Listening to the Spider: reading Hesiod’s Works and Days

 

CHAPTER 2. ZEUS: GUARANTOR OF THE WORLD OR BARRIER TO GRASPING IT?

vv. 11-105

 

Correction: the old world view needs adjustment.

            Indeed, with the Theogony still in mind, the poet first offers realities to Perses by way of what is widely understood to be a correction to something said there:

 

                        Well not was (it so that) there (is) only one breed of the Strifes; rather, (all) over the earth

                        there are two (breeds or Strifes?); the one (Strife) you could praise if you knew her,

                        though the other is blameworthy: they are very divided at heart.[1]

(vv. 11-13)

The first clause refers to a statement in the earlier poem that Night produced (a single) Strife parthenogenetically, within a group of spirits also including Nemesis, Deception, Lust, and Old Age. Our poet says that in that otherwise baneful collection (not to mention Pain and others whom Strife herself generated) one creature exists (and is widespread) who is to be supported.[2]

            This idea of a praiseworthy Strife is a bit of a shock. (Hamilton, whose concept of the poem is actually based on the two Strifes, even states incorrectly that it is misleading to translate Greek eris as “strife,” because in his view “strife is never good.”) And the image is indeed that the two entities are different: The claim that they are “divided at heart” uses an epic phrase, also said in particular of the gods in taking up different sides for the final battle between Achilles and Hector; thus the listener who notices the association will feel that the two Strifes are quite far apart (even aside from our text’s addition of an intensive prefix I translate as “very”). To be sure, as Eric Havelock and other commentators have pointed out, the idea that conflict has a good side is already latent in Homer; however, that poet never singles out a beneficial Strife for dis­cussion as such. Thus Hesiod has the audience’s attention: what could he mean?[3]

            Before that curiosity is satisfied, however, there is a certain underlying agenda requiring a few words on the bad Strife. Formally, the full section that follows is an example of a principle Kasimierz Kuman­iec­ki has pointed out: A general statement is often followed in the poem by its spe­cification or explanation, in this case detailing the difference just cited. But as to the agenda, first, Hamilton notes a tendency in the section to equate the inferior of the two beings with “the world of the Theogony,” and in fact vv. 11-13 have reinforced the movement away from that poem which began at the end of the proemium. Second, however, in specifying the bad example of the Strifes the new poem more strikingly distances itself from the world of the Iliad:[4]

 

                        For that one foments baneful war and dire battle,

                        the vicious (one); indeed, no mortal loves the likes of her; rather, of necessity,

                        by will of the deathless ones, (mortals) honor the oppressive Strife.[5]

(14-16)

I.e., she is that which created the trouble at Thebes and Troy: As noted in the Introduction, the epic phrase “war and ... “ is standard in epic, invariably used by a character who at that moment disparages war. Such wars were instigated by the gods to further their own ends (although in Homer personified Strife actually means war whether or not the gods want it, and is not always bad). Only because of them we honor her, without real conviction. Thus there is an overtone of ques­tioning Homeric values.[6]

            The poet has made us wait three verses, but the bad Strife’s (not entirely accurate) des­cription does effectively highlight the real point: her good sister. Continuing the specification:[7]

 

                        But first dark Night engendered the other,

                        and the high-seated son of Cronus who dwells in space makes her (be)

                        in the roots of the earth and much better for men as well:

                        she even rouses the unhandy one to work for all this (unhandiness);

                        for yes, anyone wants to work, watching another,

                        a wealthy one, who is eager to plow and plant

                        and to put his estate in good order: yes neighbor envies the neighbor

                        who rushes toward wealth; this Strife is good for mortals.[8]

(vv. 17-24)

Subtleties which translation does not reproduce include a nice assonance in “rouses to work” (egeiren ergon), and that to at least some listeners “wants to work” (ergoio chatizōn) recalls Odysseus “wanting to return home” in two places (nostoio chatizōn, also verse-ending).[9]

