Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica
that generation. Exceptions are only made in special cases, as the Sons
of Iapetus (ll. 507-616) whose place is accounted for by their
treatment by Zeus. The chief landmarks in the poem are as follows:
after the first 103 lines, which contain at least three distinct
preludes, three primeval beings are introduced, Chaos, Earth, and
Eros—here an indefinite reproductive influence. Of these three, Earth
produces Heaven to whom she bears the Titans, the Cyclopes and the
hundred-handed giants. The Titans, oppressed by their father, revolt at
the instigation of Earth, under the leadership of Cronos, and as a
result Heaven and Earth are separated, and Cronos reigns over the
universe. Cronos knowing that he is destined to be overcome by one of
his children, swallows each one of them as they are born, until Zeus,
saved by Rhea, grows up and overcomes Cronos in some struggle which is
not described. Cronos is forced to vomit up the children he had
swallowed, and these with Zeus divide the universe between them, like a
human estate. Two events mark the early reign of Zeus, the war with the
Titans and the overthrow of Typhoeus, and as Zeus is still reigning the
poet can only go on to give a list of gods born to Zeus by various
goddesses. After this he formally bids farewell to the cosmic and
Olympian deities and enumerates the sons born of goddess to mortals.
The poem closes with an invocation of the Muses to sing of the “tribe
of women”.
This conclusion served to link the _Theogony_ to what must have been a
distinct poem, the _Catalogues of Women_. This work was divided into
four (Suidas says five) books, the last one (or two) of which was known
as the _Eoiae_ and may have been again a distinct poem: the curious
title will be explained presently. The _Catalogues_ proper were a
series of genealogies which traced the Hellenic race (or its more
important peoples and families) from a common ancestor. The reason why
women are so prominent is obvious: since most families and tribes
claimed to be descended from a god, the only safe clue to their origin
was through a mortal woman beloved by that god; and it has also been
pointed out that _mutterrecht_ still left its traces in northern Greece
in historical times.
The following analysis (after Marckscheffel) 1108 will show the
principle of its composition. From Prometheus and Pronoia sprang
Deucalion and Pyrrha, the only survivors of the deluge, who had a son
Hellen (frag. 1), the reputed ancestor of the whole Hellenic race. From
the daughters of Deucalion sprang Magnes and Macedon, ancestors of the
Magnesians and Macedonians, who are thus represented as cousins to the
true Hellenic stock. Hellen had three sons, Dorus, Xuthus, and Aeolus,
parents of the Dorian, Ionic and Aeolian races, and the offspring of
these was then detailed. In one instance a considerable and
characteristic section can be traced from extant fragments and notices:
Salmoneus, son of Aeolus, had a daughter Tyro who bore to Poseidon two
sons, Pelias and Neleus; the latter of these, king of Pylos, refused
Heracles purification for the murder of Iphitus, whereupon Heracles
attacked and sacked Pylos, killing amongst the other sons of Neleus
Periclymenus, who had the power of changing himself into all manner of
shapes. From this slaughter Neleus alone escaped (frags. 13, and
10-12). This summary shows the general principle of arrangement of the
_Catalogues_: each line seems to have been dealt with in turn, and the
monotony was relieved as far as possible by a brief relation of famous
adventures connected with any of the personages—as in the case of
Atalanta and Hippomenes (frag. 14). Similarly the story of the
Argonauts appears from the fragments (37-42) to have been told in some
detail.
This tendency to introduce romantic episodes led to an important
development. Several poems are ascribed to Hesiod, such as the
_Epithalamium of Peleus and Thetis_, the _Descent of Theseus into
Hades_, or the _Circuit of the Earth_ (which must have been connected
with the story of Phineus and the Harpies, and so with the
Argonaut-legend), which yet seem to have belonged to the _Catalogues_.
It is highly probable that these poems were interpolations into the
_Catalogues_ expanded by later poets from more summary notices in the
genuine Hesiodic work and subsequently detached from their contexts and
treated as independent. This is definitely known to be true of the
_Shield of Heracles_, the first 53 lines of which belong to the fourth
book of the _Catalogues_, and almost certainly applies to other
episodes, such as the _Suitors of Helen_ 1109, the _Daughters of
Leucippus_, and the _Marriage of Ceyx_, which last Plutarch mentions as
“interpolated in the works of Hesiod.”
To the _Catalogues_, as we have said, was appended another work, the
_Eoiae_. The title seems to have arisen in the following way 1110: the
_Catalogues_ probably ended (ep. _Theogony_ 963 ff.) with some such
passage as this: “But now, ye Muses, sing of the tribes of women with
whom the Sons of Heaven were joined in love, women pre-eminent above
their fellows in beauty, such as was Niobe (?).” Each succeeding
heroine was then introduced by the formula “Or such as was...” (cp.
frags. 88, 92, etc.). A large fragment of the _Eoiae_ is extant at the
beginning of the _Shield of Heracles_, which may be mentioned here. The
“supplement” (ll. 57-480) is nominally Heracles and Cycnus, but the
greater part is taken up with an inferior description of the shield of
Heracles, in imitation of the Homeric shield of Achilles (_Iliad_
xviii. 478 ff.). Nothing shows more clearly the collapse of the
principles of the Hesiodic school than this ultimate servile dependence
upon Homeric models.
