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Works and Days (Erga kai hēmerai), Greek poem in 828 hexameters by Hesiod; the ‘works’ are the activities of the farming year, the ‘days’ (from line 765 onward) are an almanac of days in the month that are favourable or unfavourable for different activities. No reason is given for the category of a particular day except for the implication that Zeus has ordained it so. Lucky or unlucky days are scarcely mentioned again until Hellenistic times.

The chief themes of the poem are justice and the need for hard work. After an invocation to the Muses the poet addresses his brother Persēs, urging him to a reconciliation of their quarrel (see HESIOD). To explain why men have to work hard and act justly he uses myth: Prometheus and the story of Pandora, the five ages or generations (Golden, Silver, Bronze, Heroic, and Iron), and the fable of the hawk and the nightingale, illustrating the unjust use of power; the whole is blended with proverbs, moral maxims, and threats of divine anger. In the remaining two thirds of the poem Hesiod gives Perses instructions on how to work as a farmer, which are mostly an enumeration of the tasks of the various seasons with some practical advice, for example on how to construct a plough; there is a fine descriptive passage on the rigours of winter (504–35), balanced by a picture of the farmer enjoying the languorous heat of summer (582–96). There follow some brief advice on sea trading, a collection of proverbial maxims about religious and social conduct, and the almanac of lucky and unlucky days. The poem is a work of exhortation and instruction, for which parallels exist, but in Near Eastern literature rather than in Greek; the poems of Phocylidēs and Theognis are comparable in tone, but much more limited in scope. Works and Days is given unity chiefly by the personality of the author. Whether the circumstances of its composition are real or imaginary, the poem represents the life-experience of a cautious and conservative farmer, inured to hardship and adversity, suspicious of pleasure, and no lover of women, but one who by reflection had come to believe that the conditions of life were divinely and justly ordained.

 
 
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The book Works and Days
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The book Works and Days

Works and Days (in ancient Greek Ἔργα καὶ Ἡμέραι, which sometimes goes by the Latin name Opera et Dies, as in the OCT) is a Greek poem of some 800 verses written by Hesiod (around 700 BC). The poem revolves around two general truths: labour is the universal lot of Man, but he who is willing to work will get by. Scholars have seen this work against a background of agrarian crisis in mainland Greece, which inspired a wave of documented colonisations in search of new land.

This work lays out the five Ages of Man, as well as containing advice and wisdom, prescribing a life of honest labour and attacking idleness and unjust judges (like those who decided in favour of Perses) as well as the practice of usury. It describes immortals who roam the earth watching over justice and injustice[1]. The poem regards labor as the source of all good, in that both gods and men hate the idle, who resemble drones in a hive[2].

Notes

  1. ^ Hesiod, Works and Days, Canto III, [250]: "Verily upon the earth are thrice ten thousand immortals of the host of Zeus, guardians of mortal man. They watch both justice and injustice, robed in mist, roaming abroad upon the earth". (cf. also, J. A. Symonds, p. 179).
  2. ^ Hesiod, Works and Days, [300]: "Both gods and men are angry with a man who lives idle, for in nature he is like the stingless drones who waste the labor of the bees, eating without working".

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Classical Literature Companion. The Concise Oxford Companion to Classical Literature. Copyright © 1993, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Works and Days" Read more

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