Hesiod

“ Hesiod, we are told, set out on a pilgrimage to the Delphic Oracle, for the purpose of hearing his [xxiv] fortune: and the old bard could scarcely get in at the gates of the temple, when the prophetess could refrain no longer: “afflata est numine quando jam propriore Dei:”
Blest is the man who treads this hallow’d ground,
With honours by th’ immortal Muses crown’d:
The bard whose glory beams divinely bright
Far as the morning sheds her ambient light:
But shun the shades of fam’d Nemean Jove ”

“ It is surely an error to suppose that lines 22-35 all refer to Hesiod: rather, the author of the Theogony tells the story of his own inspiration by the same Muses who once taught Hesiod glorious song. The lines 22-3 are therefore a very early piece of tradition about Hesiod, and though the appearance of Muses must be treated as a graceful fiction, we find that a Avriter, later than the Works and Days by perhaps no more than three-quarters of a century, believed in the actuality of Hesiod and in his life as a farmer or shepherd. ”

“ But, to complete our parallel with Hesiod, Tusser has his descriptions of the winds and planets; is alive to the wisdom of the "farm and fruit of old," as well as of the improved courses of husbandry in his own day: and if he now and then strikes out paths which have no parallel in Hesiod, even in such cases the homeliness and naïveté of his counsel savours of the ancient poet in whose footsteps he so distinctly treads. ”

“ A WORD WITH HESIOD Lycinus. Hesiod
Ly. As to your being a first-rate poet, Hesiod, we do not doubt that, any more than we doubt your having received the gift from the Muses, together with that laurel-branch; it is sufficiently proved by the noble inspiration that breathes in every line of your works. But there is one point on which we may be excused for feeling some perplexity. You begin by telling us that your divine gifts were bestowed upon you by Heaven in order that you might sing of the glories that have been, and tell of that which is to come. ”

“ Everyone boasts that the most divine of poets, Homer and Hesiod, are said to be his particular countrymen. Hesiod, indeed, has put a name to his native place and so prevented any rivalry, for he said that his father ‘settled near Helicon in a wretched hamlet, Ascra, which is miserable in winter, sultry in summer, and good at no season.’ But, as for Homer, you might almost say that every city with its inhabitants claims him as her son. Foremost are the men of Smyrna who say that he was the Son of Meles, the river of their town, by a nymph Cretheis, and that he was at first called Melesigenes. ”

“ These traditions show that Hesiod was looked upon and worshipped in Bœotia (and also in Phocis) as an ancient hero, and, like many other heroes, he was said to have been unjustly killed in the Grove of the Nemean Jupiter. All that we can say, under these circumstances, is that a poet or hero of the name of Hesiod was regarded by the ancients as the head and representative of that school of poetry which was based on the Thracian or Pierian bards, and was developed in Bœotia. ”

“ What is Hesiod's definition of the man who will neither counsel himself nor be counselled by his friends? . . . . Have you no trusty acquaintances in Cyrenaica, for instance?'
The Prefect was silent.
'Oh, hear us, my father! Why not go to Euodius? He is your old comrade—a well-wisher, too, to this . . . . this expedition . . . . And recollect, Augustine must be there now. He was about to sail for Berenice, in order to consult Synesius and the Pentapolitan bishops, when we left Carthage.'
And at the name of Augustine the old man paused. ”

“ Cut off the withered from the quick with life,
Upon the five-brancht stock—
or, in other words, never cut your finger-nails on a holy day.
Hesiod, by birth an Æolian, was by settlement a Boeotian. He lived and farmed his own land on the slopes of Helikon, under the governance of the lords of Thespiæ, whoever they were. I have been to Thespiæ, and certify that there are no lords there now. I saw little but fleas and dogs of incredible savagery, where once were the precinct and shrine of Eros with a famous statue of the god by Praxiteles. ”

“ The Hesperian virgins seem the same with the Muses and Syrens, the priestesses of the temple: and their singing sweetly on their watch, as described afterwards by Hesiod, alludes to the hymns which they chanted at the altar. They are made the daughters of Night, because the gardens were in Afric: which, equally with Italy and Spain, was denominated Hesperia by the Greeks: and the region of the west was considered as synonymous with Night.
[165] Eldest of all his race.] The history of the patriarch was recorded by the ancients through their whole theology. ”

“ But should the argument affect their being coeval, it does not appear why Hesiod might not be the elder: for who will be bold enough to decide as to the most ancient quantity? nor could we possibly determine the question, unless we were in possession of other poets, contemporary with Homer, who should be found to conform exactly with the Homeric prosody: in which case the disagreement of Hesiod might favour a presumption of his belonging, at least, to a different age. ”

“ Hesiod is thus not only the mouthpiece of obscure hand-workers in the earliest centuries of Greek history, the poet of their daily labors, sufferings, and wrongs, the singer of their doubts and infantine reflections on the world in which they had to toil; he is also the immediate parent of gnomic verse, and the ancestor of [Pg 167] those deep thinkers who speculated in the Attic age upon the mysteries of human life. ”

“ When Hesiod heard this oracle, he kept away from the Peloponnesus, supposing that the god meant the Nemea there; and coming to Oenoe in Locris, he stayed with Amphiphanes and Ganyetor the sons of Phegeus, thus unconsciously fulfilling the oracle; for all that region was called the sacred place of Nemean Zeus. He continued to stay a somewhat long time at Oenoe, until the young men, suspecting Hesiod of seducing their sister, killed him and cast his body into the sea which separates Achaea and Locris. ”

“ Hestia, in the high dwellings of all, both deathless gods and men who walk on earth, you have gained an everlasting abode and highest honour: glorious is your portion and your right. For without you mortals hold no banquet,—where one does not duly pour sweet wine in offering to Hestia both first and last.
(ll. 7-10) 2533 And you, slayer of Argus, Son of Zeus and Maia, messenger of the blessed gods, bearer of the golden rod, giver of good, be favourable and help us, you and Hestia, the worshipful and dear. Come and dwell in this glorious house in friendship together ”

“ A stream distils from the declivity. This water is denominated Styx by the Greeks. It is deadly to man and to all animals whatever. Pausanias, Arcadics, b. viii.
Le Clerc supposes an opinion to have existed, that a person wrongfully accused might securely drink the water of Styx: and conceives Hesiod to mean that the gods drank of the water at the same time that they made a libation, and if they took a false oath, were convicted by the lethargic properties of this noxious stream.
[224] Jove sends Iris down.] To this covenant (with Noah) Hesiod alludes: he calls it the great oath. ”

“ Hesiod's 'Theogony' consists of three divisions: a cosmogony, or creation of the world, its powers, and its fabric; a theogony proper, recording the history of the dynasties of Cronus and Zeus; and a fragmentary generation of heroes, sprung from the intercourse of mortals with immortals. Hesiod and his contemporaries considered that in their day Jupiter or Zeus was the lord of Olympus; but it was necessary to chronicle the antecedents of his dynasty, and hence the account of the stages and revolutions which had led up to the established order under which Hesiod's generation found itself. ”

“ Hesiod’s earliest poem, the famous Works and Days, and according to Boeotian testimony the only genuine one, embodies the experiences of his daily life and work, and, interwoven with episodes of fable, allegory, and personal history, forms a sort of Boeotian shepherd’s calendar. ”

“ Dr. Martyn, in a note on Virgil’s 4th Eclogue, has fallen into the error of the old interpreters; when he quotes Hesiod as describing the iron age “which was to end when the men of that time grew old and gray.” Postquam facti circa tempora cani fuerint: but the proper interpretation is, quum vix nati canescant: as Grævius has corrected it. The same critic is unquestionably right in his opinion, that the future tenses of this passage in the original are to be understood as indefinite present: μεμψονται, incusabunt: i. e. incusare solent: use to revile. ”

“ The "fictions seeming true"—in other words, the heroic poetry so popular in the land of his father's birth—Hesiod considers himself enjoined to forsake for a graver strain—"the things of truth"—which the Muses declare have been hitherto regarded by mortals as not included in their gift of inspiration. He takes their commission to be prophet and poet of this phase of minstrelsy, embracing, it appears, the past and future, and including his theogonic and ethical poetry. ”

