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Works and Days (in ancient Greek
Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
  / Erga kaí Hemérai, which sometimes goes by the Latin name Opera et Dies, as in the OCT
Oxford Classical Texts

Oxford Classical Texts , or Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis, is a series of books published by Oxford University Press. It contains texts of ancient Greek and Latin literature, such as Homer's Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid, in the original language with a critical apparatus....
) is a Greek poem of some 800 verses written by Hesiod
Hesiod

Hesiod was a Greek language oral poet, his date is uncertain but leading scholars agree that Hesiod lived in the latter half of the Eighth-century BCE....
 (around 700 BC). The poem revolves around two general truths: labour is the universal lot of Man, but he who is willing to work will get by. Scholars have seen this work against a background of agrarian crisis in mainland Greece, which inspired a wave of documented colonisations in search of new land.

It also repeats the story of Prometheus
Prometheus

In Greek mythology, Prometheus is a Titan known for his wily intelligence, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to human beings for their use....
, which is also written in Theogony
Theogony

The Theogony is a poem by Hesiod describing the origins and genealogy of the polytheism of the ancient Greeks, composed circa 700 BC....
, and the theft of fire from Zeus and the resulting punishment of man with Pandora
Pandora

[Image:Pandora.jpg|right|thumb|300px|"The Creation of "[A]NESIDORA" on a white-ground kylix by the Tarquinia Painter, ca 460 BC In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first woman....
 and her jar with Hope only left inside it.

This work lays out the five Ages of Man
Ages of Man

The Ages of Man are the stages of human existence on the Earth according to Classical mythology. Two classical authors in particular offer accounts of the successive ages of mankind, which tend to progress from an original, long-gone age in which humans enjoyed a nearly divine existence to the current age of the writer, in which humans are be...
, as well as containing advice and wisdom, prescribing a life of honest labour and attacking idleness and unjust judge
Judge

A judge, or arbiter of justice, is a lead official who presides over a court of law,which is operated by the local, state, and/or federal government....
s (like those who decided in favour of Perses) as well as the practice of usury.






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Encyclopedia


Works and Days (in ancient Greek
Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
  / Erga kaí Hemérai, which sometimes goes by the Latin name Opera et Dies, as in the OCT
Oxford Classical Texts

Oxford Classical Texts , or Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis, is a series of books published by Oxford University Press. It contains texts of ancient Greek and Latin literature, such as Homer's Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid, in the original language with a critical apparatus....
) is a Greek poem of some 800 verses written by Hesiod
Hesiod

Hesiod was a Greek language oral poet, his date is uncertain but leading scholars agree that Hesiod lived in the latter half of the Eighth-century BCE....
 (around 700 BC). The poem revolves around two general truths: labour is the universal lot of Man, but he who is willing to work will get by. Scholars have seen this work against a background of agrarian crisis in mainland Greece, which inspired a wave of documented colonisations in search of new land.

It also repeats the story of Prometheus
Prometheus

In Greek mythology, Prometheus is a Titan known for his wily intelligence, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to human beings for their use....
, which is also written in Theogony
Theogony

The Theogony is a poem by Hesiod describing the origins and genealogy of the polytheism of the ancient Greeks, composed circa 700 BC....
, and the theft of fire from Zeus and the resulting punishment of man with Pandora
Pandora

[Image:Pandora.jpg|right|thumb|300px|"The Creation of "[A]NESIDORA" on a white-ground kylix by the Tarquinia Painter, ca 460 BC In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first woman....
 and her jar with Hope only left inside it.

