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

 

CHAPTER 8. TRANSCENDENCE

vv. 614b-77

 

            The story having been told, the poet need only give a coda to the “agricultural” por­tion to match its overture, vv. 383-413. However, in the process of doing so, specifically by recal­ling the Pleiades of 383, he also gives a transition segment leading to something else. For what­ever reason, he feels that this new subject is also needed.

 

                         ... Then right after

                        the Pleiades and the Hyades and the strength of Orion

                        set, thereupon, remembering your plowing, be

                        timely: (thus) may the full year be tailored, according to (work on) the ground;

                        but if the longing for tempestuous sailing should seize you,[1]

(614-18)

then behave in a way to be described next.

            That is to say, on the one hand, such is agriculture, and remember to carry it out in time­ly fashion (meaning: remember all that is involved in the role of the protagonist developed over the course of the previous discussion). In the process of saying this the poet takes v. 615 verba­tim from Hephaestus putting the given constellations on the Shield of Achilles, which if nothing else reminds us that the agricultural poetry is to be juxtaposed to epic proper. Alliteration of pleiōn, “full year,” in 617 with Plēïades in 615 helps unify the segment.[2]

            But on the other hand, suppose we “long for” something else. The conventional mode of interpretation says this new subject is simply trading surplus produce, by sea since that is effici­ent. It is held that this is a necessary supplement to the purported farmer’s almanac, on an activi­ty Hesi­od hates but cannot avoid. However, “longing” already says otherwise. During the course of giving his figurative interpretation of some of Hesiod’s sailing, Rosen notes that Greek himer­os is normally an (irrational) urge for something which will bring pleasure, and suggests this “reve­als considerations other than literal sailing.” Indeed, the full expression himeros hairei, “longing seiz­es,” underlines the point: A key example is that “longing (for sex with Helen) seiz­ed” Paris after his defeat in battle. It begins to look like sailing represents some sort of escape from normal life, for Hesiod as for many others since. (Melville provides the paradigm: Ishmael says at the outset of Moby Dick that it is time for him to go to sea when he is depressed and is likely to attack people.) Perhaps escape is suggested by the wine just treated in the last segment, alco­hol not being thought sufficiently efficacious. In any case, this chapter will consider the escape hypothesis.[3]

 

Sailing and poetry.

            Using association of the idea of the Pleiades, the poet first says that “sailing” (or what­ever it means) is not to be carried out “at the time” cited (or in whatever conditions that means):

 

                        When the Pleiades, (in order that) the mighty strength of Orion

                        they flee, fall into the murky sea,

                        right then the gusts of all manner of winds rage;

                        indeed, then (you should) no longer keep ships on the wine-dark sea,

                        but work the land, remembering what I urge you.[4]

(vv. 619-23)

            I believe that the section which begins with this segment has a consistent figurative inter­pretation; to wit, that sailing means poetry. To begin, if your escape is to be through poetry, then the best type is not that about epic “ships,” but that about “working the land.” The point is actual­ly atemporal (just as the “sequence” of births in the Theogony, and perhaps also the “succes­sive” creations of races earlier in our poem, really stand for synchronic truths.) For his part, Ros­en thinks the matter of “longing” together with the poet’s treatment from here to 645 “pre­pares” for a “shift from the literal to the metaphorical” in the author’s own purported sailing dis­cus­sed then, which he holds does stand for poetry. More particularly, he says that at the “time” of this segment itself, “more grandiose, heroic poetry” is as dangerous as seafaring according to the poet. But that is to nod to the alman­ac interpretation (although he will later say that the author’s own figu­ra­tive sailing “bestows ... ano­ther level of meaning” on its antecedent and sequel). Rather, one can note that the ima­ge­ry of the first four of the five cited verses is in fact quite epic (aside from a hint that the Plēïa­des fleeing Orion are “doves,” peleiades, escaping from a hunter), and thus con­trasts with a lack of it in the fifth: While at first sight the juxtaposition of “fleeing” to “fall” hints at trading one disas­ter for another in lugubrious fashion, it draws on a more serious image in Homer; namely, as with Paris’s desire in the above example, the Trojans participate in “fleeing (the battle) to fall” into their women’s arms. “Murky sea,” “all manner of winds,” and “wine-dark sea” are stan­d­ard epic expressions, and “the gusts of all manner of winds rage” (pantoiōn anemōn thuiousin aētai) is an ana­log of “(Hera) raised gusts of arduous winds on the sea” (argaleōn anemōn epi ponton aēt­as). “Ships” and “keep/have” (echō) are juxtaposed several times in epic situations. (Thus, although there has been some discussion of whether the nēa, normally a conveyance requiring twen­ty row­ers, can refer to a farmer’s boat, at least here the audience is forced to think of the epic type.) On the other hand, “work the land,” beginning the final verse, resembles little in epic; and the rest of the line recalls material earlier in our own poem as much as anything in Hom­er: “Remem­bering” in connection with a specific “time” is Hesi­o­dic as de Hoz notes, while “as I urge you” occurs at 316, 536 in addition to epic. Thus epic imagery is treated negatively (“no lon­g­er”), while that referring to the poet’s own enunciation in his earlier discussion is positive.[5]