            Symbolically, what is important about this passage is the contrast between Zeus as supervisor of the sky gods (“high-seated” properly refers to a coxswain giving orders to rowers), who “dwells in space,” with the earth where he places the daemon. Thus as especially Seth Benar­­dete has noted, the poet here presages a poem about the earth rather than the Theogony’s sky. Apart from that, as West observes, the good Strife is elder, hence more honored.[10]

            Notice the role of human will:  That getting rich is important to the poem in general is well noted (e.g., by Ioannis Pery­si­na­kis), and at a certain thematic level, this Strife is important in allowing scope for it (part­i­cularly effectively via the use of enjambement noted in the Introduction for vv. 21-2).  However, while Zeus renders following her possible, human will is operative in actually doing so, whereas “the deathless ones” of 16, construed as the capricious entities who caused the wars, compel honor toward the bad Strife they have let off the leash. It is true that, as Verdenius notes, neither Hesiod nor Homer really solves the theoretical problem of human responsibility in a world with gods. Still, as a mat­ter of practice it is clear what we must do to gain wealth.[11]

                       Meanwhile, as was hinted in the Pro­em­ium, there is a contradiction in Hesiod’s Zeus, and it is here detectable, if the poet does not yet dis­play it at any overt level: Zeus is one of the “deathless ones” who compel honor to bad Strife, but makes the good Strife possible.

            As to the next segment, inflected languages allow for the phenomenon of polyptoton, the repetition of a noun in a different case; this yields a catchy phrase not noticed as much in trans­la­tion. Homer and Hesiod alike are fond of the device. Verdenius may be right that the example about neighbors in v. 23 (geitona geitōn) puts the poet in mind of some clever examples which also include verbs in the alliteration. In any case (in West’s alliteration-preserving translation):

 

                        And potter is piqued at potter; and at craftsman, craftsman,

                        and beggar begrudges beggar; and poet, poet.[12]

(25-6)

As far as language goes, a possible model (if without the verb as part of the alliteration) is Nes­tor’s idea for organizing the troops: “and let clan support clan; and tribe, tribe.” But as to the thought, one might well think that the sentiments the poet’s flair for words has led him to support look stark in the cold light of day. Can it be good when poets hate each other? Still, there is no reason to believe that Hesiod’s idea of what is beneficial has anything to do with the utopian vision of lions lying down with lambs in peace and harmony. After all, if one poet hates another enough to vie with him, that will give us good poetry. It has been suggested that the conflict of beggars alludes to that of the beggar Irus and the disguised Odysseus, but that was certainly part of a plot leading eventually to a good end. Indeed, our poet caps off his vision of the good Strife with a fair cross-section of society (men both of deeds and of words, as Hamilton char­ac­ter­izes the distinc­tion between 25 and 26), understood to be functioning well under her auspices. The supposed incongruence of the couplet has led some to posit a post-Hesiodic “rhapsode” clever enough to interpolate the lines, but there is no need of that hypothesis. Evidently, rather, the poet envisages harnessing existing human emotions for the greater good.[13]

 

Example: finagling versus work.

            But it is “Perses” to whom the poet has said he wanted to speak. Thus:

 

                        Hey, Perses, you store all this in your heart;

                        don’t let the delighting-in-banefulness Strife draw you away from work

                        to ogle the quarrels of (things like) plazas and listen to them

                        (or possibly: to ogle the quarrels and listen to the plazas).[14]

(vv. 27-9)

Here “listen” seems in the sense of “heed,” and action is also hinted at in the Greek verb for “watch” that I render as “ogle,” opipeuō. At first the segment looks like a sleight-of-hand to broaden the scope of the bad Strife to include spectators as well as participants in the “war and con­ten­tion” of 14. However, the connotations of the verbs suggest that this is a distinction without a difference: Perses is at least potentially a participant. In any case, in terms of form, the poet fur­ther specifies the antecedent, citing the workings of the daemon in an actual case.

            Next, we hear:

 

                        For as to quarrels and plazas, yes little are they the concern (or: little is there time for them?)

                        for anyone for whom a livelihood is not sufficiently stored inside

                        in season, that which earth yields, Demeter’s grain.

