



Produced by Douglas B. Killings





HESIOD, THE HOMERIC HYMNS, AND HOMERICA



This file contains translations of the following works:

Hesiod: "Works and Days", "The Theogony", fragments of "The Catalogues
of Women and the Eoiae", "The Shield of Heracles" (attributed to
Hesiod), and fragments of various works attributed to Hesiod.

Homer: "The Homeric Hymns", "The Epigrams of Homer" (both attributed to
Homer).

Various: Fragments of the Epic Cycle (parts of which are sometimes
attributed to Homer), fragments of other epic poems attributed to Homer,
"The Battle of Frogs and Mice", and "The Contest of Homer and Hesiod".

This file contains only that portion of the book in English; Greek texts
are excluded. Where Greek characters appear in the original English
text, transcription in CAPITALS is substituted.




PREPARER'S NOTE: In order to make this file more accessible to the
average computer user, the preparer has found it necessary to re-arrange
some of the material. The preparer takes full responsibility for his
choice of arrangement.

A few endnotes have been added by the preparer, and some additions have
been supplied to the original endnotes of Mr. Evelyn-White's. Where this
occurs I have noted the addition with my initials "DBK". Some endnotes,
particularly those concerning textual variations in the ancient Greek
text, are here omitted.




PREFACE

This volume contains practically all that remains of the post-Homeric
and pre-academic epic poetry.

I have for the most part formed my own text. In the case of Hesiod I
have been able to use independent collations of several MSS. by Dr.
W.H.D. Rouse; otherwise I have depended on the apparatus criticus of
the several editions, especially that of Rzach (1902). The arrangement
adopted in this edition, by which the complete and fragmentary poems are
restored to the order in which they would probably have appeared had
the Hesiodic corpus survived intact, is unusual, but should not need
apology; the true place for the "Catalogues" (for example), fragmentary
as they are, is certainly after the "Theogony".

In preparing the text of the "Homeric Hymns" my chief debt--and it is a
heavy one--is to the edition of Allen and Sikes (1904) and to the series
of articles in the "Journal of Hellenic Studies" (vols. xv.sqq.) by T.W.
Allen. To the same scholar and to the Delegates of the Clarendon Press I
am greatly indebted for permission to use the restorations of the "Hymn
to Demeter", lines 387-401 and 462-470, printed in the Oxford Text of
1912.

Of the fragments of the Epic Cycle I have given only such as seemed to
possess distinct importance or interest, and in doing so have relied
mostly upon Kinkel's collection and on the fifth volume of the Oxford
Homer (1912).

The texts of the "Batrachomyomachia" and of the "Contest of Homer and
Hesiod" are those of Baumeister and Flach respectively: where I have
diverged from these, the fact has been noted.

Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Rampton, NR. Cambridge. Sept. 9th, 1914.




INTRODUCTION




General

The early Greek epic--that is, poetry as a natural and popular, and not
(as it became later) an artificial and academic literary form--passed
through the usual three phases, of development, of maturity, and of
decline.

No fragments which can be identified as belonging to the first period
survive to give us even a general idea of the history of the earliest
epic, and we are therefore thrown back upon the evidence of analogy
from other forms of literature and of inference from the two great
epics which have come down to us. So reconstructed, the earliest period
appears to us as a time of slow development in which the characteristic
epic metre, diction, and structure grew up slowly from crude elements
and were improved until the verge of maturity was reached.

The second period, which produced the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey", needs
no description here: but it is very important to observe the effect
of these poems on the course of post-Homeric epic. As the supreme
perfection and universality of the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" cast into
oblivion whatever pre-Homeric poets had essayed, so these same qualities
exercised a paralysing influence over the successors of Homer. If they
continued to sing like their great predecessor of romantic themes, they
were drawn as by a kind of magnetic attraction into the Homeric style
and manner of treatment, and became mere echoes of the Homeric voice: in
a word, Homer had so completely exhausted the epic genre, that after him
further efforts were doomed to be merely conventional. Only the rare
and exceptional genius of Vergil and Milton could use the Homeric medium
without loss of individuality: and this quality none of the later epic
poets seem to have possessed. Freedom from the domination of the great
tradition could only be found by seeking new subjects, and such freedom
was really only illusionary, since romantic subjects alone are suitable
for epic treatment.