            To be sure, there may also be a parallel suggesting that the “sea” is disordered due to pri­meval forces not sanctioned by Zeus: Apart from the phrase’s use in epic, West notes that “all manner of winds” in v. 621 suggests those the Theogony says are generated by the monster Typhoeus, which that poem counterposes to the Olympian-derived winds Boreas et al. That is to say, I take it, the epic medium is bankrupt.[6]

            This figurative interpretation is next reinforced, as the poet tells us that at such a “time:”

 

                        “Haul your ship up to shore” and cover it with stones

                        on all sides, so that they hold back “the force of the damp-blowing winds,”

                        and “pull the bilge-plug” so that “Zeus’s rain” does not rot (the ship);

                        tightly “lay away in your house” “all the gear,”

                        neatly trimming the wings of your “sea-faring ship;”

                        hang the well-made rudder “over the smoke” (of the fireplace);

                        and “yourself,” await the timely sailing, “until it comes.”[7]

(624-30)

In fact all the phrases in quotes have epic associations. Especially, we recall Odysseus saying that Circe told him to “pull your ship to shore,” put “all the gear” and possessions in caves, “and yourself” come back with your crew for her hospitality. Thus the point is to “put away” epic poet­ry, practicing instead the “timely sailing,” i.e., our poet’s type of poetry.[8]

            An association of sailing and poetry is thereby established, not just anticipated.

 

The history of proper sailing/poetry.

            But when “it comes” (i.e., arrival of a better set of conventions in one’s consciousness):

 

                        Indeed then “drag your fast(?) ship to sea,” and yes in it cargo

                        (which is) suitable arrange, so that you gain a profit (to bring) home,

                        just as my father and also yours, big baby Perses,

                        was wont to ply the sea in ships, needing a good livelihood;

                        once he even came here (or: hither), (after) traversing much (or: the deep?) sea,

                        abandoning Aeolian Cyme in his black ship,

                        not fleeing abundance, nor wealth and prosperity,

                        but the baneful poverty Zeus gives to men:

                        He settled near Helicon, “in a wretched village,

                        in Ascra: in bad through winter, in tiresome in summer, nor ever in good.”[9]

(vv. 631-40)

(I put quotation marks on the phrase in the first line because the thought is a frequent epic sentiment; however, those at the end reflect the fact that, as Nicholas Richardson points out, the poet is referring to the father’s sentiment, not necessarily his own.)[10]

            The key to understanding this passage is to recognize that its epic parallels function to evoke the past, as does epic, but in the service of the poet’s own vision now that it has “indeed” (v. 631) arrived. Especially, 633-5 appear to allude directly to Tlepolemus speaking of his father, the seminal figure Heracles. Begotten of Zeus (Il. 5.637-8)[11]

 

                        was he, my father, the bold in spirit, the lion-hearted;

                        once he, coming here for the sake of the horses of Laomedon,

(5.639-40)

wreaked havoc with a small force (5.641-2). To be sure, Griffith’s watershed study of our poem’s personalities holds that the poet’s purported father is a “negative paradigm,” and many agree; thus Rosen says the poet’s intent is to contrast the father’s “failure” to his own success which will be noted shortly. However, 633 explicitly tells us to sail “just like” the father (hōs per), and the text does not actually say that sailing, or anything other than Zeus, caused his poverty. Rather, with account of Heracles as Ur-figure, “our father came here” implies that our forefathers’ poetry was like ours, albeit the inverse is the lesson: we are to “sail” like them, i.e., hear/compose poet­ry in their manner. Indeed, they took up poetry after “abandoning” some entirely different (pri­mor­dial?) existence, in order to escape “poverty” (presumably meaning ignorance). Thus we are to gain “profit” (knowledge) by following their example.[12]

            To complete the treatment, the poet will cover present-day listening to poetry, on the one hand, and composing it, on the other. First the listening. Although it is commonly held that the next segment is not part of the nominal biography, it in fact mentions the “brother:”[13]

 