                        With a surfeit of that you could foment quarrels and contention

                        (to go) after the property of others. ... .[15]

(30-4)

The formal structure would lead us to expect the good Strife as counterpoint to the bad one, but instead a graceful line (32) introduces the image of a different goddess, in her partnership with earth. True, “Demeter’s grain” (an epic phrase) is mentioned at least in part as a foil for the next thought, that if you had it you could follow the bad Strife, since her language is pointedly repro­duced from 14 (the only change being to replace “war” with “quarrels”). In any case, as Bona Quaglia says, the thought is to be understood ironically: Perses is really to note his failure to work for the livelihood, not the actual possibility of contention once he has it. There is at least one other case of “a surfeit of that” which the listener may recall, to add nuance: Hector’s parents could have had a surfeit of grief if their son had died at home rather than as he did.[16]

            But most importantly, a certain specificity is added in beginning v. 34: It seems the issue is property disputes in particular. What could this be about? We learn next, more or less:

 

                         ... Never will there be for you a second (chance)

                        to do this. But forthwith let us get our dispute settled

                        with straight judgments, the ones which are best (since they are) from Zeus.

                        For once we divided up our inheritance, but yes much

                        you plundered and carried off, greatly flattering the kings,

                        the gift-eaters who are wont to dispense this (kind of) “justice.”[17]

(34-9)

It seems that we are supposed to know about a specific property dispute we have had with the narrator, and that we are related to him (“inheritance”). I take it that “do this” refers to engaging in bad Strife-type activities previously mentioned with him as the specific target, with “second” alluding to the fact that we have in fact done so.  The statement is a bit of bravado on the poet’s part, swearing that he won’t let himself be beaten any more. Then, after an appeal to reason which alludes to the “straight judgments” of the pro­em­i­um, and of the Theogony before that, we learn directly what he is talking about: an actual case where we once cheated him by bribing judges.[18]

            Thus this segment might lend support to the literalist interpretation that the poem really deals with the actual author’s actual brother, named Perses: Certainly the original audience must have recognized some such dispute. On the other hand, some example is needed if we are spea­k­ing of concrete rather than abstract truth as v. 10 says. (Or, in Benardete’s perspective, in lea­v­ing the Theogony we have also gotten away from the Muses, which “entails as well the loss of the beautiful, terrible, and grand.”) Probably no argument will really settle the question, but at least for the moment this is all we hear about any specific case. Instead, the poet will next take the image of the gift-eating judges as a point of departure for thoughts of more general import.[19]

 

Explanation: it’s all for the best.

 

                        (The kings are) fools who do not know how much more is the half than the whole,

                        nor how great is the profit in mallow and asphodel.

                        For (it is the case) for humanity that the gods keep hidden the means of livelihood;

                        for (otherwise) easily you could only in a day work

                        to have (enough) even for a year without working;

                        quickly would you put your rudder “over the (fireplace) smoke” (i.e., finish sailing)

                        and the “work of oxen” and also of “hard-working mules” would perish.[20]

(vv. 40-6)

Popular audience and esoteric critic alike can sink their teeth into this. There are allusions to epic concepts, ideas as “cryptic” as the gods’ hiding (krupsantes), and mention of both the agriculture and the sailing which will be discussed later. As to epic, “fool/child who does not know (the following)” is an ubiquitous convention: Its use ranges from Agamemnon being naive not to know Zeus would prevent him from capturing Troy in a day; to Andromache not knowing that Hector, being dead, would not need his bath drawn; to the Cyclops not knowing that Odys­seus and his men were hidden under the sheep exiting the cave; to Dawn not thinking to ask Zeus to grant her lover youth along with immortality, plus an application later in our poem to be discussed. Then, two epic models are combined in 43-4: Odysseus’s tale to Eumaeus could go on “easily ... even for a year” if there were enough food and drink; and “only in a day” in such cases as Hector doing much damage in only that time. Weapons are hung above “the smoke” when not in use in the Odyssey. “Work of oxen” (i.e., plowed fields) and “hard-working mules” are standard, and one case of “work neither of oxen nor of men” may be the model here.[21]

