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The clash of the sexes in Hesiod's Works and Days

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2013

Lilah Grace Canevaro
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Extract

Hesiod's Works and Days is self-consciously a poem of the Iron Age. It is addressed to Iron Age men about how to manage the Iron Age human condition. The narrative ventures out of the Iron Age only to explain how we got here and how the present age compares to those which came before. The Iron Age audience is addressed by a narrator who situates himself explicitly (and discontentedly) as a contemporary:

      μηκέτ᾽ ἔπɛιτ᾽ ὤϕɛλλον ἐγὼ πέμπτοισι μɛτɛῖναι
      ἀνδράσιν, ἀλλ᾽ ἢ πρόσθɛ θανɛῖν ἢ ἔπɛιτα γɛνέσθαι.
      νῦν γὰρ δὴ γένος ἐστὶ σιδήρɛον·
      Would then that I was no longer among the fifth race of
      men, but either died earlier or was born later.
      For now indeed it is a race of iron.
    (Works and Days, 174–6)

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 60 , Issue 2 , October 2013 , pp. 185 - 202
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2013 

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References

1 Prometheus and Pandora (Op. 42–105); the myth of the Races (Op. 106–201).

2 Throughout this article, the Hesiod text I give is that of West, M. L.: Hesiod. Theogony (Oxford, 1966)Google Scholar and Hesiod. Works and Days (Oxford, 1978)Google Scholar; Iliad and Odyssey text is taken from the Allen and Monroe OCT editions (Oxford, 1963). All translations are my own. ‘Hesiod’ denotes both the persona of the poet of the Theogony and the Works and Days, and the consistent driving force which I believe lies behind the poems. Whether or not these were one and the same does not concern me here – issues such as authorship, performance context, or orality versus writing are necessarily beyond the scope of the present article.

3 Pre-Pandora: ῥηιδίως γάρ κɛν καὶ ἐπ᾽ ἤματι ἐργάσσαιο| ὥστέ σɛ κɛἰς ἐνιαυτὸν ἔχɛιν καὶ ἀɛργὸν ἐόντα· (‘for easily you would have worked even in one day enough that you would have had sufficient for a year though being idle’; Op. 43–4); Golden Age: καρπὸν δ᾽ ἔϕɛρɛ ζɛίδωρος ἄρουρα| αὐτομάτη πολλόν τɛ καὶ ἄϕθονον· (‘the grain-giving earth produced fruit of its own accord, abundant and unbegrudged’; Op. 117–18).

4 βίος (livelihood) at Op. 31, 42, 232, 316, 501, 577, 601, 634, 689 (similarly, βίοτος at Op. 167, 301, 307, 400, 476, 499). The Heroes knew agriculture too: but with the land bearing them three harvests a year (τοῖσιν μɛλιηδέα καρπόν | τρὶς ἔτɛος θάλλοντα ϕέρɛι ζɛίδωρος ἄρουρα, ‘for whom the grain-giving earth bears honey-sweet fruit flourishing three times a year’; Op. 172–3) they hardly match the Iron Race in terms of toil.

5 For Hesiod's choice of addressee as purposeful, see Martin, R., ‘Hesiod and the Didactic Double’, Synthesis 11 (2004), 31–54Google Scholar.

6 On self-sufficiency in Works and Days, see Millett, P., ‘Hesiod and His World’, PCPhS 210 (1984), 84–115Google Scholar; and Marsilio, M., Farming and Poetry in Hesiod's Works and Days (Lanham, MD, 2000)Google Scholar. Self-sufficiency is foregrounded throughout Works and Days as Hesiod's Iron Age ideal; whether or not it was an economic reality does not concern me here – for this issue see e.g. Bresson, A., La cité marchande (Bordeaux, 2000), 109–30Google Scholar; and E.M. Harris, M. Wooler, and D. Lewis (eds.), Markets, Households, and the Ancient Greek Economy (Cambridge, forthcoming).

7 For the Muses' song as tangential to Hesiod's own, see Clay, J. S., Hesiod's Cosmos (Cambridge, 2003), 72–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Haubold, J. H., ‘Shepherd, Farmer, Poet, Sophist: Hesiod on His Own Reception’, in Boys-Stones, G. and Haubold, J. H. (eds.), Plato and Hesiod (Oxford, 2010)Google Scholar, 21.

