This collection brings together the poetry associated with Hesiod, especially the Theogony and Works and Days. The poems describe the genealogy of the gods, the struggle for divine order, the myth of Prometheus and Pandora, and the harsh moral economy of labour, justice and farming life. The volume belongs to archaic Greece, where myth, ritual memory and practical instruction still sit close together.
Together the poems offer one of the clearest early Greek attempts to explain both cosmic order and the ordinary obligations of human life. Divine succession, agricultural labour and moral conduct all depend on justice being recognised and maintained. The collection therefore moves easily from the origins of Zeus’s rule to advice about seasons, neighbours and work.
Homer
2 books
Ovid
4 books
Apollonius of Rhodes
2 books
Aeschylus
1 book
Sophocles
1 book