            Before the significance of all this suggested imagery can be uncovered, the obscurity of vv. 40-1 must be acknowledged. Mallow and asphodel are documented as cheap vegetables which constituted the food of the poor, but how can they be advantageous? And how can half be more than whole? The commentators may be right in taking at least the latter thought to follow Near Eastern sayings to the effect that it is better to be poor and righteous (or religious) than rich and profligate. But those sayings are reasonably clear while, for the first time in the poem, Hesi­od is not. Differently, Nelson, objecting that early Greece had no such thoughts, may be right in taking the meaning to be that modesty is safe but that seeking everything is dangerous. But then why not say so? Verdenius takes the specific advantage of mallow and asphodel to mean that if you are poor you realize that they are better than nothing; Rousseau and Nelson, that they grow without human effort. But how is that connected to the gods’ actually hiding better fare? West has it that the connection is not at a logical level (and the particle I translate as “for” certainly need not be purely causal), but then what level is it at? Most recently, Blümer sees half and whole as alluding to Prometheus’s division of the meats between humans and gods in the The­ogony, and the vegetables as being edible without the fire we will be told shortly Zeus hid from humans. If so, at least the first allusion probably went over the head of the original audience.[22]

            When allusive meaning is forced on us there is no reason to believe any given reading of it is definitive. But that said, I have seen nothing to make me recant my 1985 suggestion that the poet offers a vision whereby it is at worst ambivalent that things are the way they are “for humanity.” While vv. 40-1 might have been immediately occasioned as an emotional (hence unclear) protest against a life of dishonest luxury, and while 42 may simply continue the protest with the idea of working since “the gods” have ordained it, 43-6 do not fit that concept well. Rather, the passage as a whole calls for an understanding that the existence of a need for work, and for some people to require mallow and asphodel, is for the best. This is particularly so when we reflect on the fact that “work of oxen” and “hard-working mules” were considered items of value, i.e., the audience will have felt that one does not want them to perish. To be sure, the point is not made with the kind of clear authority we will see for some of the poet’s other claims.[23]

            Most importantly, after concretely portraying corruption in the courts of provincial Boe­o­tia, in this segment the poet returns to epic imagery generally, I take it because the broader framework better suits nuances which are general in nature (particularly if the allusions are to epic’s non-warlike aspects). We are better able to appreciate the idea that if things were not as they are, loafers could flout their idleness, and the fruits of civilization would disappear. To be sure, this is consistent with the underlying ethics of the good Strife (if she seems forgotten by this time as an actual personal force), or indeed, with the overall tone of the poem to this point.

 

Further explanation: (meta-)myth.

            “The gods hide the livelihood” of course stands for simple reality, but there is no hint in vv. 42-6 of how it came about. Having engaged in myth-making with the good Strife, the poet next at least begins as if he were explaining the situation with more myth, this time an old one:

 

                        But Zeus hid (something), angry in his heart

                        because crooked-minded Prometheus cheated him;

                        so therefore he wrought grievous woes for humanity:

                        he hid fire. ..... .[24]

(47-50)                                    

Whether what Zeus hid in 47 was the livelihood of five verses earlier, as most assume, or simply means the hiding of fire three verses later, or is ambiguous (as I believe), this begins the Prome­theus-Pandora narrative proper. That is, it begins a story which is at least initially about given anthropomorphic beings, not “the gods” generally as is implied by those commentators who say that the narrative already began at 42. In fact, as the audience will soon recognize if it does not already, again the reference is to the Theogony, which contains a similar myth. The idea of “hiding” connects the two segments in Verdenius’s 1962 sense.[25]

            For the most part the following treatment simply summarizes my previously published article on vv. 47- 105 in a journal with a relatively broad audience. In general, far from simply repeating the earlier myth with a different stress (as most discussions of “the” myth assume), our narrative takes the latter as a point of departure to formulate a meta-myth, to point toward the transcendence of myth. To begin, the deception just cited in 48 refers either to the aetiology of the sacrifice in the earlier poem (wherein Prometheus fooled Zeus into choosing the inferior portion of a slaughtered animal) or simply to the general nature of the “Trickster” archetype. As punishment (for humanity, of whom Prometheus is guardian) Zeus stopped sending fire to trees. Then, in both the Theogony account and ours (50-9), Prometheus stole the fire for humanity’s use, and Zeus responded by deciding to create woman as punishment. The difference is that the Theogony’s stress is on the omniscience of Zeus (to the point of saying that he saw through Prometheus’s trick with the meat, but let himself be “fooled”), whereas our text wants to show that he employed stealth better than did Prometheus for all the latter’s guile, beginning with “hiding” fire, and continuing through his “last laugh” of 59 (cited in the Introduction above).[26]