8 Some of the most relevant items include: Loraux, N., ‘Sur la race des femmes et quelques-unes de ses tribus’, Arethusa 11 (1978), 43–89Google Scholar; Marquardt, P. A., ‘Hesiod's Ambiguous View of Woman’, CPh 77.4 (1982), 283–91Google Scholar; Arthur, M. B., ‘Cultural Strategies in Hesiod's Theogony: Law, Family, and Society’, Arethusa 15 (1982), 63–82Google Scholar; Arthur, M. B., ‘The Dream of a World Without Women: Poetics and Circles of Order in the Theogony Prooemium’, Arethusa 16 (1983), 97–116Google Scholar; Zeitlin, F. I., ‘Signifying Difference: The Case of Hesiod's Pandora’, in Playing the Other. Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature (Chicago, IL, 1996), 53–86Google Scholar.

9 By ‘low-risk’ I mean fulfilling a role which contributes to the production of the oikos as much as or even more than the woman herself consumes.

10 For further details (including an expansion of an expansion within Works and Days itself) and for bibliography (to which one might add Tsagalis, C. ‘Poet and Audience: From Homer to Hesiod’, in Montanari, F. and Rengakos, A. [eds.], La poésie épique grecque. Métamorphoses d'un genre littéraire [Vandoeuvres-Geneva, 2006], 124–6Google Scholar), see Fraser, L. G., ‘A Woman of Consequence: Pandora in Hesiod's Works and Days’, Cambridge Classical Journal 57 (2011), 9–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Prometheus is himself the son of a Titan (Theog. 134). His divine punishment is described at Theog. 521–5 and again at Theog. 615–16; this particular myth is included to mark the beginning of the separation between gods and men (καὶ γὰρ ὅτ’ ἐκρίνοντο θɛοὶ θνητοί τ’ ἄνθρωποι, ‘for when the gods and mortal men were reaching a judgement’; Theog. 535).

12 Brown, A., ‘Aphrodite and the Pandora Complex’, CQ 47.1 (1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 26. Blümer, W., Interpretation archaischer Dichtung. Die mythologischen Partien der Erga Hesiods (Münster, 2001)Google Scholar, ii, goes even further, arguing that Pandora is not the first woman but wickedness personified.

13 Clay (n. 7), 120.

14 Such as: dressing in a particular manner (West [n. 2], ad loc.; Verdenius, W. J., A Commentary on Hesiod Works and Days vv.1–382 [Leiden, 1985]Google Scholar, ad loc.; Marquardt [n. 8], 289, ΣOp. 373–4); walking in a certain way (ἡ κινοῦσα τὴν πυγὴν ἐν τῇ πορɛίᾳ ἢ ἀποστίλβουσα τὸ σῶμα, ‘moving her arse with her gait or showing off her body’; ΣOp. 373b); or sticking out one's behind (Martinazzoli, F., ‘Un epiteto esiodeo della donna’, PP 15 [1960], 203–21Google Scholar). Verdenius ad loc. comes up with the neologism ‘dressed in buttocks’, while von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, U., Hesiodos' Erga (Berlin, 1928)Google Scholar, ad loc., and later Vox, O., ‘Πυγοστόλος: una donna-uccello?’ Glotta 58.3/4 (1980), 172–7Google Scholar, link the adjective with a bird.

15 For ἕλκω in connection with rape cf. e.g. Hom. Il. 6.465, 22.62; Od. 11.580.

16 For a similar example of such Hesiodic tethering, see Op. 405–6. 405 sets out the means of production, 406 expands upon one: the woman, specified as hired not wedded. 405 supplies the generally applicable term γυναῖκα (‘woman’); 406 contextualizes the advice, as Hesiod is just beginning his Calendar and is outlining what a farmer must do to begin his work, so at this point he recommends not a wife but a servant woman.

17 This interpretation can be found at ΣOp. 699–705, Paley, F. A., The Epics of Hesiod (London, 1861)Google Scholar, ad loc.; Nicolai, W., Hesiod's Erga (Heidelberg, 1979)Google Scholar, 720; and Beall, E. F., ‘Notes on Hesiod's Works and Days 383–828’, AJPh 122.2 (2001), 164–5Google Scholar.

18 See also Theognis fr. 10.2; Mimnermus fr. 4.2; Semonides fr. 6.2; Clem. Al. Strom. 6.2.5.3.2. I am indebted to the anonymous reader of this article for bringing this potential resonance to my attention.

19 Goldhill, S., ‘Idealism in the Odyssey and the Meaning of Mounos in Odyssey 16’, in Mitsis, P. and Tsagalis, C. (eds.), Allusion, Authority and Truth. Critical Perspectives on Greek Poetic and Rhetorical Praxis (Berlin, 2010)Google Scholar, 124.

20 See ibid.: every example of mounos applied to a child in the Iliad or the Odyssey is when a child is specifically at risk: e.g. Hom. Il. 9.482, 10.317, 14.492; Od. 16.19. See esp. Od. 16.117–20, with Goldhill (n. 19), 124.

