much confusion, and little agreement, on the pronunciation of ancient names, I have given the preferred pronunciation for unfamiliar names in parentheses in the index and in the notes when the name occurs for the first time. I place long marks over long vowels in the English pronunciation and highlight the accented syllable by printing it boldfaced (hence "Cyclopês, si-klō-pēz").

    There are many places referred to in Hesiod’s poems. The first time a place name appears, in each poem or in its introduction or notes, I show the name in SMALL CAPITAL LETTERS, meaning that the place can be found on one of the three maps printed at the beginning of the text.

    I follow the texts as edited by Martin West for Theogony and Works and Days and the text as edited by Friedrich Solmsen (in Solmsen, Merkelbach, and West) for The Shield of Herakles. (See the Bibliography.)

    Map 1. The Mediterranean.

    Map 2. The Aegean.

    Map 3. Central Greece.

    General Introduction

    Hesiod and His Poems

    The Theogony is one of the most important mythical texts to survive from antiquity, and I devote the first section of this translation to it. It tells of the creation of the present world order under the rule of almighty Zeus. The Works and Days, in the second section, describes a bitter dispute between Hesiod and his brother over the disposition of their father’s property, a theme that allows Hesiod to range widely over issues of right and wrong. The Shield of Herakles, whose centerpiece is a long description of a work of art, is not by Hesiod, at least most of it, but it was always attributed to him in antiquity. It is Hesiodic in style and has always formed part of the Hesiodic corpus. It makes up the third section of this book.

    The influence of Homer’s poems on Greek and later culture is inestimable, but Homer never tells us who he is; he stands behind his poems, invisible, all-knowing. His probable contemporary Hesiod, by contrast, is the first self-conscious author in Western literature. Hesiod tells us something about himself in his poetry. His name seems to mean he who takes pleasure in a journey (for what it is worth) but in the Works and Days he may play with the meaning of he who sends forth song. As with all names—for example, Homer, meaning hostage, or Herodotus, meaning a warrior’s gift—the name of a poet may have nothing to do with his actual career.

    Hesiod’s father, so the poet tells us, once lived in ASIA MINOR, in Aiolian KYMê, then moved to ASKRA in mainland Greece, a small, forlorn village at the foot of MOUNT HELIKON near THEBES, where Hesiod lived. Like Homer, Hesiod became an aoidos, an oral singer. While he was tending his flocks on Helikon, the Muses, inspirers of poetry, came to him in a vision, giving him a staff of laurel and the power of song. They commanded him to sing of the gods, which he does in the Theogony. For this reason Helikon is synonymous with poetic inspiration in the Western tradition. Later, in Works and Days, Hesiod tells of a dispute with his brother Persês about the division of their inheritance. His brother took more than his fair share, depending on gift-devouring elders for corrupt judgments rather than on his own hard work.

    Hesiod also tells us that his father had sailed the seas in search of livelihood, but he himself had no experience of the sea, except for a journey from AULIS to CHALCIS on the island of EUBOEA (a distance of about 200 yards!). In Chalcis, in a poetry contest at the funeral games for one Amphidamas, he won a tripod, which he dedicated to the Muses in their shrine on Mount Helikon. Scholars have speculated that Hesiod’s successful poem was some version of the Theogony. Because of the poet’s close relationship with the Muses, he can speak with authority about past, present, and future. Hesiod is inspired with a mission divinely ordained.

    Scholars have argued since antiquity about the meaning of these few details. There is no reason not to accept them at face value, however one wishes to interpret Hesiod’s description of his meeting with the Muses. He must mean that his poetic gifts came to him without human teachers, but this is a poetic exaggeration. All singers have teachers. As Hesiod himself explains, the Muses can tell both truth and lies.

    The Problem of the Alphabet and the Date of Hesiod

    We cannot accurately date Hesiod’s poetry, though he must belong to the eighth or ninth centuries B.C. Ancient traditions made him a contemporary of Homer. What, then, is the date of Homer? Good evidence places him at or near the time of the invention of the Greek alphabet, the first writing capable of recording his poetry, and the poetry of Hesiod, which no earlier system of writing could have done. No alphabet, no Homer—and no Hesiod. The problem of the invention of alphabetic writing is intimately associated with attempts to date Homer and Hesiod.

