Theogony and Works and Days

What it is about

Hesiod's two poems: the 'Theogony', which tells how the gods and the world were born, and the 'Works and Days', which tells how one should live by working the land.

Context and history

They are nearly contemporary with Homer, of the eighth or seventh century BC, and they are something else. The 'Theogony' is the earliest ordered account of Greek mythology we have, and the text on which nearly all later ones depend: out of Chaos comes Earth, and from there the generations of gods down to Zeus. The 'Works and Days' is addressed to his brother Perses, who he says took part of his inheritance by bribing the judges: it is a didactic and aggrieved poem, with the farming calendar, practical advice, and the myth of the five ages and that of Pandora. Hesiod's voice is the first personal voice in European literature: he gives his name, complains about his life, and speaks of his particular village.

Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.