            After that the Theogony has Hephaestus and Athena create the woman at Zeus’s orders in a more or less straightforward way, but our text is more elaborate. It is divided methodically into the conception of the creature (vv. 60-9), her manufacture (70-80a), and her naming (80b-2). The first segment is worth quoting in full:[27]

 

                        “Hephaestus the famous” he ordered quickly

                        to muddy earth with water, and in this a human’s speech to put,

                        and (a human’s) strength, but an appearance like a deathless goddess,

                        (and) the form of a lovely fair maiden; then Athena

                        to teach it work, to weave an intricate loom;

                        and to pour grace over its head, “golden Aphrodite,”

                        and arduous pain and limb-gnawing anxieties (for the men who encounter it);

                        and, to put in it a bitchy mind and deceitful manner,

                        Hermes he commanded, the “diaktoros argeïphontes.”

                        So he said, and they obeyed lord Zeus, the son of Cronus.[28]

(60-9)

To be sure, taking a largely intellectual approach to Hesiod’s relation to Homer, Heinz Neitzel says the reference here and in the parallel Theogony segment is to the beautification of Hera to fool Zeus. But as to the more immediate response, i.e., to language, the poet recalls epic images of the gods in question by his use of the standard phrases I put in quotes. West and Verdenius note other parallels, especially with Hephaestus’s helpers in making the Shield of Achilles, automa­tons who possess “speech/ and strength, and (learn skills from) the deathless gods”). I translate this struc­ture so as to preserve the verse locations of key terms, especially the names of the deities. As Nicolai observes, the two females come at the end of the verse; the two males, at the beginning. Also, Zeus’s order is cited at both beginning and end. A nice construction.[29]

            This passage which so handily captures our attention utilizes more deities than in the ori­ginal myth; especially, Hermes, the in-house Olympian trickster who is to give the woman her mental qualities and speech, continues the idea of beating Prometheus at his own game.

            But after the creature is actually built in vv. 70-80a with not quite the same dieties (Aph­ro­dite becomes the Graces, Persuasion, and the Seasons), she is named (the earlier myth’s wom­an is not, despite a common assumption that she is also “Pandora”) and sent to men. It is in the latter two stages that meta-myth most clearly supplants myth: The myth has Hephaes­­t­­us sim­ply bring out the creature to show gods and men, but our text names her and goes on thus.[30]

 

                         .... And he (Hermes) named this woman

                        Pandora (Pandōrē) because all (pantes) who have homes on Olympus

                        gave a gift (dōron edōresan), a pain to “bread-eating men.”

                        Thereupon, when he completed this “sheer inescapable snare,”

                        the father sent to Epimetheus the famous “argeïphontes”

                        leading the gift(,?) of the gods(,?) the swift messenger; nor did Epimetheus

                        remember that Prometheus had told him never a gift

                        to receive from Olympian Zeus, but to send it

                        back, lest some evil befall mortals.

                        Thereupon he received it, and when he had the evil he knew it.[31]

(80-9)

The poet begins as if he would simply name the characters etymologically, Pandora the “all-gift” because “all” the gods “gave a gift.” But then when he proceeds to send her via Hermes to Epi‑metheus (the character taking over Prometheus’s role as representing humans to the gods), i.e., “After‑thought,” as a foil to Pro‑metheus (easily construed as “Fore‑thought”), he is not con­tent with such a procedure, but gives an actual consequence bearing out the character­ist­ics: The latter figure saw the problem in advance; the former, only when it was too late. The syntact­ical ambiguity in 85 also contributes to the breakdown of narrative. In short, this is neither the adventures of Coyote the trickster, nor the Levi-Straussian structures which Vernant posits in his synchronic analysis of “the” Hesiodic Prometheus myth, but is a matter of literature.[32]