    The Greek alphabet was invented on the basis of the preexisting West Semitic (so-called Phoenician) writing, an odd sort of phonetic syllabary with a small number of signs (around twenty-two) representing consonantal qualities with an implied vowel to be provided by the reader. The original Greek alphabet, by contrast, consists of two sorts of signs, the so-called consonants, which cannot be pronounced by themselves, and five vowel signs, which can be. Four of the vowel signs were adapted from West Semitic consonantal syllabograms and the fifth, upsilon, was created by splitting a West Semitic sign into a consonant (digamma, our F) and a vowel added to the end of the series after T, where it still resides today. Only a single person working alone could have made this arbitrary alteration to its model. Three additional consonantal signs were also added to the signary. To this division of the signary into two kinds of signs was added the spelling rule that a pronounceable vowel sign must always accompany an unpronounceable consonantal sign. It is virtually the same system of writing in use today in the Western world and by others who use an alphabet, the writing on this page.

    The Greek alphabet is one of the most important developments in the history of culture: It is the basis of modern civilization, including Eastern civilizations that have adopted it in order to function in the modern world. For the first time it became possible to record in writing an approximation of what somebody said, a technology of universal application. Earlier systems of writing, which were only partly phonetic, did not allow such freedom.

    The earliest epigraphic finds of Greek alphabetic writing are dated to around 775–750 B.C. They come from ERETRIA in Euboea near the EURIPOS CHANNEL, over which Hesiod traveled to the funeral games of Amphidamas, not far from Mount Helikon on whose slopes Hesiod lived. Other early finds have turned up in a site in nearby BOEOTIA; from an Eretrian colony in Italy; and, recently discovered, from an Eretrian colony in northern Greece. PHRYGIA, an early adopter of the system, has also produced early finds. The Greek alphabet seems to have been invented somewhat before our earliest epigraphical finds, say ca. 850 B.C., no doubt in Euboea or near there. The inventor, whom we may call the Adapter, was probably a Semitic speaker, a Phoenician familiar with the very old West Semitic (that is, Phoenician) writing, which goes back to about 1500 B.C.

    West Semitic writing was used to make rough phonetic notations of Semitic speech, and sometimes Semitic poetry, providing only the consonantal qualities, with the result that it can be pronounced only by a native speaker. The Adapter of this Semitic system of writing to make the Greek alphabet must have been bilingual, perhaps the product of intermarriage. Semitic speakers were certainly living in Euboea at this time, and the Phoenician Kadmos, whose Semitic name means man of the East, founded the city of Thebes in Boeotia, according to legend. The Adapter’s name may have been Palamedês, who in legend made changes to the alphabet and whose father was Nauplius, a legendary king on the island of Euboea.

    Evidently the Adapter attempted to apply the West Semitic syllabary to the recording of Greek oral verse, as the system had been used to record roughly Semitic speech; but because of the very different phonologies of the two languages, he was able to make little headway. At this moment he discovered the division of the list of signs into two kinds and the spelling rule that a pronounceable sign, a vowel sign, must always accompany a now-unpronounceable sign, a consonantal sign. The new system of writing would make it possible to recover an approximation of the sound of the Greek hexameter, which depends on vowel sounds for its complex meter. In fact, the earliest epigraphic finds in the Greek alphabet are hexametric.

    The likely inspiration for this invention is Homer himself, who was certainly famous in his lifetime and who attracted the Adapter’s attention. The Odyssey celebrates the earliest exploration of the far West, a journey actually made by Euboean settlers, and Euboeans would have been a natural audience for the poem. The earliest Greek settlement in the West was on the island of Ischia in the Bay of Naples, where Euboeans established a trading colony. Very early examples of Greek alphabetic writing have been found on Ischia, including two perfect hexameters that seem to refer to the text of the Iliad.¹

    Hesiod, if a contemporary with Homer as reported, would have been well known to the Adapter too; or he may have been recorded somewhat later. Tellingly, neither Homer nor Hesiod ever mentions writing, although they otherwise describe many features of daily life. They must have lived in an illiterate age. Homer composed in a West Ionic dialect, the speech of Euboea, the same dialect as Hesiod—all singers shared a common dialect for oral composition—though Hesiod must have spoken Aeolic as his native dialect.

    Early Greek alphabetic writing appears to have been used primarily for the recording by dictation of oral poetry, never for such mundane usages as keeping business accounts, though those who understood the system used it to scribble their names on pots and stones. It was not easy to read. Reading an early alphabetic text was completely different from the experience of a modern reader, because apprehension

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1