Well, Hesiod’s stuff is what it is: eventually we come to the patriarchs’ opinion of Pandora, and throughout there’s no female as boss as Zeus, of course: it’s the poetry of the patriarchs…. I do like this better than Homer, though. The Ancient Greek consensus was that Homer was more ancient or whatever and more boss: but screw the consensus. I like Hesiod because, while it is still mythology and is quite similar to Homer—it’s not ordinary life poetry or philosophical poetry; “general poetry” as I call it; it’s about the gods—but it’s more abstract than the epics. Like, it’s more about teaching about the gods, like as a serious topic, and not so much about how they…. I mean, we all want to express ourselves, but sometimes men and gods be tripping, right. I feel like Hesiod’s poetry is more religious—not scripture in the Hebrew sense, but learning-centric—and Homer seems more like “entertainment”, basically, to me. Of course, I’m biased in that I read Homer as “education”—although I wasn’t naive, right—and Hesiod I read to compare patriarchal with matriarchal (“Lost Goddesses of Early Greece”) mythology. (shrugs) But it could be synchronicity, you know. Makes a lot more sense to me than the “educational” colonial-philological, the-best-paleface-language-gave-rise-to-the-robot-kings view of Greek mythology, you know. 👌

…. Yeah, I feel like I like Hesiod better than Homer. Some of it seems rather useful, more educational-religious, although of course much of it is random people just being boss, of course. And there is some overlap, of course, since heroes are like gods, and religion involves the human as well as the divine, (sometimes you lose sight of that in Christianity, with the whole Jesus saves you suck thing, “remember to tell God you’re a sinner”), and obvs Zeus is every boy’s fantasy, right—which is both very boss, and a little…. “And finally, at the top of the head is the Crown Chakra.” (Zeus) (pointing to Sacral Chakra) “Got my Crown Chakra right here, bitches.”

But the antique farming advice is actually quite interesting; I feel like the lived details of experience really mean as much as the abstractions; I’m not going to tell you what I learned, because it’s easy to write it off as boring/un-abstract or whatever, but I was lost driving along these crappy rural roads for like an hour yesterday, and I feel like I learned a lot about life, you know…. And the actual magical/superstitious qualities of days (days numbered in the lunar month? Or the solar month?) in “Works and Days” is really cool; I regret that it’s not longer….

But yeah, Hesiod is also kind of a bastard, much of the time, right. Hesiod war ein Mann, Kinder. Hesiod was a man, children. Although he wrote about the most rational, Kantian things, like how wives are bitches, and killing wild animals is both economically effective, (cartoon voice), and, fun! And on an unrelated—totally unrelated—note, he also loved golden Aphrodite…. Although, having accomplished his desire, 😉, he immediately got up and went off to kill more wild animals, right….

I appreciate Lattimore's style, but there is no saving this sad summation of Hellenic cosmogonic mythology by the wannabe Homer, Hesiod. His work in Theogony is to me the precursor of the genealogical fantastic storytelling that has come to plague the Fantasy genre, inundating it with an interminable deluge of minutiae to please people who seek bloated world-building at the expense of actual literary artistry. ( )

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. ( )

TEOGONIA, TRABAJOS Y DÍAS,ESCUDO, CERTAMEN

Las obras de Hesíodo conforman con las de Homero los pilares fundacionales de la cultura griega. Al conjunto de mitos heredados que ambos toman y exponen, Hesíodo agrega una interpretación moral y práctica: en Teogonía y en Trabajos y días subyace la idea de un orden que se alcanza en virtud de actos de justicia divina y está representado por la autoridad de Zeus.

Teogonía presenta extensamente el mundo de los dioses, con su origen y descendencia, y Trabajos y días se ocupa de la realidad humana, en que se destaca el trabajo del campo y otras actividades del hombre.

La mayor originalidad de Hesíodo reside en la relación que establece entre el yo poético y la creación del poema. En Teogonía se consagra como intérprete de las Musas, y procura explicar el sentido del mundo divino hasta el triunfo de Zeus, quien encarna la justicia y el orden: allí está la “verdad” que las Musas han de enseñar.

En Trabajos y días se cristaliza una tradición poética didáctica, unida al elevado estilo de la épica, pinceladas líricas y andamiajes dramáticos al modo de una conversación; sobresale allí el tema de la injusticia en la tierra: merced al trabajo se puede restituir el orden del mundo.

El combate con Cicno contenido en Escudo es el único episodio legendario que presenta a Heracles con el armamento completo de un guerrero épico, no sólo con arco y maza; sigue el modelo homérico de la descripción del escudo de Aquiles en Ilíada, a la vez que incorpora elementos intimidantes, representaciones de animales, escenas mitológicas y cuadros simbólicos.

Labor poética y cotidianidad campesina están ilustradas de modo legendario por el poema en prosa y verso Certamen, que imagina a Hesíodo y Homero como rapsodas; el triunfo del primero subraya el interés didáctico de mostrar su superioridad como poeta de la paz frente a la poesía homérica, que canta hechos bélicos.

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. ( )