Notes on Ercolani’s Hesiod

October, 2011

 

          Andrea Ercolani, the author of a 2006 book on Homer, has now produced a study of Hesiod’s Works and Days.  This effort includes a volume in print, Esiodo, Opere e giorni (Rome 2010) which comprises: an introduction, where Ercolani gives his overall view of the subject; some tables on miscellaneous matters; a reproduction of Solmsen’s Greek text with facing Italian translation; a quite lengthy commentary on the poem; and a bibliography.  In addition, attachments dating from 2011 are available in pdf format for free download from the publisher’s website, including material supplemental to the introduction and commentary, more tables, and a larger bibliography.[1]

            Given that all this is in Italian it may take some time for the classics community, particularly its Anglo-American members, to take account of it.  (To date I have only seen one review, also in Italian, by Mattia di Poli; see Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2011-07-17.)  I hope that the following remarks will accelerate the process.

 

1.         A new study of this poem of such a scope is needed.  The treatment of record has of course been Martin West’s 1978 book with critical edition of the text, introduction, and commentary.  Its publication marked “Progress in Hesiod,” as one reviewer entitled his essay on it, in that it constituted an important step forward in its more expert use of the manuscript evidence, in its illumination of numerous lines and portions of the text in the context of other Greek literature, and in its greater degree of coverage of the important second half of the poem than pertains in any other commentary of recent decades.  Yet at least for me this excellence is vitiated by West’s insistence on treating the poem as an example of wisdom literature rather than something which makes use of that genre, by (a related point) a dismissive attitude toward any possibility of a large-scale design, by (another related point) a view of the work’s employment of epic expressions essentially as line-fillers that carry no connotation of their original contexts, by an overly selective approach to bibliography, and by a number of peculiar emendations of the text that have been rightly rejected by many scholars.  Subsequent to West’s effort, the only treatment comparable to it has been the late Willem Verdenius’s 1985 commentary on the first half of the poem, which is competitive in terms of textual criticism (particularly on the so-called particles), but which also has no idea of an overall coherence to the poem (beyond Verdenius’s signature concern on how it gets from one segment to the next), and of course which ignores the second half of the work.  Beyond that, Graziano Arrighetti’s 1998 book culminating his decades of work on the Hesiodic poems has notes on all of the text of Works and Days, but these do not approach the detail one expects from a commentary proper.

 

2.         In asking to what extent Ercolani’s work fills this need, one might begin with the introduction where he lays out his general view of Hesiodic poetry generally and of this poem in particular (15-64 of the printed text; 1-20 of the addenda).  The upshot of this discussion is that our poem is a summing up of a Greek wisdom literature tradition “in epic form” (where by “epic” is meant, not simply a work in dactylic hexameter, but a totalizing mode of communication by which a culture transmits its values), and has no particular large-scale structure.  To sustain this conclusion Ercolani argues in some detail that the individual segments of the poem have parallels with wisdom literature in the Near East (citing examples in the Old Testament in particular); that there is evidence of circulation in ancient times of copies both with and without the now transmitted Proemium at its beginning, and with and without the now not transmitted catalogue of bird omens at its end; and that there is internal evidence in the poem of duplication of strata, as if the final result was only assembled by a redactor.  He believes that the idea of an overall design of the poem is a “chimera,” and thus remains unconvinced by the recent suggestions of a design on the part of Hamilton, Erbse, and Clay, aside from some older writers.  The supplement – which curiously asserts that unitary views of the poem are now more popular than the traditional picture of it – adds recent work by Rosen, Marsilio, myself, and Tsagalis, plus older studies, and suggests that such analyses import “operazioni ermeneutiche più che storico-filologiche.”

Yet I hold that it is Ercolani who is unconvincing here.  For example, while the adages concerning social behavior in vv. 342-80 certainly resemble some entries in the Book of Proverbs, the difference is that Hesiod arranges these artfully into mini-essays on neighbors, giving and receiving, etc.  Or, while Ercolani cites approvingly the thesis advanced in a 1997 essay by Rossi (cited as a mentor in his preface), to the effect that that there are duplications of content, one can suggest poetic reasons for such duplication.  E.g., while it has long been noticed that there are parallels of content between vv. 493-523 and 524-63 in the winter section (Rossi’s and Ercolani’s principal example), one must note a difference in tone: At least as it seems to me the highly kinetic passage 504-518 brings out the power of the earth’s (or the universe’s) adverse forces at this time of year, while the more contemplative 519-35 has enough connotation of sex, or rather lack thereof, to bring out the essential barrenness of the earth/universe then.  That is to say, the text gives both the cause and the effect.  And as to “operazioni ermeneutiche,” traditional views of the poem also entail some implicit hermeneutics, and thus have demonstrably colored matters as basic as the constitution of the text (a case in point being that a scholar of the stature of Wilamowitz made numerous wrong excisions and emendations, largely based on his particular image of Hesiod the man).  In short, while Ercolani sustains his view of an essentially structure-less poem by argumentation that is extensive in scope (and more to the point than West’s detailed cataloguing of Near Eastern wisdom or his unconvincing view of the poem as something that grew in length during the process of the author composing it), in the last analysis this argumentation will not stop those of us who suppose that the poem has a structure even if it is not yet understood, and who will continue to look for it.