In its third period, therefore, epic poetry shows two divergent
tendencies. In Ionia and the islands the epic poets followed the Homeric
tradition, singing of romantic subjects in the now stereotyped heroic
style, and showing originality only in their choice of legends hitherto
neglected or summarily and imperfectly treated. In continental Greece
[1101], on the other hand, but especially in Boeotia, a new form of
epic sprang up, which for the romance and PATHOS of the Ionian School
substituted the practical and matter-of-fact. It dealt in moral and
practical maxims, in information on technical subjects which are
of service in daily life--agriculture, astronomy, augury, and the
calendar--in matters of religion and in tracing the genealogies of men.
Its attitude is summed up in the words of the Muses to the writer of the
"Theogony": `We can tell many a feigned tale to look like truth, but we
can, when we will, utter the truth' ("Theogony" 26-27). Such a poetry
could not be permanently successful, because the subjects of which it
treats--if susceptible of poetic treatment at all--were certainly not
suited for epic treatment, where unity of action which will sustain
interest, and to which each part should contribute, is absolutely
necessary. While, therefore, an epic like the "Odyssey" is an organism
and dramatic in structure, a work such as the "Theogony" is a merely
artificial collocation of facts, and, at best, a pageant. It is not
surprising, therefore, to find that from the first the Boeotian school
is forced to season its matter with romantic episodes, and that later
it tends more and more to revert (as in the "Shield of Heracles") to the
Homeric tradition.




The Boeotian School

How did the continental school of epic poetry arise? There is little
definite material for an answer to this question, but the probability is
that there were at least three contributory causes. First, it is likely
that before the rise of the Ionian epos there existed in Boeotia a
purely popular and indigenous poetry of a crude form: it comprised,
we may suppose, versified proverbs and precepts relating to life in
general, agricultural maxims, weather-lore, and the like. In this sense
the Boeotian poetry may be taken to have its germ in maxims similar to
our English

     'Till May be out, ne'er cast a clout,'

or

     'A rainbow in the morning
     Is the Shepherd's warning.'

Secondly and thirdly we may ascribe the rise of the new epic to the
nature of the Boeotian people and, as already remarked, to a spirit of
revolt against the old epic. The Boeotians, people of the class of which
Hesiod represents himself to be the type, were essentially unromantic;
their daily needs marked the general limit of their ideals, and, as a
class, they cared little for works of fancy, for pathos, or for fine
thought as such. To a people of this nature the Homeric epos would
be inacceptable, and the post-Homeric epic, with its conventional
atmosphere, its trite and hackneyed diction, and its insincere
sentiment, would be anathema. We can imagine, therefore, that among
such folk a settler, of Aeolic origin like Hesiod, who clearly was
well acquainted with the Ionian epos, would naturally see that the
only outlet for his gifts lay in applying epic poetry to new themes
acceptable to his hearers.

Though the poems of the Boeotian school [1102] were unanimously assigned
to Hesiod down to the age of Alexandrian criticism, they were clearly
neither the work of one man nor even of one period: some, doubtless,
were fraudulently fathered on him in order to gain currency; but it is
probable that most came to be regarded as his partly because of their
general character, and partly because the names of their real authors
were lost. One fact in this attribution is remarkable--the veneration
paid to Hesiod.


Life of Hesiod

Our information respecting Hesiod is derived in the main from notices
and allusions in the works attributed to him, and to these must be added
traditions concerning his death and burial gathered from later writers.

Hesiod's father (whose name, by a perversion of "Works and Days", 299
PERSE DION GENOS to PERSE, DION GENOS, was thought to have been Dius)
was a native of Cyme in Aeolis, where he was a seafaring trader and,
perhaps, also a farmer. He was forced by poverty to leave his native
place, and returned to continental Greece, where he settled at Ascra
near Thespiae in Boeotia ("Works and Days", 636 ff.). Either in Cyme or
Ascra, two sons, Hesiod and Perses, were born to the settler, and these,
after his death, divided the farm between them. Perses, however, who is
represented as an idler and spendthrift, obtained and kept the larger
share by bribing the corrupt 'lords' who ruled from Thespiae ("Works
and Days", 37-39). While his brother wasted his patrimony and ultimately
came to want ("Works and Days", 34 ff.), Hesiod lived a farmer's life
until, according to the very early tradition preserved by the author of
the "Theogony" (22-23), the Muses met him as he was tending sheep on
Mt. Helicon and 'taught him a glorious song'--doubtless the "Works and
Days". The only other personal reference is to his victory in a poetical
contest at the funeral games of Amphidamas at Chalcis in Euboea, where
he won the prize, a tripod, which he dedicated to the Muses of Helicon
("Works and Days", 651-9).

Before we go on to the story of Hesiod's death, it will be well to
inquire how far the "autobiographical" notices can be treated as
historical, especially as many critics treat some, or all of them,
as spurious. In the first place attempts have been made to show that
"Hesiod" is a significant name and therefore fictitious: it is only
necessary to mention Goettling's derivation from IEMI to ODOS (which
would make 'Hesiod' mean the 'guide' in virtues and technical arts),
and to refer to the pitiful attempts in the "Etymologicum Magnum" (s.v.
{H}ESIODUS), to show how prejudiced and lacking even in plausibility
such efforts are. It seems certain that 'Hesiod' stands as a proper name
in the fullest sense. Secondly, Hesiod claims that his father--if not
he himself--came from Aeolis and settled in Boeotia. There is fairly
definite evidence to warrant our acceptance of this: the dialect of the
"Works and Days" is shown by Rzach [1103] to contain distinct Aeolisms
apart from those which formed part of the general stock of epic poetry.
And that this Aeolic speaking poet was a Boeotian of Ascra seems even
more certain, since the tradition is never once disputed, insignificant
though the place was, even before its destruction by the Thespians.

Again, Hesiod's story of his relations with his brother Perses have been
treated with scepticism (see Murray, "Anc. Gk. Literature", pp. 53-54):
Perses, it is urged, is clearly a mere dummy, set up to be the target
for the poet's exhortations. On such a matter precise evidence is
naturally not forthcoming; but all probability is against the sceptical
view. For 1) if the quarrel between the brothers were a fiction, we
should expect it to be detailed at length and not noticed allusively and
rather obscurely--as we find it; 2) as MM. Croiset remark, if the
poet needed a lay-figure the ordinary practice was to introduce some
mythological person--as, in fact, is done in the "Precepts of Chiron".
In a word, there is no more solid ground for treating Perses and his
quarrel with Hesiod as fictitious than there would be for treating
Cyrnus, the friend of Theognis, as mythical.

Thirdly, there is the passage in the "Theogony" relating to Hesiod and
the Muses. It is surely an error to suppose that lines 22-35 all refer
to Hesiod: rather, the author of the "Theogony" tells the story of his
own inspiration by the same Muses who once taught Hesiod glorious song.
The lines 22-3 are therefore a very early piece of tradition about
Hesiod, and though the appearance of Muses must be treated as a graceful
fiction, we find that a writer, later than the "Works and Days" by
perhaps no more than three-quarters of a century, believed in the
actuality of Hesiod and in his life as a farmer or shepherd.

Lastly, there is the famous story of the contest in song at Chalcis. In
later times the modest version in the "Works and Days" was elaborated,
first by making Homer the opponent whom Hesiod conquered, while a later
period exercised its ingenuity in working up the story of the contest
into the elaborate form in which it still survives. Finally the contest,
in which the two poets contended with hymns to Apollo [1104],
was transferred to Delos. These developments certainly need no
consideration: are we to say the same of the passage in the "Works and
Days"? Critics from Plutarch downwards have almost unanimously rejected
the lines 654-662, on the ground that Hesiod's Amphidamas is the hero
of the Lelantine Wars between Chalcis and Eretria, whose death may be
placed circa 705 B.C.--a date which is obviously too low for the
genuine Hesiod. Nevertheless, there is much to be said in defence of
the passage. Hesiod's claim in the "Works and Days" is modest, since
he neither pretends to have met Homer, nor to have sung in any but an
impromptu, local festival, so that the supposed interpolation lacks
a sufficient motive. And there is nothing in the context to show that
Hesiod's Amphidamas is to be identified with that Amphidamas whom
Plutarch alone connects with the Lelantine War: the name may have been
borne by an earlier Chalcidian, an ancestor, perhaps, of the person to
whom Plutarch refers.

The story of the end of Hesiod may be told in outline. After the contest
at Chalcis, Hesiod went to Delphi and there was warned that the 'issue
of death should overtake him in the fair grove of Nemean Zeus.' Avoiding
therefore Nemea on the Isthmus of Corinth, to which he supposed
the oracle to refer, Hesiod retired to Oenoe in Locris where he was
entertained by Amphiphanes and Ganyetor, sons of a certain Phegeus. This
place, however, was also sacred to Nemean Zeus, and the poet, suspected
by his hosts of having seduced their sister [1105], was murdered there.
His body, cast into the sea, was brought to shore by dolphins and buried
at Oenoe (or, according to Plutarch, at Ascra): at a later time his
bones were removed to Orchomenus. The whole story is full of miraculous
elements, and the various authorities disagree on numerous points of
detail. The tradition seems, however, to be constant in declaring that
Hesiod was murdered and buried at Oenoe, and in this respect it is at
least as old as the time of Thucydides. In conclusion it may be worth
while to add the graceful epigram of Alcaeus of Messene ("Palatine
Anthology", vii 55).

     "When in the shady Locrian grove Hesiod lay dead, the Nymphs
     washed his body with water from their own springs, and
     heaped high his grave; and thereon the goat-herds sprinkled
     offerings of milk mingled with yellow-honey: such was the
     utterance of the nine Muses that he breathed forth, that old
     man who had tasted of their pure springs."




The Hesiodic Poems

The Hesiodic poems fall into two groups according as they are didactic
(technical or gnomic) or genealogical: the first group centres round the
"Works and Days", the second round the "Theogony".




I. "The Works and Days":

The poem consists of four main sections. a) After the prelude, which
Pausanias failed to find in the ancient copy engraved on