21 Op. 475–7, 561–3.

22 Although interpretations of ἢ πρόσθɛ θανɛῖν ἢ ἔπɛιτα γɛνέσθαι (‘[I would that I had] died earlier or been born later’; 175) as suggesting a cyclical view of the ages are attested already in the scholia (ΣOp. 160–1) and have been propagated by e.g. Carrière, J. C., ‘Les démons, les héros et les rois dans la cité de fer: les ambiguités de la justice dans la mythe hésiodique des races et la naissance dela cité,’ in Les Grandes figures religieuses. Fonctionnement pratique et symbolique dans l'Antiquité (Paris, 1986), 193–261Google Scholar; and Mezzadri, B., ‘Structure du mythe des races d'Hésiode,’ L'Homme 28 (1988), 51–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 The theme of the right time surfaces again and again in the Works and Days, for matters as diverse as ploughing (617), sailing (630, 642, 665), and marriage (695).

24 Clay, J. S., ‘Works and Days: Tracing the Path to Arete’, in Montanari, F., Rengakos, A., and Tsagalis, C. (eds.), Brill's Companion to Hesiod (Leiden, 2009)Google Scholar, 86.

25 See Rosen, R., ‘Poetry and Sailing in Hesiod's Works and Days’, ClAnt 9 (1990), 107Google Scholar; Marsilio (n. 6), 27; C. Tsagalis ‘Poetry and Poetics in the Hesiodic Corpus’, in Montanari, Rengakos, and Tsagalis (n. 24), 150.

26 Twesten, A., Commentatio critica de Hesiodi carmine quod inscribitur Opera et dies (Kiel, 1815)Google Scholar; Lehrs, K., Quaestiones Epicae (Königsberg [Kaliningrad], 1837)Google Scholar; Goettling, C., Hesiodi Carmina (London, 1843)Google Scholar; Schoemann, G. F., Hesiodi quae feruntur carminum reliquiae (Berlin, 1869)Google Scholar; Fick, A., Hesiods Gedichte in ihrer ursprünglichen Fassung und Sprachform wiederhergestellt (Göttingen, 1887)Google Scholar; Paley (n. 17).

27 Evelyn-White, H., ‘Hesiod's Description of Winter: Works and Days ll.493–560’, CR 30.8 (1916), 209–13Google Scholar.

28 For contrasting features with other seasons, see Hamilton, R., The Architecture of Hesiodic Poetry (Baltimore, MD, 1989), 70–1Google Scholar.

29 Nelson, S., ‘The Drama of Hesiod's Farm’, CPh 91.1 (1996), 45–53Google Scholar; eadem, God and the Land. The Metaphysics of Farming in Hesiod and Vergil (New York and Oxford, 1998)Google Scholar.

30 Nelson 1996 (n. 29), 50.

31 Cf. e.g. κάκ᾽ ἤματα, βουδόρα πάντα (‘evil days, all ox-flayers’; 504); Θρῄκης ἱπποτρόϕου ɛὐρέι πόντῳ (‘the wide sea of horse-rearing Thrace’; 507); πολλὰς δὲ δρῦς ὑψικόμους ἐλάτας τɛ παχɛίας (‘many high-leaved oaks and dense firs’; 509); χθονὶ πουλυβοτɛίρῃ (‘much-nourishing earth’; 510); νήριτος ὕλη (‘immense wood’; 511).

32 ϕίλῃ παρὰ μητέρι μίμνɛι (‘she stays beside her dear mother’; 520).

33 δόμων ἔντοσθɛ (‘inside the house’; 520); μυχίη (‘innermost’; 523); ἔνδοθι οἴκου (‘inside the house’; 523).

34 Marquardt (n. 8), 288.

35 παρὰ μητέρι κɛδνῇ (‘at his good mother's side’; 130); indeed this formulation is attested as an unmetrical variant at 520.

36 Cf. also ἔνδον ἔμιμνɛ (97): when Pandora releases evils, elpis stays inside the jar. Whether this is positive or not depends on whether elpis is good or bad, and whether she is kept for men or kept away from them. For the various interpretative possibilities of this passage see Lexikon des Frühgriechischen Epos, s.v. ‘elpis’; Verdenius (n.14), ad loc.; I. Musäus, Der Pandoramythos bei Hesiod und seine Rezeption bis Erasmus von Rotterdam (Göttingen, 2004), 13–30.

37 See Hymn. Hom. 5.61 = Hom. Od. 8.364: ἔνθα δέ μιν Χάριτɛς λοῦσαν καὶ χρῖσαν ἐλαίῳ (‘there the Graces bathed her and anointed her with oil).

