Hesiŏdus
（
Ἡσίοδος). A celebrated Greek poet, supposed to have been
born at Ascra in Boeotia (
Op. et D. 633 foll.). His father, it seems, had
migrated to Ascra in consequence of his poverty, and resided at the latter place for some
time, though without obtaining the rights of a citizen. Still, however, he left at his death a
considerable property to his two sons, Hesiod, and a younger one named Perses. The brothers
divided the inheritance; but Perses, by means of bribes to the judges, contrived to defraud
his elder brother. Hesiod thereupon migrated to Orchomenus, as Göttling supposes, and
the harsh epithets which he applies to his native village were, in all probability, prompted
by resentment at the wrong which he had suffered from the Ascraean judges. From a passage in
the proëm to his
Theogony, it has been inferred that Hesiod was
literally a shepherd, and tended his flocks on the side of Helicon. He was evidently born in
an humble station, and was himself engaged in rural pursuits; and this perfectly accords with
the subject of the poem which was unanimously ascribed to him—namely, the
Works and Days (
Ἔργα καὶ Ἡμέραι), which
is a collection of reflections and precepts relating to husbandry and the regulation of a
rural household, interwoven with fables, allegories, etc., forming, as has been said,
“a Boeotian shepherd's-calendar.” The only additional fact that can be
gathered from Hesiod's writings is that he went over to the island of Euboea, on occasion of a
poetical contest at Chalcis, which formed part of the funeral games instituted in honour of
Amphidamas; that he obtained a tripod as the prize, and consecrated it to the Muses of
Helicon. This latter passage is suspected by Wolf; but it seems to have formed a part of the
poem from time immemorial; and it may not be unreasonable to infer its authenticity from the
tradition respecting an imaginary contest between Homer and Hesiod.
The following legendary account is given as to the manner of Hesiod's death. He is said to
have consulted the oracle of Delphi as to his future destinies, and the Pythia directed him,
in reply, to shun the grove of Nemean Zeus, since there death awaited him. There were at Argos
a temple and a brazen statue of Zeus; and Hesiod, believing this to be the fatal spot,
directed his course to Oenoë, a town of the Locri; but the ambiguity of the oracle
had deceived him, for this place also, by obscure report, was sacred to the
same god. He was here the guest of two brothers. It happened that their sister
Clymené was violated in the night-time by the person who had accompanied Hesiod,
and hanged herself in consequence of the outrage. This man they accordingly slew; and,
suspecting the connivance of Hesiod, killed him also, and threw his body into the sea. The
murder is said to have been detected by the sagacity of Hesiod's dog; though by some it is
related that his corpse was brought to the shore by a company of dolphins, at the moment that
the people were celebrating the festival of Poseidon. The body of Hesiod was recognized, the
houses of the murderers were razed to the foundation, and the murderers themselves cast into
the sea. Another account states them to have been consumed by lightning; a third, to have been
overtaken by a tempest while escaping to Crete in a fishing-boat, and to have perished in the
wreck.
The only works that remain under the name of Hesiod are: (i.)
Ἔργα
καὶ Ἡμέραι (“Works and Days”); (ii.)
Θεογονία (“Theogony”); (iii.)
Ἀσπὶς
Ἡρακλέους (“The Shield of Heracles”). The
Works and
Days (which, according to Pausanias, the Boeotians regarded as the only genuine
production of Hesiod) is entirely occupied with the events of common life. The poem consists
of advice given by Hesiod to his brother Perses, on subjects relating for the most part to
agriculture and the general conduct of life. The object of the first portion of the poem is to
improve the character and habits of Perses, and to incite him to a life of labour, as the only
source of permanent prosperity. Mythical narratives, fables, descriptions, and moral
apophthegms, partly of a proverbial kind, are ingeniously chosen and combined, so as to
illustrate and enforce the principal idea, and served as a model for Vergil in his
Georgics. In the second part Hesiod shows Perses the succession in which his
labours must follow, if he determines to lead a life of industry. The poet speaks of the time
of life when a man should marry, and how he should look out for a wife. He recommends all to
bear in mind that the immortal gods watch over the actions of men; in all intercourse with
others to keep the tongue from idle and provoking words, and to preserve a certain purity and
care in the commonest occurrences of every-day life. At the same time, he gives many curious
precepts, which resemble sacerdotal rules, with respect to the decorum to be observed in acts
of worship, and which, moreover, have much in common with the symbolic rules of the
Pythagoreans, that ascribed a spiritual import to many acts of ordinary life. Of a very
similar nature is the last part of the poem, which treats of the days on which it is expedient
or inexpedient to do this or that business.