 

         To be sure, one does not consider a work’s introduction key to evaluating it, and those of us who feel that the poem must be structured can still hope to learn from the main body of Ercolani’s effort.

 

3.         As to that, first, since Ercolani does not purport to give a critical edition of the text, and since his commentary will offer objections to Solmsen’s text where one might question it, no one can fault his decision to use it rather than some other text as the Greek with which to face his translation.  On the translation itself, I will not second-guess a native Italian speaker, and refer the reader to the fourth paragraph of De Poli’s piece cited above.

 

4.         One must suppose a priori that the real meat of the effort is the commentary, since it comprises 320 pages of the printed text, while the pdf addenda give another 97 (West has 230).  Ercolani says at the outset of his preface (9) that the intent of the book is to serve as a working tool for Hesiod study, and I have to say that it is indeed a good one for those of us who work on this poem — assuming that we approach his individual judgments with a critical eye.  To be sure, it is troubling that a discussion of a word or phrase in the text often looks like a repetition of West’s corresponding comment, only translated into Italian, without saying that this is the procedure or even mentioning his predecessor.  (I can see that it would be tedious to insert something like “come dice West” on every such occasion, but one would like at least like to see an acknowledgment of the process at the beginning of the commentary.)   That said, the commentary is useful at least insofar as text criticism is concerned, to the point that in a number of cases Ercolani offers new solutions to old problems.  As an example I find particularly appealing, v. 488 reads τῆμος Ζεὺς ὕοι τρίτῳ ἤματι μηδ’ ἀπολήγοι, which has been construed either as “at that time (when the cuckoo calls) Zeus may rain for three days without stopping” (so, e.g., Most in the new Loeb edition), or as “on the third day after that Zeus may rain without stopping” (as, e.g., I myself have said, on this site in n. 31 here and at CA 23, 2004, 24 n. 82).  But Ercolani’s (322) attractive solution is to take the epic phrase τρίτῳ ἤματι, rather, with the final verb ἀπολήγοι, to say “may rain then and may not stop on the third day,” i.e., rain for three days.  This both preserves the epic meaning of the phrase and suits the context.  (One might add that in the two Homeric locations where a similar phrase occurs, Il. 9.363 and Od. 5.390, the verb that it modifies also falls after it, not before as with ὕοι in our case.)

It is also gratifying that at times the commentary notes old readings that are ignored by West and Verdenius alike.  For example, Paley, following the scholiast, wanted to connect αἰθέρι ναίων to γαίης in vv. 18-19, so as to make Zeus dwell both in the sky and on earth, as well as set the good Eris in its roots and make her better for men.  I had not seen an actual argument against this reading, but Ercolani (127) gives (a persuasive) one.

To be sure, at other times Ercolani treats well known problems rather lightly.  For example, on the issue of just what Perses will not be allowed to do “a second time” in vv. 34-35, he only cites West and Verdenius in the printed text, saying that after all the passage is not “perspicuo” (135), and then criticizes Welles’s reading in the pdf addenda (27); yet others who have given sensitive discussions of the problem include Jensen, Gagarin, L. Lenz (1975, mistakenly identified as A. Lenz in the pdf bibliography, 153) and Duran (cited below), some with innovative solutions.