38 See 73–5 with Fraser (n. 10).

39 I offer a very general translation of κακότης here: it was the use of such openly applicable terms that made Hesiod's ‘two roads’ image the most quoted part of Works and Days in antiquity – see Koning, H., Hesiod. The Other Poet (Leiden, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 144, n. 74, with commemogram (11).

40 For a notorious distortion of the passage, see Pl. Resp. 364c, with H. Koning, ‘Plato's Hesiod: Not Plato's Alone’, in Boys-Stones and Haubold (n. 7), 97.

41 DK B106; Plut. Vit. Cam. 19.1 = fr. 59; Hdt. 2.82.

42 Twesten (n. 24), 60–2; Wilamowitz-Moellendorf (n. 14); Solmsen, F., Merkelbach, R., and West, M. L., Hesiodi Theogonia, Opera et Dies, Scutum, Fragmenta Selecta (Oxford, 1990 3)Google Scholar. These suspicions were also taken up by, e.g., Fränkel, H., Dichtung und Philosophie des frühen Griechentums (Munich, 1962 2)Google Scholar, 124, 143–4; Solmsen, F., ‘The “Days” of the Works and Days’, TAPhA 94 (1963), 293–320Google Scholar; Samuel, A. E., ‘The Days of Hesiod's Month’, TAPhA 97 (1966), 421–9Google Scholar; Marg, W., Hesiod. Sämtliche Gedichte übersetzt und erläutert (Zurich and Stuttgart, 1970), 383–6Google Scholar.

43 E.g. Mazon, P., Les travaux et les jours (Paris, 1914)Google Scholar; Sinclair, T. A., Hesiod. Works and Days (London, 1932)Google Scholar; Walcot, P., ‘The Composition of the Works and Days’, REG 74.1 (1961), 14Google Scholar; and Pellizer, E., ‘Per l'unità dei “Giorni”’, in Balanza, A. and Guida, P. Cassola (eds.), Studi triestini di antichità in onore di L.A. Stella (Trieste, 1975), 169–82Google Scholar.

44 West (n. 2).

45 Hamilton (n. 28), 78–84; Kelly, A., ‘How to End an Orally-derived Epic Poem’, TAPhA 137.2 (2007), 388Google Scholar.

46 Lardinois, A., ‘How the Days Fit the Works in Hesiod's Works and Days’, AJPh 119.3 (1998), 319–36Google Scholar.

47 An analysis of the uses of ἦμαρ and ἡμέρη (both words for ‘day’) in earlier parts of Works and Days yields compelling results: they are always concerned with Iron Age toil and suffering, whether in the myths about the origin of the human condition (43, 102, 176) or throughout the agricultural calendar. The passages in which they are lacking are also revealing: as Lardinois (n. 46), 329, summarizes, ‘Days throughout the poem are associated with work and work with days; when there is no work, as in the summer or in the Golden Age, there is no need to count the days either.’

48 Clay (n. 7), and (n. 24).

49 Lardinois (n. 46), 331.

50 Good for ἀνδρογόνος (‘a boy to be born’) are the middle sixth (783), the first sixth (788), the tenth (794), and the twentieth (792–3).

51 E.g. Helen (Hom. Il. 3), Andromache (Il. 22), Calypso (Od. 5), Circe (Od. 10), Penelope throughout the Odyssey. On weaving in Homer see in particular Snyder, J. M., ‘The Web of Song: Weaving Imagery in Homer and the Lyric Poets’, CJ 76.3 (1981), 193–6Google Scholar; Pantelia, M. C., ‘Spinning and Weaving: Ideas of Domestic Order in Homer’, AJPh 114.4 (1993), 493–501Google Scholar; Clayton, B., A Penelopean Poetics. Reweaving the Feminine in Homer's Odyssey (Lanham, MD, 2004)Google Scholar; Mueller, M., ‘Penelope and the Poetics of Remembering’, Arethusa 40.3 (2007), 337–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mueller, M., ‘Helen's Hands: Weaving for Kleos in the Odyssey’, Helios 37.1 (2010), 1–21Google Scholar.

52 Exceptions include Beall (n. 17), 166–7.

53 For the ant as proverbial for wisdom cf. e.g. Hor. Sat. 1.1.33–8; Verg. G. 1.186. For the Indo-European root of the motif see Bader, F., La langue des dieux, ou, l'hermétisme des poètes indo-européens (Pisa, 1989), 181–2Google Scholar. The ant is also connected with weather (predicting rain) at Theophr. De signis 22; Aratus 956.

54 It occurs in epic only here and at [Sc.] 316.