Collection of Hesiod, Homer and Homerica | Page 7

men how best to live in a difficult world. So viewed the four
seemingly independent sections will be found to be linked together in a
real bond of unity. Such a connection between the first and second
sections is easily seen, but the links between these and the third and
fourth are no less real: to make life go tolerably smoothly it is most
important to be just and to know how to win a livelihood; but happiness
also largely depends on prudence and care both in social and home life
as well, and not least on avoidance of actions which offend
supernatural powers and bring ill-luck. And finally, if your industry is
to be fruitful, you must know what days are suitable for various kinds
of work. This moral aim -- as opposed to the currently accepted
technical aim of the poem -- explains the otherwise puzzling
incompleteness of the instructions on farming and seafaring.
Of the Hesiodic poems similar in character to the "Works and Days",
only the scantiest fragments survive. One at least of these, the
"Divination by Birds", was, as we know from Proclus, attached to the
end of the "Works" until it was rejected by Apollonius Rhodius:
doubtless it continued the same theme of how to live, showing how
man can avoid disasters by attending to the omens to be drawn from
birds. It is possible that the "Astronomy" or "Astrology" (as Plutarch
calls it) was in turn appended to the "Divination". It certainly gave
some account of the principal constellations, their dates of rising and
setting, and the legends connected with them, and probably showed
how these influenced human affairs or might be used as guides. The
"Precepts of Chiron" was a didactic poem made up of moral and
practical precepts, resembling the gnomic sections of the "Works and
Days", addressed by the Centaur Chiron to his pupil Achilles.
Even less is known of the poem called the "Great Works": the title
implies that it was similar in subject to the second section of the
"Works and Days", but longer. Possible references in Roman writers (6)
indicate that among the subjects dealt with were the cultivation of the
vine and olive and various herbs. The inclusion of the judgment of
Rhadamanthys (frag. 1): `If a man sow evil, he shall reap evil,'

indicates a gnomic element, and the note by Proclus (7) on "Works and
Days" 126 makes it likely that metals also were dealt with. It is
therefore possible that another lost poem, the "Idaean Dactyls", which
dealt with the discovery of metals and their working, was appended to,
or even was a part of the "Great Works", just as the "Divination by
Birds" was appended to the "Works and Days".
II. The Genealogical Poems: The only complete poem of the
genealogical group is the "Theogony", which traces from the beginning
of things the descent and vicissitudes of the families of the gods. Like
the "Works and Days" this poem has no dramatic plot; but its unifying
principle is clear and simple. The gods are classified chronologically:
as soon as one generation is catalogued, the poet goes on to detail the
offspring of each member of 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