            And of course one cannot agree with Ercolani’s judgments in every case.  For example, on the question of the content of Pandora’s pithos, he assumes the conventional interpretation that the vessel contained evils with relatively little discussion, only noting the basic impossibility of Harrison’s 1900 interpretation and saying of some readings whereby it stored provisions that they “non convincono” (155).  Yet it is the conventional interpretation that is unconvincing.  (As I argue on this site, here, if one takes that view and assumes that the meaning of Elpis remaining is that it is available to humans, one is also assuming that Hesiod does not understand the function of a vessel, while if Elpis is kept away from humans the overall poem is incoherent in view of the concept’s mention at vv. 498-501 as infecting humans.  To be sure, some may believe that Hesiod’s thinking is as muddled as that, but many of us do not.)  Or, Ercolani (pdf addenda, 50) rejects the Walcot-Querbach thesis of division of the so-called five-fold myth of races/ages into a four-fold narrative followed by a quasi-prophecy (which I also have argued at some length, CJ 101, 2005-06, 165-68); he says that this proposal implies an overly speculative reconstruction of the pre-Hesiodic narrative, but this is to deny that his (160-61, 164-65) insistence on the traditional view that it is the sequence of metals that is natural, and the race of heroes that is the intrusion, itself imposes an a priori conception of what must have been in Hesiod’s mind on the text.  The dismissal of the four plus one structure is all the more disappointing, given that Ercolani’s (194-95) actual discussion of the so-called fifth race correctly understands at least the last part of the segment as prophecy, in the sense of a nominal prediction of the future that is aimed at correcting behavior in the present.

            Also, the commentary too often fails to cite publications duly listed in the bibliography on some given point.  For example, the latest commentator to reject vv. 25-26 that Ercolani cites is Bona Quaglia from 1973, whereas in 2001 Blümer gave a sustained argument against them (which, granted, I find ultimately unconvincing).

            That is mostly to speak of Ercolani as text critic, but the above point about his understanding of the fifth race as prophecy can serve to introduce him as interpreter of sections of the poem.   Namely, while he is generally less innovative in this area, he does cover most of the ground of what scholars have said, with flashes of insight of his own here and there.  For example, in discussing the section 11-26 on the two Erides (text, 124-25; addenda, 23), he duly notes the much discussed notion of Begriffsspaltung as applied to Eris, while also expressing concern lest the idea of “concept” that it entails be taken too far away from the sense of divine powers that surely inhabits Hesiod’s thought.  Then, as to the narrative of Prometheus and Pandora, he makes the by now obligatory reference to the comparable story in Theogony, but is careful to say, I believe correctly, that this does not demand “recostruire una versione una e unica del mito.”  (I.e., there is no canonical meta-narrative underlying the two accounts, as traditionalists, structuralists, and feminists alike explicitly or implicitly assume.)   The discussion of the meaning of the hawk-nightingale narrative is relatively detailed and sophisticated.   Here Ercolani (text, 204-6) duly notes the principal interpretations that the hawk stands for the kings and the nightingale for Hesiod, on the one hand, and that the hawk is Zeus and the nightingale the kings or Perses, on the other, and then, correctly observing that both are simplistic, gives a sympathetic discussion of the 1995 interpretation of Dalfen whereby the nightingale is indeed guilty of hubris as those who think it stands for the kings or Perses say, but the hawk personifies, not power in the sense of violence, but the stronger force of δίκη.  In the addenda (54-56) he then summarizes several other interpretations that are not easy to pigeonhole.  (I personally think that the solution is simpler, that the fable indeed teaches “might is right” as it seems to say at first glance, but that it is the kings’ fable, not Hesiod’s; see CJ 101, 2005-06, 173.  However, I recognize that no one who feels that our poem constitutes didactic oration on the part of the narrator will accept this possibility.)   Going forward in the poem, Ercolani’s summary of the agricultural portion 383-617 (text, 279-80; addenda, 77-78) is disappointing by comparison:   He does observe that there are many proposals for the breakdown into sections and that the overall characterization is controversial, and he correctly denies that agricultural labor is separate from ethics for Hesiod, and also covers such matters as the relation of the poem’s time signals to astronomy, but he says that “l’unico filo logico oggettivamente riscontrabile nell’esposizione è la successione cronologica dei lavore”; this insistence on chronological order overlooks the fact that the segment on threshing 597 ff deviates from that schema, and the point that a number of proposals have attempted to explain the breakdown.  It cannot be stated too often that the agricultural portion simply is not a “farmer’s almanac,” but Ercolani fails to do so, I would presume because of his insistence that the poem constitutes wisdom literature.   Still further into the work, the discussion of sailing at 618-94 (text, 367-68; addenda, 97-98) is marked by a perhaps justified scepticism of the currently standard view that Hesiod is speaking to a farmer who trades surplus produce as a secondary pursuit, and so given the topography of Greece naturally does this by sea; rather, Ercolani argues at some length that here advice is offered to people who are sailors by occupation, not farmers.  He gives rather short shrift to generalities for the collection of aphorisms 695-764 that make up the rest of the “Works” portion (text, 387; addenda, 103-4), stressing with West the apparent disorganization of the material.  This is to ignore the fact that some commentators (e.g., Hamilton) have been able to find structure in the section.  Finally, as to the concluding “Days” (text, 412-16; addenda, 110-12), Ercolani gives a relatively thorough discussion on the questions of authenticity and on relations with the rest of the poem, if not on the portion’s structure.  (A competitive discussion of “Days” is the recent treatment in Greek by Manakidou in the collection Musaôn Archômetha, Athens 2006, 380-89.)

I remark here that both the printed text and the pdf addenda are needed for good use of Ercolani’s work, particularly if one is sympathetic to readings he rejects since often these are only given specific reference in the latter location.  Moreover, the addenda contain some of Ercolani’s better insights.  (I have never seen a better statement of the fallacy of setting up a disjunction between the moral and the practical in Hesiod than the statement on vv. 47-105 in the addenda, 28 – speaking specifically against Verdenius’s tendency to do so – that “proprio perché la necessità del lavoro è – quasi ontologicamente – propria della natura umana, è precipuo dovere dell’uomo lavorare e lavorare bene.”)

            Lastly, the commentary is refreshingly undogmatic – something that is needed in treating this great work of world literature that is not the private preserve of any given interpreter.  The worst Ercolani will say if he disagrees with your interpretation of some point is that it does not convince him, and this may be compared with West, e.g., calling one particular understanding of ἀνόστεος ὃν πόδα τένδει at v. 524 “fatuous.”  (On the same phrase, West simply dismisses the interpretation of a snail withdrawing into its shell as “arbitrary,” whereas Ercolani, 336-37, reviews the actual evidence for that possibility in comparison with the historically standard view of an octopus gnawing its tentacle.  He adds the point that it is no objection for the snail to be represented by a different kenning at 571, since in one place, Athenaeus 2.63, it is called several different names, albeit ultimately he takes no side on the question.  To be sure, he relegates the fairly well known set of sexual interpretations of the line to the addenda, 90.)

 

5.         As to the bibliography, while the printed version is adequate (comparing favorably with, say, the bibliographies in the recent standard works by Arrighetti, Nelson, and Clay), at 67 pages the pdf listing is outstanding and should now be utilized by all serious students of Hesiod.  To be sure, no one can take account of everything that has been published, and as a supplement I cite here a small number of works I have found published after 1965 which do not appear in the piece, but which are relevant to the establishment or interpretation of Hesiod’s text as such (leaving aside most additional works on the subtleties of Hesiodic concepts, on the material culture in which the poem was composed, and on other subjects that one might think relevant).[2]

 

Angehrn, E., “Zwischen Menschen und Göttern: Subjektwerdung im Mythos,” in Prometheus, 63-74.  [Discusses the three versions of

            “the” Prometheus myth in Theogony, Works and Days, and “Aeschylus” Prometheus Bound as a unit, by way of elucidating

            the characteristics of myth per se.]

Austin, C., “Pandore, Prométhée et le mythe des races (Th. 507-616, Op. 42-201): l’apport des papyrus,” in Esiodo. Cent’anni, 71-81. 

[Includes most notably the observation that a recently published (2003) papyrus lacks both of the controversial lines W&D 93 

and 99.]

Bader, F., La langue des dieux (Pisa 1989). [Includes interpretations of the second part of Works and Days in relation to Indo-European

            tradition.]

Bartlett, R. C., “An Introduction to Hesiod’s Works and Days,” Review of Politics 68 (2006), 177-205.  [Studies the poem from the point

            of view of its anticipation of political philosophy.]

Bees, R., “Das Feuer des Prometheus: Mythos des Fortschritts und des Verfalls,” in Prometheus, 43-61.  [Discusses the Prometheus

            narrative in Works and Days in the contexts of the version in Theogony, the succeeding narrative of five races, and the Genesis

            Eden narrative.]

Benardete, S., “Hesiod’s Works and Days: A First Reading,” ΑΓΩΝ 1 (1967), 150-74.  [An insightful introduction to the poem.]

Berg, W., "Pandora. Pathology of a creation myth," Fabula 17 (1976), 1-25.  [Analyzes the myth from a quasi-Structuralist point of

            view, while comparing with myths from other cultures.]

Bianchi, U., Prometeo, Orfeo, Adamo: tematiche religiose sul destino, il male, la salvezza (Rome 1976).  [Includes discussion of the two

            Hesiodic accounts of Prometheus under the general understanding of him as a figure situated between gods and humans whose

            effect is to separate them, with treatments of some issues of interpreting the text.]

Bradley, E. M., “On king Amphidamas’ funeral and Hesiod’s Muses,” Parola del Passato 30 (1975), 285-88.  [Discusses W&D 654-59 in

            relation to a hypothesis that the Muses were originally considered funereal deities.]

Cataudella, Q., “Una nuova aporia nelle Opere e i giorni,” in: Mythos. Scripta in honorem Marii Untersteiner  (Genoa 1970), 121-126. 

            [Questions the internal consistency of W&D 60-82.]

Constantinidou, S., “Helen and Pandora: a comparative study with emphasis on the eidolon theme as a concept of eris,” Dodone  

            (Philologia), 33.2 (2004), 165-241.  [Includes an argument on how false images giving rise to strife is illustrated with the

             female principle stated to be created in the two Hesiodic poems, both identified as Pandora.]

Dougherty, C., Prometheus (London/New York 2006).  [Includes an interpretation of Prometheus in both Hesiodic poems as a trickster

            figure.]

Duran, M., “Oaths and the settlement of disputes in Hesiod Op. 27-41,” Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte.

Romanistische Abteilung 116 (1999), 25-48.  [Interprets the cited passage as calling for settling the dispute with Perses

by an oath, with the kings as witnesses rather than deciders.]

Esiodo. Cent’anni = G. Bastianini and A. Casanova, eds., Esiodo. Cent’anni di papiri, Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi,

Firenze 7-8 giugno 2007 (Florence 2008).

Fasciano, D., “Pandore, la première femme,” Rivista di Cultura Classica e Medioevale 47 (2005), 9-22.  [Interprets the first woman of

            both poems, considered to be Pandora.]

Fernández Delgado, J. A.,  “Sobre forma y contenido de Los Trabajos y los Dias,” in: F. R. Adrados et al., eds., Estudios de forma y

            contenido sobre los géneros literarios griegos (Cáceres 1982), 9-29.  [Builds upon some of his other work on narrower aspects

            (cited by Ercolani), to offer views of the poem’s structure and thematics.]

García Gual, C., Prometeo, mito y tragedia, revised edition (Madrid 1995 [Pamplona 1979]).  [Includes an interpretation of “the”

            Prometheus myth in both Hesiodic poems as the same story, with the differences between the two versions explicable by the

            differing contexts (as many interpreters say), but while deferring considerably to J.-P. Vernant’s Structuralist analysis.]

Giannakis, G. N., “Κριτικοερτμηνρυτικές παρατηρήσεις στον Ησίοδο και τον Αριστοφάνη” (“Critical-interpretative comments on Hesiod

            and Aristophanes”), Dodone (Philologia), 33.2 (2004), 27-43.  [Contains notes on the text of W&D 17-19, 372, 414-421, 442,

            and 464, some of which offer unique construals.]

Glenn, J., “Pandora and Eve: Sex as the Root of All Evil,” Classical World 71 (1977), 179-85.  [Interprets the Greek and Genesis myths

            alike as reflecting society’s suspicion of sex.]

Golla, K., “Die Erfahrung des bäuerlichen Jahreslaufs: Form und Sinn des ‘Bauernkalenders’ in Hesiods Erga,” in T. Breyer and D. Creutz,

            eds., Erfahrung und Geschichte: Historische Sinnbildung im Pränarrativen (Berlin/New York 2010), 132-148.  [Argues that the

            poem’s section on agriculture is to be interpreted as poetically reflecting a “pre-narrative” experience.]

Hofinger, M., “L’Ève grecque et le mythe de Pandore,” in: Mélanges de linguistique, de philologie et de méthodologie de l’enseignment

            des langues anciennes offerts à René Fohalle (Gembloux 1969), 205-17.  [Interprets the Pandora myth in Works and Days in a

            way which denies that it is another version of the myth of creation of the first woman in Theogony.]

Janko, R., “The structure of the Homeric Hymns. A study in genre,” Hermes 109 (1981), 9-24.  [Also studies the W&D proemium.]

Kapsalis, G., “Οὐκ ἄρα μοῦνον ἔην Ἐρίδων γένος ... Überlegungen zur Leistung und Grenze der Erides-Dihärese,” Archaiognosia 4 (1985-

            1986), 29-35.  [Discusses the implications of W&D 25-26 for the overall section 11-26.]

Karadagli, T., Fabel und Ainos. Studien zur griechischen Fabel (Königstein 1981).  [Includes a simple claim that the hawk-nightingale

            narrative, W&D 202-12, cannot teach the moral of the right of the stronger because this would conflict with the sequel in the

            poem.]

Lämmli, F., Homo faber, Triumph, Schuld, Verhängnis (Basel 1968).  [Includes readings of Hesiod’s Prometheus and five races

            narratives.]

Lardinois, A. P. M. H., “The wrath of Hesiod: angry Homeric speeches and the structure of Hesiod’s ‘Works and Days,’” Arethusa 36

            (2003), 1-20.  [Argues that the poem is structured like the insulting speeches of epic characters of the sort attested in Homer.]

Lasserre, F., “La fable en Grèce dans la poésie archaïque,” in: La fable. Huit exposés suivis de discussions (Geneva 1983), 61-96, with

            discussion 97-103.  [Includes an actual characterization of how the apparent conflict between the hawk-nightingale narrative

and its antecedent context in the poem is to be resolved.]

Leclerc, M.-C., “Le mythe des races: une fiction aux sentiers qui bifurquent,” Kernos 6 (1993), 207-24.  [Interprets the races narrative

            as meaning that the separation of gods and men usually understood from Th. 535 was not a complete rupture, so that it is

            up to humans to make use of such affinity as remains.]

Lepre, M. Z., L'interiezione vocativale nei poemi omerici (Rome 1979).  [Argues that the nuance that the particle ὦ gives to an epic

            character’s address is not uniform as is usually assumed, but rather depends on its location in the verse.]

Lev Kenaan, V., Pandora’s Senses. The Feminine Character of the Ancient Text (Madison 2008).  [Includes a close reading of the

            W&D Pandora narrative with focus on the creature’s “otherness.”]

Littau, K., “Pandora’s Tongues” (original 1998 conference paper title: “The Primal Scattering of Languages: Philosophies, Myths

and Genders”),  Traduction, Terminologie, Rédaction, 13 (2000), 21-35.  [Works from the ambiguities in the name Pandora

as Hesiod presents it to give a close reading of the figure which implies non-existence for any original mother tongue of the

sort asserted in the Tower of Babel myth.]

Livrea, E. “I versi ‘vaganti’ nel logos esiodeo delle razze (Erga 173a-e West),” in Esiodo. Cent’anni, 43-53.  [Concludes from analysis 

of papyri and of other ancient literature that the burden of proof is actually on the critics who adopt the currently standard

position of rejecting the authenticity of W&D 173a-e.]

Lloyd-Jones, H., “Zeus, Prometheus, and Greek ethics,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 101 (2003), 49-72.  [Considers (52)

            Hesiod’s particular account of the creation of woman to be “semi-comic,” the result of “a peasant poet writing for peasants.”]

Manfredi, V., Le Isole Fortunate: topografia di un mito (Rome 1993).  [Includes discussion of our poem’s “Isles of the Blessed,”

            where at least some of the hero race eventually went, in the context of the development of this myth in ancient times.]

Manuel, F. E., Freedom from history and other untimely essays (New York 1971).  [Contains one of the earlier of the interpretations of

            Hesiod’s five races whereby the fourth race is ambivalent in character.]

Marg, W., “Mensch und Technik. Der Prometheusmythos bei Hesiod und Aischylos,” in: Proceedings of the 1st International humanistic

            Symposium at Delphi, Sept. 25-Oct. 4, 1969, I (Athens 1970) 361-76.  [Analyzes several strands of the Prometheus narrative

            as they appear in the two Hesiodic versions and in Prometheus Bound, with attention to which of them were probably

            pre-Hesiodic and which “Aeschylus” took from Hesiod, and concludes that the basic myth teaches suspicion of technology as

            something connected to hubris.]

McLaughlin, J. D., “Who is Hesiod’s Pandora?,” Maia 33 (1981), 17-18.  [Agrees with a number of interpretations which say that

            Pandora’s jar contained provisions, not evils, but disagrees with the interpretation of one of these (Neitzel’s) that according to

            McLaughlin holds Pandora to represent a Platonic ideal.]

Mezzadri, B., “Structure du mythe et races d’Hésiode,” L’Homme 28.2-3 (1988), 51-57.  [Takes the races narrative to imply a cyclical 

conception of time and compares the account with the mathematical model of the Möbius strip.]

Miralles, C., “Hesíodo, Erga 42-105: la invención de la mujer y la tinaja,” in: J. A. López Férez, ed., Estudios actuales sobre textos

            griegos (II jornadas internacionales, UNED, 25-28 Octubre 1989) (Madrid 1991), 33-45.  [Applies the thesis of Giulia Sissa, that

            for the Greeks the body of woman was equivalent to a storage jar, to Hesiod’s narrative.]

Montiglio, S., Wandering in ancient Greek culture (Chicago 2005).  [Includes an interpretation of Pandora’s jar.]

Neitzel, H., “Zwei textkritische Bemerkungen (Hes. Op. 64; X. Mem. III 9,4),” Hermes 111 (1983), 372-379.  [Offers additional

            argumentation for the emendation of v. 64 introduced in Neitzel’s 1975 book that Ercolani cites.]

Nelson, S. A., God and the land: the metaphysics of farming in Hesiod and Vergil (New York/Oxford 1998).  Ercolani cites some of

            Nelson’s work preliminary to this book, one of the more important studies of Works and Days in recent years, but unaccountably

            omits it itself.

Pinsent, J., “Boeotian calendar poetry,” in: H. Beister et al., eds., Boiotika. Vorträge vom 5. Internationalen Böotien-Kolloquium zu

            Ehren von Professor Dr. Siegfried Lauffer (Munich 1989), 33-37.  [Classifies the material of W&D 383-617 as to what is properly

            calendrical and what is not.]

Quintela Sottomayor, A. P., “O fogo de Prometeu,” Humanitas (Coimbra) 53 (2001), 133-40.  [Discusses the differences between

            Hesiod’s treatment of Prometheus (meaning what is common to the two poems) and that in Prometheus Bound.]

Prometheus = E. Pankow and G. Peters, eds., Prometheus: Mythos der Kultur. Literatur und andere Künste (Munich 1999).

Radin, A. P., “Sunrise, Sunset: ἦμος in Homeric Epic,” American Journal of Philology 109 (1988), 293-307.  [Observes that the adverb

            ἦμος, used frequently in Homer and four times in our poem, does not simply mean “when” in the normal sense, but only refers

            to occasions that repeat themselves in cycles.]

Ricciardelli Apicella, G., “Ἐλπίς sola rimane,” in: B. Gentili et al., eds., Lirica Greca da Archiloco à Elitis. Studi in onore de Filippo Mariz

            Montani (Padua 1984), 127-36.  [Interprets the retention of Elpis in Pandora’s jar to mean that humans are denied prescience

of their being stricken by evils.]

Ruiz de Elvira, A., “Prometeo, Pandora y los orígenes del hombre,” Cuadernos de filología clásica. Estudios griegos e indoeuropeos 1

            (1971), 79-108.  [Enumerates the ancient attestations of myths on the origin of humans or of types of humans, including the two

Hesiodic Prometheus narratives and the narrative of five races, while expressing or assuming particular readings of the texts.]

Saintillan, D., “Du festin à l’échange: les grâces de Pandore,” in MMLH 1996 (cited by Ercolani), 315-48.  [With Vernant’s analysis

as a point of departure, argues quasi-anthropologically that the Pandora myth bears out the centrality of the gift in Greek

culture.]

Salomone, S., “L’enigma di Pandora,” in: F. Sisti and E. V. Maltese, eds., Heptachordos lyra Humberto Albini oblata (Genoa 1988), 79-

            94.  [A close reading of “the” Prometheus-first woman narrative in the two poems that draws parallels between Pandora and,

            e.g., the Promethean fire’s flickering and its “far-seeing” property (preferring that construal of τηλέσκοπος to the more

            standard “far-seen”).]

Schwinge, E.-R. “Die Hoffnung im Fass: abermals Hesiods Pandorageschichte,” Hermes 137 (2009), 393-402.  [Interprets the jar

            narrative along the general lines that the vessel contained provisions, not evils, and that the retention of Elpis means it is evil

            even though humans think it good.]

Sihvola, J., Decay, progress, the good Life?: Hesiod and Protagoras on the development of culture (Helsinki 1989).  [Interprets the

            Prometheus-Pandora and five races narratives.]

Snider, G., “Two folklore parallels to Hesiod’s Prometheus and Pandora myths,” Cahiers des études anciennes 2 (1973), 131-33.

            [Compares with some myths from tribal cultures.]

Steiner, D., “Feathers flying: avian poetics in Hesiod, Pindar, and Callimachus,” American Journal of Philology 128 (2007), 177-208. 

            [Includes an interpretation of the hawk-nightingale narrative whereby the confrontation of the two birds represents a

            confrontation between Homeric and Hesiodic poetry.]

Thalmann, W. G., “‘The most divinely approved and political discord’: thinking about conflict in the developing polis,” Classical Antiquity

            23 (2004), 359-99.  [Focuses on the narrative of two Erides and stresses the opposition between them as the innovation in

            Hesiod’s new view of Eris.]

