Hesiod
Theogony and Works and days
Hesiod Theogony and Works and days
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Five [-and-a-half] things:
Author:
Hesiod
Title
Theogony and Works & Days
Date
Late 8th century bc
Location
Greece: specifically Ascra
Language
Greek
Hesiod Theogony and Works and days
• [textual tradition/edition]
Major manuscripts (codices): 10th-16th century; papyri
exist from 2nd c bc (again, scraps from an Oxyrynchus
trash heap or mummy bandage) to the 6th century.
Hesiod has been preserved for us as the three major
poems (the two you're reading plus the Shield of
Heracles) as well as other poems (only fragments
survive: the ehoie, the megalai ehoie, hymns n stuff).
The ehoie, or Catalog of women, was a continuation of
the Theogony in 5 books: a catalog of genealogy of
heroes descended from gods and the mortal women
they coupled with (hence the title and ehoie formula).
Hesiod Theogony and Works and days
• Major literary concerns:
• Question of epic: a different kind of writing (didactic /
catalogic)
• Mythology versus history again: when do these things
happen?
• Nostalgia
• Male v. female
• City v. country
• Creation of man
• Cycle of infanticide / cannibalism / castration
• The muse: telling lies and the truth
Hesiod
• Ca. 700 B.C.
Boeotian poet
• Theogony “Birth of the
Gods”
First literary account of
genesis among the Greeks
• Theogony vs. Cosmogony
• Works and Days
Creation Story
• GENESIS, HESIOD AND OVID
– HEAVEN AND EARTH --> FIRST RECOGNIZABLE ELEMENTS TO
COME FROM CHAOS OR THE ABYSS.
• HESIOD
– NO CREATOR
• OVID (METAMORPHOSES. 1.1-75):
– CHAOS: UNFORMED MASS OF ELEMENTS IN STRIFE BROUGHT
TO ORDER BY A GOD OR SOME HIGHER DIVINE NATURE.
• GENESIS, OVID
– GOD CREATES THE HEAVEN AND EARTH FIRST.
– GENESIS ADDS MORAL JUDGMENTS OF THINGS AS GOOD OR
BAD.
Hesiod’s genealogy
First Elements
Chaos
"Emptiness"
"Yawning Void"
Night
(Feminine Gender)
Erebus
"Unbroken Darkness
of Tartarus"
Ge
"Earth"
Tartarus
"Underworld"
Eros
"Urge to procreate"
Night and Eros
Ge’s Children
NIGHT=EREBUS (DAY AND AETHER
"RADIANCE")
"And there was evening and there was morning, the
first day" (Genesis 1.5)
Ge (Ouranos, Mountains, Sea)
Parthenogenesis: "virgin birth"
Ge=Ouranos
Hieros Gamos:"sacred marriage" a
Sky god and earth goddess
Ge and Ouranos
• 3 Cyclopes
• Hecatonchires “hundredhanders”
• 12 Titans
The 12 Titans
Oceanus
Hyperion
Iapetus
Coeus (“one who
perceives”)
Crius
Theia ("divine")
Phoebe ("brilliant")
Tethys ("nourisher")
Themis 3 Fates
Mnemosyne "memory”
Cronus or Saturn
Rhea
The Titans
Oceanus =Tethys"nourisher"
3,000 Oceanids
The Titans
Hyperion =Theia ("divine")
Helios (sun)
Phaethon
Selene (moon)
Endymion
Eos (aurora) Dawn
Tithonus
Helios and his Golden cup
• Greek perception
of the universe
The Titans
Iapetus = Theia ("divine")
Prometheus
Coeus = Phoebe ("brilliant")
Leto (mother of Apollo an Artemis)
Crius
Themis (Justice) Mother of the 3 Fates
Mnemosyne "memory” : 9 Muses
Cronus
Rhea
Greek Succession Story
• Ouranos (Ge)
• Cronus (Rhea)
• Zeus
Castration of Uranus
Ge and Ouranos
Cronus
The Mutilation of Uranus by Cronus. Georgio
Vasari and Cristofano Gherardi, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, c. 1560
The birth of Aphrodite
• Aphros “foam born”
Aetiological myth
• Cythera
• Cyprus
• Zeus +Dione
Cronus and Rhea
Cronus devouring his children by Rubens,
1636
Cronus devouring his
children, by Goya. 1823
Madrid, Prado Museum.
The birth of Zeus
• Zeus, Crete, Mt. Dicte
• Kuretes, goat Amalthea
and Melissa ‘bee”)
The birth of Athena
• Zeus = Metis
"wisdom"
• Zeus gives birth to
Athena
Themes of the Succession story
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Ge gives birth (asexually)
Ge is replaced by a line of male descendants
Females plot with their sons
Zeus gives birth to Athena
Zeus imposes order on a chaotic world and
maintains it by virtue of his superior physical and
mental power.
• Matriarchy  Patriarchy
Males take over the female function of giving
birth
Prominent Themes
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Conflict
Male vs. female
Generational struggle
Violence
Titanomachy (“battle of the Titans”)
Zeus’ allies
Hestia
Demeter
Hera
Poseidon
100-handers
Cyclopes
Zeus’s enemies
Titans (except
Prometheus)
Atlas
Zeus and the Giants
• Zeus vs. Giants
(gegeneis "earthborn")
• Typhon or
Typhoeus (Mt.
Etna)
Zeus
• Roman: Jupiter or
Jove "bright"
• thunderbolt,
scepter
Temples of Zeus
Dodona
Olympia
Hera
Zeus and Hera
hieros gamos
Eileithyia (childbirth)
Hebe (Youth)
Ares
Ares =Aphrodite (Eros)
Hephaestus
Eileithyia
Hebe
Ares
• Phobos, "panic" Deimos,
"fear"
• Roman Mars
• agricultural deity
worshiped by Italian tribes
• associated with spring
(regeneration and
growth)--March
Hephaestus
• God of smiths
Lemnos
• Vulcan
god of fire
destructive
Velazque Diego Rodriguea de Silvay - Museo del Prado,
Madrid
Ganymede and Zeus
Zeus' Divine Love Affairs
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Zeus and Metis (power and
wisdom)
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Zeus and Thetis (Peleus)
Achilles
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Zeus and Themis
Fates
Clotho, Lachesis and
Atropos)
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Zeus= Mnemosyne
(9 Muses)
Zeus’ mortal lovers
Zeus and Io
Hermes, Argus,
Argeiphontes
Epaphus of Argos
Europa and Danae
Minos Perseus
Zeus and Leda
Helen and the Dioscuri
Zeus' promiscuity reflects:
• Absolute freedom of males in a patriarchal
society
• Wish fulfillment fantasy of inexhaustible virility
• Wish to establish descent from Father Sky
Zeus as a new ruler according to Hesiod
• Zeus and Justice
Xenios Zeus (philoxenia "hospitality")
• Uses diplomacy and eloquence as
opposed to physical violence
• Punishes/represses: Titans, Typhon
Prometheus
• Rechannels the power of: Athena, the
Cyclopes, the 100-handers
• Fathers new forces of good:
Muses, Athena, Justice, Graces
The creation of man
• Man created by
Prometheus by mixing
earth and water (Ovid,
Met. 1. 100-120)
• Zeus (Athena)
Prometheus 'forethinker’
Epimetheus
'after-thinker'
Prometheus, Piero di Cosimo, c. 1515
The Five Ages of Man
1) Age of Gold (Cronus)
2) Age of Silver
3) Age of Bronze
4) Age of Heroes (Homer/Trojan War)
5) Age of Iron (Hesiod)
Prometheus and the Sacrifice
Dispute
Hesiod, Works and Days
Hesiod's Prometheus: a trickster
The theft of fire
Greek ritual of sacrifice
Olympian vs. Chthonian Sacrifice
Sequence of events according to Hesiod (523536)
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Sacrifice trick
Zeus hides "power of fire" from men.
Prometheus steals fire back.
Zeus has Pandora made, "an evil to balance
the good" (l. 587) of fire.
• Prometheus punished (l. 617-620).
Pandora
All gifted or all-giver
Prometheus chained by
Vulcan
Baburen, c. 1623
Prometheus’ punishment
Prometheus on Mt. Caucasus
Pandora in Works and Days (lines 60-105)
• Created by Hephaestus
• Athena taught her needlework and weaving (63-4);
• Aphrodite "shed grace upon her head and cruel longing and cares that
weary the limbs" (65-6);
• Hermes gave her "a shameful mind and deceitful nature" (67-77) and
the power of speech, putting in her "lies and crafty words" (77-80) ;
• Persuasion and the Charites (Graces) adorned her with necklaces;
• the Horae adorned her with a garland crown (75);
• Hermes gave her her name
• Pandora brings with her a jar containing "burdensome toil and
sickness that brings death to men, diseases and a myriad other pains.”
Pandora’s box
• Pandora and Eve (Helen):
etiological explanation
• Hope?
Hesiod Works and days
• OWC ed. – some page notes
– 37
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Muses
Zeus
Eris = Strife (diff. kinds) (cf. p. 9)
Singer singer
– 38
• Disputes and our dispute
• The infants
• Prometheus’ trick (cf. p. 19-20)
Hesiod Works and days
• Book notes
– 39
• 3 tales of ill: Pandora
– 40-42
• And the ages of man
– 42-43
• And the theodicy of the hawk and the nightingale
– 43
• Dike (straight judgment) and link with xenia
Hesiod Works and days
• Book notes
– 44
• Agriculture v. mercantilism
– 45-46
• Gods give Right and Sweat
– 46-47
• Gods’ gifts and human obligation
– 48-50
• An emphasis on agriculture
Hesiod Works and days
• Book notes
– 51
• Choice of working or begging
– 53
• An emphasis on dress
– 55
• Viticulture
– 56
• Ships
– 58
• More theodicy: punishment and poverty