At the close of the _Shield_ Heracles goes on to Trachis to the house
of Ceyx, and this warning suggests that the _Marriage of Ceyx_ may have
come immediately after the ‘Or such as was’ of Alcmena in the _Eoiae_:
possibly Halcyone, the wife of Ceyx, was one of the heroines sung in
the poem, and the original section was “developed” into the _Marriage_,
although what form the poem took is unknown.
Next to the _Eoiae_ and the poems which seemed to have been developed
from it, it is natural to place the _Great Eoiae_. This, again, as we
know from fragments, was a list of heroines who bare children to the
gods: from the title we must suppose it to have been much longer that
the simple _Eoiae_, but its extent is unknown. Lehmann, remarking that
the heroines are all Boeotian and Thessalian (while the heroines of the
_Catalogues_ belong to all parts of the Greek world), believes the
author to have been either a Boeotian or Thessalian.
Two other poems are ascribed to Hesiod. Of these the _Aegimius_ (also
ascribed by Athenaeus to Cercops of Miletus), is thought by Valckenaer
to deal with the war of Aegimus against the Lapithae and the aid
furnished to him by Heracles, and with the history of Aegimius and his
sons. Otto Muller suggests that the introduction of Thetis and of
Phrixus (frags. 1-2) is to be connected with notices of the allies of
the Lapithae from Phthiotis and Iolchus, and that the story of Io was
incidental to a narrative of Heracles’ expedition against Euboea. The
remaining poem, the _Melampodia_, was a work in three books, whose plan
it is impossible to recover. Its subject, however, seems to have been
the histories of famous seers like Mopsus, Calchas, and Teiresias, and
it probably took its name from Melampus, the most famous of them all.
Date of the Hesiodic Poems
There is no doubt that the _Works and Days_ is the oldest, as it is the
most original, of the Hesiodic poems. It seems to be distinctly earlier
than the _Theogony_, which refers to it, apparently, as a poem already
renowned. Two considerations help us to fix a relative date for the
_Works_. (1) In diction, dialect and style it is obviously dependent
upon Homer, and is therefore considerably later than the _Iliad_ and
_Odyssey_: moreover, as we have seen, it is in revolt against the
romantic school, already grown decadent, and while the digamma is still
living, it is obviously growing weak, and is by no means uniformly
effective.
(2) On the other hand while tradition steadily puts the Cyclic poets at
various dates from 776 B.C. downwards, it is equally consistent in
regarding Homer and Hesiod as “prehistoric”. Herodotus indeed puts both
poets 400 years before his own time; that is, at about 830-820 B.C.,
and the evidence stated above points to the middle of the ninth century
as the probable date for the _Works and Days_. The _Theogony_ might be
tentatively placed a century later; and the _Catalogues_ and _Eoiae_
are again later, but not greatly later, than the _Theogony_: the
_Shield of Heracles_ may be ascribed to the later half of the seventh
century, but there is not evidence enough to show whether the other
“developed” poems are to be regarded as of a date so low as this.
Literary Value of Homer
Quintillian’s 1111 judgment on Hesiod that ‘he rarely rises to great
heights... and to him is given the palm in the middle-class of speech’
is just, but is liable to give a wrong impression. Hesiod has nothing
that remotely approaches such scenes as that between Priam and
Achilles, or the pathos of Andromache’s preparations for Hector’s
return, even as he was falling before the walls of Troy; but in matters
that come within the range of ordinary experience, he rarely fails to
rise to the appropriate level. Take, for instance, the description of
the Iron Age (_Works and Days_, 182 ff.) with its catalogue of
wrongdoings and violence ever increasing until Aidos and Nemesis are
forced to leave mankind who thenceforward shall have ‘no remedy against
evil’. Such occasions, however, rarely occur and are perhaps not
characteristic of Hesiod’s genius: if we would see Hesiod at his best,
in his most natural vein, we must turn to such a passage as that which
he himself—according to the compiler of the _Contest of Hesiod and
Homer_—selected as best in all his work, ‘When the Pleiades, Atlas’
daughters, begin to rise...’ (_Works and Days_, 383 ff.). The value of
such a passage cannot be analysed: it can only be said that given such
a subject, this alone is the right method of treatment.
Hesiod’s diction is in the main Homeric, but one of his charms is the
use of quaint allusive phrases derived, perhaps, from a pre-Hesiodic
peasant poetry: thus the season when Boreas blows is the time when ‘the
Boneless One gnaws his foot by his fireless hearth in his cheerless
house’; to cut one’s nails is ‘to sever the withered from the quick
upon that which has five branches’; similarly the burglar is the
‘day-sleeper’, and the serpent is the ‘hairless one’. Very similar is
his reference to seasons through what happens or is done in that
season: ‘when the House-carrier, fleeing the Pleiades, climbs up the
plants from the earth’, is the season for harvesting; or ‘when the
artichoke flowers and the clicking grass-hopper, seated in a tree,
pours down his shrill song’, is the time for rest.
Hesiod’s charm lies in his child-like and sincere naivete, in his
unaffected interest in and picturesque view of nature and all that
happens in nature. These qualities, it is true, are those pre-eminently
of the _Works and Days_: the literary values of the _Theogony_ are of a
more technical character, skill in ordering and disposing long lists of
names, sure judgment in seasoning a monotonous subject with marvellous
incidents or episodes, and no mean imagination in depicting the awful,
as is shown in the description of Tartarus (ll. 736-745). Yet it
remains true that Hesiod’s distinctive title to a high place in Greek
literature lies in the very fact of his freedom from classic form, and
his grave, and yet child-like, outlook upon his world.