Theunissen, M., “Hesiods theogonische Eris,” in: P. van Tongeren et al. eds., Eros and Eris: contributions to a hermeneutical

            phenomenology: liber amicorum for Adriaan Peperzak (Boston/Dordrecht 1992), 11-23.  [Understands the discussion of Eris

            in the two Hesiodic poems as preparing the way for the dialectical thought of Plato and Hegel.  In the process the author

            construes the treatment in the later poem as a development of, not a correction to, the earlier, by means of differentiating

            the καρτερόθυμος Eris who is born from Night in Theogony 225 from the στυγερός Eris who gives birth to problematic entities

            beginning in 226 (implausibly for the segment as we have it, but perhaps not for traditions on which it might draw).]

van der Valk, M., “Manuscripts and scholia. Some textual problems,” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 25 (1984), 39-49.  [Includes

            notes on a number of passages from ancient texts, including W&D 288, 344.]

Westra, H. J. and M. Nikolic, “The logic of the myth of the ages in Hesiod’s ‘Works and Days,’” Mouseion 6 (2006), 313-22.  [Interprets

            the races narrative in terms of a periodic mathematical model as does Mezzadri, in their case proposing a (modulated) sine

wave with vertical axis the quality of the given race and horizontal axis time, after accepting Vernant’s bifurcation of the

            fifth race to make six total.]

 

Those are works that I have actually seen.  The following, which I have been unable to consult as of yet, also seem relevant from their titles or from other information:

Adamik, T., “‘Apokalypse’ als Gattungsbegriff und die Epik,” in: I. Tar, ed., Epik durch die Jahrhunderte: internationale Konferenz Szeged

            2.-4. Oktober 1997 (Szeged 1998), 191-97.

Baudy, G. J., Die Entstehung der Agrikultur im Spiegel antiker Mythen und Kulte: Ansätze zu einer neuen Hesiodinterpretation (Kiel

            1987; Stuttgart 2000, 2002).

Bénéjam-Bontemps, M.-J., “L’homme d’or, modèle du héros grec d’après le mythe des races d’Hésiode,” in: J.-M. Galy and M.-R.

            Guelfucci, eds., L’homme grec face à la nature et face à lui-même, Hommage à Antoine Thivel (Nice 2000), 71-82.

Coin-Longeray, S., “Orthos chez Homère et dans la poésie lyrique,” Syntaktika 33 (2007), 1-28.  (Presumably relevant to the swallow’s

            epithet at W&D 568, should the correct text there prove to be ὀρθογόη rather than ὀρθρογόη.)

la Croce, E., “Sentido y estructura del mito hesiódico de las edades,” Cuadernos de Filosofia 17 (1977), 3-14.

Fernández Bernades, J. A., “La edad de los héroes en Hesíodo,” Argos 1, 1977, 85-92.

Kanelopoulos, C., “L’ agriculture d’Hésiode,” Techniques et culture 15 (1990), 131-158.

Lapini, W., “La favola dello sparviero e dell’usignolo (Esiodo, opere 202-221),” in: F. Bertini and C. Mordeglia, eds., Favolisti latini

            medievali e umanistici. 14 (Genoa 2009), 35-49.

Lerza, P., “Σιδήρεον γένος. Un’interferenza fra mito e realtà in Esiodo,” Atti della Accademia ligure di scienzi e lettere 41 (1984), 367-78.

Massa Positano, L., “La speranza in Esiodo,” in: Scritti in onore di Salvatore Pugliatti, V (Milan 1978), 609-29.

Merentitis, K. I., Εἴκονες ἀρόσεως καὶ σπορᾶς παρ’ Ἡσιόδῳ (Images of Plowing and Sowing in Hesiod) (Athens 1974); German version

            in: H. Kalcyk et al., eds., Studien zur alten Geschichte. Siegfried Lauffer zum 70. Geburtstag (Rome 1986), 657-96.

Morocho Gayo, G., “El mito de la edad de oro en Hesíodo,” Perficit 4 (1973), 65-100.

Pleister, W., “Menschenrecht, Tierfabel und Tierphysiognomik,” in: W. Pleister and W. Schild, eds., Recht und Gerechtigkeit im Spiegel

            der europäischen Kunst (Cologne 1988), 172-94.

Roeder, M., Sinnpotential des Prometheus-Mythos, gezeigt an Hesiod, Aischylos, Shelley und Byron (Frankfurt 1982).

 

            Finally, although the pdf bibliography cites a number of works treating Homer, it omits the currently standard commentaries (Iliad, Cambridge 1985-93; Odyssey, Oxford 1988-92), whereas in a number of cases these works offer readings of terms common to Homer and Hesiod that differ from the readings of most commentators on the latter.

 

6.         This discussion has barely scratched the surface of the great detail with which one can interact in Ercolani’s effort, but to summarize, I do judge the work to be at least competitive with West’s even though, as with that contribution, there are many points where it cannot be taken as the last word.