



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")