“ But it is forgotten that Hesiod is describing the genealogy of the winds: and it is very inconceivable that one of the four cardinal winds should have escaped his notice. The editions of Stephens and Trincavellus read
Νοσφι Νοτου, Βορεω τε, και Αργεστου, Ζεφυρου τε: instead of αργεστεω Ζεφιροιο: and I have no doubt that this is the true reading.
[188]
Not apart from Jove
Their mansion is.]
So Callimachus, Hymn to Jupiter:
No lots have made thee king above all gods:
But works of thy own hands: thy Strength and Force,
Whom thou hast, therefore, station’d next thy throne. ”

“ The inhabitants of Orchomenos, in Bœotia, having consulted the oracle on occasion of a pestilence, were answered that, as their only remedy, they must seek the bones of Hesiod; and that a crow would direct them. The messengers accordingly found a crow sitting on a rock; in the cavity of which they discovered the poet’s remains; transported them to their own country, and erected a tomb with this epitaph:
[xxvi]
The fallow vales of Ascra gave him birth:
His bones are cover’d by the Mingan earth:
Supreme in Hellas Hesiod’s glories rise,
Whom men discern by wisdom’s touchstone wise. ”

“ The epic lay in 480 lines called the Shield of Heracles—partly imitated from the 18th book of the Iliad—is the work of an author or authors later than Hesiod. In the Hesiodic poetry, as represented by the Works and Days and the Theogony, we see the influence of the temple at Delphi. Hesiod recognizes the existence of δαίμονες—spirits of the departed who haunt the earth as the invisible guardians of justice; and he connects the office of the poet with that of the prophet. The poet is one whom the gods have authorized to impress doctrine and practical duties on men. ”

“ It seems certain that "Hesiod" stands as a proper name in the fullest sense. Secondly, Hesiod claims that his father — if not he himself — came from Aeolis and settled in Boeotia. There is fairly definite evidence to warrant our acceptance of this: the dialect of the Works and Days is shown by Rzach [3] to contain distinct Aeolisms apart from those which formed part of the general stock of epic poetry. ”

“ These legends, though they are mere fictions, show the connection which the ancients conceived to exist between the poetry of Hesiod (especially the Theogony) and the ancient schools of priests and bards, which had their seats in Thrace and Pieria, and thence spread into Boeotia, where they pro- bably formed the elements out of which the He- siodic poetry was developed. Some of the fables pretending to be the personal history of Hesiod are of such a nature as to throw considerable doubt upon the personal existence of the poet altogether ”

“ Midst this fifth race, this iron age of earth;
That long before within the grave I lay,
Or long hereafter could behold the day! That Virgil elsewhere calls Hesiod’s verse Ascræan is no argument against his supposing him of Cuma: there seems no reason why either epithet should not be used: for the poet was at least of Cumæan extraction. That Ascræus was Hesiod’s received surname among the ancients proves nothing as to his birth-place, nor is any thing proved as to Virgil’s opinion by his adoption of the title in compliance with common usage. ”

“ But the goodness which Hesiod attributes to the genii of the air was never, I suspect, an essential trait in their character. In Hesiod it is a corollary of the statement that they are the spirits of men who belonged to the golden age; but there is no reason to suppose that the common-folk ever regarded them as more beneficent than other gods and daemons. At any rate at the present day the ἀερικά, or genii of the air, are no better disposed towards mankind than any other supernatural beings. ”

“ K. O. Müller (History of Grecian Literature, ch. 8. § 4) thinks that there is not sufficient evidence to form a decisive opinion.
Under the name of Hesiod (in that vague language which is usual in antiquity respecting authorship, but which modern critics have not much mended by speaking of the Hesiodic school, sect, or family) passed many different poems, belonging to three classes quite distinct from each other, but all disparate from the Homeric epic:—1. The poems of legend cast into historical and genealogical series, such as the Eoiai, the Catalogue of Women, etc. 2. ”

“ In the concluding verses of the Theogony, the poet invokes the Muses to sing the praises of women; and among the lost works of Hesiod, whose titles are dispersed in ancient authors, are enumerated the four Catalogues of Women or Heroines; and the Herogony, or Generation of Heroes descended from them; which are thought to have been five connected parts of the same poem. That this was the work of Hesiod we have the testimony of Pausanias ”