            Next, the Theogony account concludes with some (non-mythic) misogynistic slogans on the order of 1950s American barber-shop humor, but after v. 89 our poet proceeds, rather, by grafting another character-driven story onto his account:[33]

 

                        For before this the tribes of humans were living on earth

                        free and far from evil, indeed far from painful troubles,

                        especially (or: and) grievous diseases, the ones which give doom to men; (90-2)

                        but the woman, with her hands taking away the jar’s great lid,

                        scattered it (i.e., its contents): she wrought grievous woes for humanity.

                        Expectation (Elpis) alone there in unbreakable lodgings

                        remained inside the jar, under the rim, and not outside

                        flew; for first (someone) closed the jar’s lid

                        by will of aegis-bearing, cloud-gathering Zeus.

                        Otherwise, countless sorrows roam among humanity;

                        full of evils is the earth, and full is the sea;

                        and(?) diseases to humans by day, as well as those by night

                        keep coming, on their own (volition), bearing evil to mortals

                        silently, since Zeus of the counsels has removed their voices.[34]

(94-104)

 In fact this builds on a mythical archetype: a woman (often First Woman) doing something foolish which causes primordial good living to be replaced with what we have. It has long been recog­niz­­ed that our own story was previously given, since the jar’s provenance is assumed to be known. I myself have suggested that it was a narrative with versions attested from classical times where either “humans” or “Pandora” opened a jar and beneficial entities escaped. I pre­sume that these entities were charms which had previously kept the evils of 90-2 (stated to be, not non-existent, but “far from” humans) at bay, but which now fail to protect us so that the situation of 100-4 per­tains. If this was indeed the prior story, the original listener would not have understood from the text we have that the jar contained evils, as has been read into it since Roman times to yield what is now called “Pandora’s Box.” Of course, the result of Pandora’s act is the same regardless of such details. In one way of reading it we have an aetiology of the fact that the human is an “elpid­ic being,” as Simina Noica puts it, albeit in an immeasurably baneful world.[35]

            But our poet treats this myth derived from the prior story almost as schematically as would the actual analysis of a modern myth interpreter. To be sure, in beginning a long history of commentary on our narra­tive in the light of the theologized First Woman myth of Eve and the serpent, the early church father Origen calls our account “laughable” by comparison. (Never mind that the Jah­wist’s Gene­sis 3 account has its own primitivisms with which Christian apologetics must deal: God anthropo­morphically walking in a garden, a talking animal, the incorrect popular belief that snakes eat dust). He evidently means this negatively, thinking that Hesiod intends the story in all solemnity, but I cannot read it so. The matter of Expectation makes one smile because it is a play on the earlier story in the mode of black humor. Any salesperson, for example, knows that expectation of making the sale is a key ingredient of success; nonetheless, it is of no avail if that is all one has, if such things as product quality are lacking. (Thus, as Nelson has it, “hope” is evil when we rely on it exclusively.) Our poet corrects the previous myth (of letting all the good spirits escape to Mt. Olympus if I am correct; of letting all the evils out if not), by saying that Zeus has ordained Expectation alone to remain with humans, with a nuance in “unbreakable” that she is rigidly attach­ed. Thus we will go around thinking we can get rich without working. This diabol­i­cal twist continues Zeus’s own mastery of Prometheus’s forte of deceit.[36]

            The text cites one more divine dirty trick which, however, further betrays meta-myth: V. 104 says Zeus removed the voices of the diseases (so that they too employ stealth, and we can­not tell when they are coming). This is certainly evocative and mysterious, and therefore made to order for avant garde interpretation. (As a leading example, in an often intriguing book on what speech means to Hesiod, Marie-Christine Leclerc interprets this silence as indicating a loss of clear communication contingent on Pandora’s coming.) But no relation (temporal or other­wise) of this act of Zeus to any of Prometheus or Pandora is actually stated in the text; thus in terms of the narrative logic, again, we do not have a simple story with charac­ters.[37]

            Moreover, the view that Prometheus-Pandora is a simple myth does not account for the category of poetry applied to this passage. Especially, v. 101 is to be experienced in light of the fact that, as previously stated in connection with the “grounding” of the good Strife, this is a poem about earth. Pandora (an otherwise attested earth goddess) is made in the first instance by mud­dying earth with water (61), and then the final result is that “the earth is full of evils.” (To be sure, so is the sea, so that there is no escape anywhere.)[38]

            Finally, we learn:

 

                        Thus not at all can anyone escape the mind of Zeus.