This work lays out the five Ages of Man
Ages of Man

The Ages of Man are the stages of human existence on the Earth according to Classical mythology. Two classical authors in particular offer accounts of the successive ages of mankind, which tend to progress from an original, long-gone age in which humans enjoyed a nearly divine existence to the current age of the writer, in which humans are be...
, as well as containing advice and wisdom, prescribing a life of honest labour and attacking idleness and unjust judge
Judge

A judge, or arbiter of justice, is a lead official who presides over a court of law,which is operated by the local, state, and/or federal government....
s (like those who decided in favour of Perses) as well as the practice of usury. It describes immortals who roam the earth watching over justice and injustice. The poem regards labour as the source of all good, in that both gods and men hate the idle, who resemble drones in a hive.

Works and Days contains the earliest recorded mention of the star Sirius
Sirius

Sirius is the list of brightest stars in the night sky with a visual apparent magnitude of −1.46, almost twice as bright as Canopus, the next brightest star....
, as the Greek Se????? (Seirios, "glowing" or "scorcher").

Selected translations

  • Athanassakis, Apostolos N.
    Apostolos Athanassakis

    Apostolos N. Athanassakis is a classical scholar and Argyropoulos Chair in Hellenic Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara . Professor Athanassakis, or "Professor A" as he is often referred to by students, currently serves as the faculty in residence in Manzanita Village....
    , Theogony ; Works and days ; Shield / Hesiod ; introduction, translation, and notes, Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983. ISBN 0801829984
  • Cooke, , Translated from the Greek, London, 1728
  • Frazer, R.M. (Richard McIlwaine), The Poems of Hesiod, Norman : University of Oklahoma Press, 1983. ISBN 0806118377
  • Most, Glenn, translator, Hesiod, 2 vols., Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2006-07.
  • Schlegel, Catherine M., and Henry Weinfield, translators, Theogony and Works and Days, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 2006
  • Sinclair, Thomas Alan (translator), Hesiodou Erga kai hemerai, London, Macmillan and co., 1932.
  • Tandy, David W., and Neale, Walter C. [translators], Works and Days: a translation and commentary for the social sciences, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. ISBN 0520203836
  • West, Martin Litchfield
    Martin Litchfield West

    Martin Litchfield West is an internationally recognised scholar in classics, classical antiquity and philology. In 2002, upon his receipt of the Kenyon Medal for Classical Studies from the British Academy, he was called "the most brilliant and productive Greek scholar of his generation." He is an Emeritus Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford,...
     (translator), Hesiod Works & Days, Oxford University Press, 1978, ISBN 0-19-814005-3. Edited with Prolegomena and Commentary.


Further reading

  • Bartlett, Robert C. , The Review of Politics 68 (2006), p.177-205, University of Notre Dame.
  • Beall, E.F., , paper read at the annual meeting of the Classical Association of the Atlantic States, October 6, 2006
  • Clay, Jenny Strauss, Hesiod’s Cosmos, Cambridge, 2003.
  • Kenaan, Vered Lev, Pandora’s Senses : The Feminine Character of the Ancient Text, Madison, Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin Press
    University of Wisconsin Press

    The University of Wisconsin Press is a Non-profit organization university press publishing Peer review books and journals. It primarily publishes work by scholars from the global academic community but also serves the citizens of Wisconsin by publishing important books about Wisconsin, the Upper Midwest, and the Great Lakes region ....
    , 2008.
  • Lamberton, Robert, Hesiod, New Haven : Yale University Press, 1988. ISBN 0300040687. Cf. Chapter III, "The Works and Days", pp.105-133.
  • Nelson, Stephanie A., God and the Land: The Metaphysics of Farming in Hesiod and Vergil, New York and Oxford, 1998
  • Nisbet, Gideon, Hesiod, Works and Days: A Didaxis of Deconstruction?, Greece and Rome 51 (2004), pp.147-63.
  • Peabody, Berkley, The Winged Word: A Study in the Technique of Ancient Greek Oral Composition as Seen Principally Through Hesiod's Works and Days, State University of New York Press, 1975. ISBN 0873950593
  • Verdenius, Willem Jacob, A Commentary on Hesiod Works and Days vv 1-382 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1985). ISBN 9004074651