The
Theogony (
Θεογονία) consists of an
account of the origin of the world, including the birth of the gods, and makes use of numerous
personifications. Even as early as the time of Pausanias (viii. 18, ix. 31) it was doubted
whether Hesiod was actually the author of this poem, though its genuineness is expressly
asserted by Herodotus (ii. 53), and all the internal evidence is in favour of this view.
According to Hermann, it is a species of
mélange, formed by
the union of several poems on the same subject, and which has been effected by the same
copyists or grammarians. The
Theogony is interesting as being the most ancient
monument that we have of the Greek mythology. When we consider it as a poem, we find no
composition of ancient times so stamped with a rude simplicity of character. It is without
luminous order of arrangement, abounds with dry details, and only occasionally rises to any
particular elevation of fancy. It exhibits that crude irregularity and that mixture of
meanness and grandeur which characterize a strong but uncultivated genius. The censure of
Quintilian that “Hesiod rarely soars, and a great part of him is occupied in mere
names,” is undoubtedly merited. The sentence just quoted, however, refers plainly to
the
Theogony alone, while the following seems exclusively applicable to the
Works and Days: “Yet he is distinguished by useful sentences of
morality, and an admirable sweetness of diction and expression, and he deserves the palm in
the middle style of writing.” The passage relating to the battle of the gods,
however, can not surely be classed among the specimens of the middle style. This passage,
together with the combat of Zeus and Typhoëus, astonishes the reader by sudden bursts
of enthusiasm, for which the prolix and nerveless narrative of the general poem has little
prepared him. Mahaffy speaks of it as having “a splendid crash and thunder about
it,” and even as “far superior in conception, though inferior in
execution, to the battle of the gods in the
Iliad.” Milton has
borrowed some suggestions from these descriptions; and the arming of the Messiah for battle in
Paradise Lost is obviously imitated from the magnificent picture of Zeus
summoning all the terrors of his omnipotence for the extirpation of the Titans.
We have also, under the name of Hesiod, a fragment of 480 lines from a poem entitled the
Ἡρωογονία or the genealogy and history of the demigods. To
this poem some unknown rhapsodist has attached a piece on the combat between Heracles and
Cycnus, containing a description of the hero's shield. It is from this part that the fragment
in question bears the title of the
Shield of Heracles (
Ἀσπὶς Ἡρακλέους). Modern crities think that to the
Heroögony of Hesiod belonged two works which are cited by the
ancients—the one under the title of
Catalogue of Women (
Κατάλογος Γυναικῶν), a sort of Greek Debrett, giving the history
of those mortal women who had become the mothers of demigods, and the other under the title of
the
Μεγάλαι Ἠοῖαι, so named because the history of each
woman or heroine mentioned therein commenced with the words
ἢ
οἵη (“or such as”). There are scholia on Hesiod by Proclus,
John Tzetzes, Moschopulus, and John Protospatharius; but the commentary by Aristophanes of
Byzantium is lost. Tzetzes has also left a life of the poet, which is printed in Flach's
edition of Hesiod.
The
editio princeps of Hesiod appeared at Milan in 1493. Other
memorable editions are those of Gaisford
(1814-20), Lehrs
(1862),
Schömann
(1869), Koechly
(1878), and Fick
(1887); and with explanatory notes, those of Paley, in English
(1861), and of Göttling
(1843) and Flach, in Latin
(1878). The fragments are collected by Markscheffel
(Leipzig,
1840). There is an English prose translation of Hesiod with Callimachus and Theognis in
the Bohn Library; and a spirited verse translation by Elton. See also Rzach's monograph on the
language of
Hesiod, Der Dialect des Hesiodus (1876); and on the mythology, Gruppe,
Die griech. Kulte und Mythen, i. 567-612.