(v. 105)

Formally, this corresponds to the “moral” which ends the Theogony account (so West). It is also noteworthy that, given that diseases have just been cited, the line appears to allude directly to the assertion of the Cyclops’s brethren that “not at all is he to escape what is the disease of mighty Zeus” (i.e., escape what must be from divine visitation since the Cyclops has just said “no one,” a homophone of Odysseus’s name for himself, is attacking him).[39]

            But most importantly, this conclusion brings the contradiction embodied in Hesiod’s Zeus to a head. The poet has just cited him as a mythical character (even conversing with Prome­theus, vv. 54-8), but we must read this concluding verse as reflecting his “mind” as the implaca­ble (dare one say, impersonal) guarantor of the present order, of the sort cited in the proemium. Possibly that also pertains to his silencing the evils a line earlier, or even having Pandora leave Expectation in the jar. The author may have begun the narrative at 47 with aetiological intent, i.e., the common practice of explaining a given situation with a myth which is frequent in Homer and which would survive into classical Greek literature. Having just said that the reason Perses is to work is that “the gods” hid the means of livelihood, perhaps he at least wanted to have the audi­ence think he would show this in detail, and so utilized association with the idea of conceal­ment to launch a different version of the Theogony’s Prometheus myth. However, as many have noted, the result is unsuccessful for any such purpose: we get diseases, not work. The “painful troubles” (chalepoi ponoi ) in 91 which were away from humans before Pandora can certainly be construed to include drudgery (as, e.g., Verdenius feels), but nothing like that is visible in 100-4.[40]

            More precisely, what has happened here is as follows. The logic of the original myth in the Theogony is that woman must be created, and is a bane, so that if she is to cause the need of work then that is a bane too; however, work is valued by the preceding development, in particular since the good Strife is said to supervise it. Thus a straightforward myth like, say, Agamem­non say­ing he offended Achilles because he was blinded by Delusion, after Zeus sent her from Olym­pus to humanity when he was fooled by her, cannot succeed. Whether out of des­peration to find a way to end the narrative, or because he is after all too sophisticated for such a story, our poet ends by schema­ti­zing mythical categories, so that his treatment results in meta-myth: etymolo­gi­zing and playing on the First Woman concept, and having poetry supersede aetiology. (Indeed, his sche­ma­ti­zation is even less straightforward than the clever vari­ation on the Prometheus cor­pus which Protagoras would later give according to Plato: Prome­theus delegated the assignment of the characteristics of living beings to Epime­theus; the latter used up everything of value on the animals to leave nothing for humans; and Zeus had to give them social virtues so that they could survive.) A related point is that Zeus as Homer’s character cannot in the last analysis be recon­ciled with Zeus as Hesiod’s fundamental principle by which gods and humans order their affairs.[41]

            Above all, this treatment does not show “Perses” why there is anything like human choice in whether to work, as was latent in the treatment of the good Strife. Despite the earlier advice to work, “Zeus” has ordained Expectation for us, Fore-seeming without Fore-thought (or in other words, Prometheus has given way to Epimetheus). The inevitable conclu­sion is that we will avoid work, expecting it to be unnecessary.[42]

            In fact, as the poet’s schematic treatment of it anticipates, myth will not help us under­stand the world. The myth he cites was probably needed to establish his bona fides as a tradi­tional aoidos to his audience; however, with it his poem has entered a cul de sac. Some­thing other than Prometheus, Pandora, and Zeus’s past decisions will be needed to give Perses the etētuma and show him what he must do with it.  (to Chap. 3)

 

NOTES: