Works and Days (in ancient GreekἜργα 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. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 757 × 599 pixelsFull resolution (1460 × 1156 pixel, file size: 337 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) UB Basel File historyClick on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 757 × 599 pixelsFull resolution (1460 × 1156 pixel, file size: 337 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) UB Basel File historyClick on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... Oxford Classical Texts, or Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis, is a series of books published by Oxford University Press. ... Roman bronze bust, the so-called Pseudo-Seneca, now identified by some as possibly Hesiod Hesiod (Hesiodos, ) was an early Greek poet and rhapsode, who presumably lived around 700 BC. Hesiod and Homer, with whom Hesiod is often paired, have been considered the earliest Greek poets whose work has survived... Centuries: 9th century BC - 8th century BC - 7th century BC Decades: 750s BC 740s BC 730s BC 720s BC 710s BC - 700s BC - 690s BC 680s BC 670s BC 660s BC 650s BC Events and Trends 708 BC - Spartan immigrants found Taras (Tarentum, the modern Taranto) colony in southern Italy. ... Colonies in antiquity were city-states founded from a mother-city, not from a territory-at-large. ...
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]. The Ages of Man are the stages of human existence on the Earth according to Classical mythology. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...
Notes
^ 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).
^ 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".
She stirs up even the shiftless to toil; for a man grows eager to work when he considers his neighbour, a rich man who hastens to plough and plant and put his house in good order; and neighbour vies with is neighbour as he hurries after wealth.
Work the work which the gods ordained for men, lest in bitter anguish of spirit you with your wife and children seek your livelihood amongst your neighbours, and they do not heed you.
It is a good day on which to beget or to be born both for a male and a female: it is never an wholly evil day.
Works & Days operates, then, as an outward spreading text that hopes to maintain engagement with as many people and memories as possible, and though it is centrifugal it has a focused sense of urgency.
What Luoma, who works as a computer programmer, runs up against is the breakdown or inherent comedies of system -- in both the "world" and the "textual" sense -- a breakdown most pronounced in his scattered affections for baseball players of both minor and major league variety:
Works & Days is like a map for a possible evisceration, via constant exchange of "spectacular things" among loved friends, of the alienation that capitalist culture and the need for individuation inflicts on our warm imperfect selves.
Feeds |
Contact