                        But as for you, my Perses, remember to be in your actions

                        timely in all, especially about sailing.[14]

(vv. 641-2)

Although Marsilio among others feels that “Perses” stands for a rival poet or at least rhetorician, his most obvious role in the text to this point has been as the recipient of its offerings; thus if this segment stands for engagement in poetry, the engagement is in the form of listening. Specifical­ly, we are to carry on the forefathers’ tradition “especially” by listening to the “timely” poetry. Con­­nection with the past may also be assisted by the phrase “but as for you” (tunē d’ ): This expression conventionally introduces a pointed statement to the addressee after a narrative with some contrasting aspect. An important example is Achilles’s mother telling him that Patroclus is dead, “but as for you,” go to battle. Thus in the present case the point is that our forefathers are now gone, but it is up to you, the addressee, to carry on their tradition.[15]

            Ideally, what is involved in composing the “timely” poetry would come next, but first there is a segment which has justifiably troubled the commentators:

 

                        A small ship complement; a large, put your cargo in:

                        the greater the cargo, the greater the gain upon gain

                        will be, if the winds, now, hold off their baneful gales.[16]

(vv. 643-5)

The first line is a catchy slogan like some in the earlier aphoristic section of the poem (320, 345, 355, etc.), but those are offered as if self-explanatory, whereas as West observes, here 644-5 give a heavy-handed gloss. If the segment indeed belongs here, it must function as an epi­tome of the type of advice the addressee is to heed (i.e., of the type of poetry one is to listen to), not as specific advice of the sort offered in the preceding “agricultural” discussion. To be sure, in the process, the type of poetry which is implied as bringing the most “gain” (knowledge) is con­si­dered “large.” Assuming the “small” poetry is epic, we are to respect the latter but not trust it.[17]

            In any case, the next passage will in fact deal with the composition of poetry, indeed, explicitly. But first it begins:

 

                        When, turning your silly mind to commerce,

                        you want to escape wants (or debts?) and joyless hunger,

                        well I will show you the lore of the loud-pounding sea,

                        (having been) instructed neither in any sailing nor in any ships.[18]

(vv. 646-9)

Surely this says that the “timely” sailing/poetry is precisely that of our poet’s. True, he will give “the lore of the loud-pounding sea” (an evocative phrase) without expertise. As West and Arri­ghetti observe, this is similar to Athena saying in one place in the Odyssey that she will make a prophecy, “not (being) at all” a seer, “nor” knowing bird signs. Thus our poet boasts that he will not need ordinary mortal craft knowledge to teach escape from “wants” (i.e., ignorance).[19]

            The poet will now expand on that thought in a famous aside where he compares himself directly with epic heroes and says that his “sailing,” such as it is, resulted in poetry par excel­lence. That this suggests comparison of his poetry with epic poetry has long been noticed (and Rosen anchors his view that the author’s own sailing is figurative in the point). However, in the present interpretation one must read the aside as meta-language: it makes the figure explicit.[20]

            In detail: The poet nominally explains the last line, beginning as follows.

 

                        For never yet have I sailed over the broad sea in what is(?) a ship

                        -- except to Euboea from Aulis, (coming) via which(?) the Achaeans once,

                        waiting out the winter, gathered together a great host

                        (or: waiting out the great winter, gathered together a host)

                        from sacred (or: lively?) Hellas (to go) to fair-womened Troy.[21]

(vv. 650-3)

In comparing this segment with epic, “except” in 651 is particularly subtle. To be sure, obvious epic parallels include that “Aulis, via which the Achaeans” (Aulidos hēi pot’ Achaioi) recalls the very statement in the preface to the Catalogue of Ships that “at Aulis the ships of the Achaeans” were gathered (Aulida nēes Achaiōn). In an aside to one entry in that listing, Tlepolemus had once fled his homeland, after “gathering a great host.” But as to “except,” although normally ei mē means “lest,” i.e., something undesired would be the case otherwise, there are two cases where actual possibility is singled out. Both are for purposes of deprecation as in our poet travelling over a mere channel, so that the latter statement carries resonance: No one can handle horses like the addressee Alcimedon, “except” Patroclus (who is dead), and there is no other armor Achilles could wear “except” Ajax’s (who is wearing it himself).[22]

            But in spite of this self-deprecation, the poet next tells us of a success. That is to say, speaking of his paltry experience was a rhetorical ploy to make the success seem all the more significant. Here recollection of similar successes in epic again lends resonance:[23]

 

                        There I, for the (funeral) games of war-wise(?) Amphidamas,

                        crossed over, to Chalcis: those many announced

                        prizes the sons of the great-hearted one had set out; and there I say for me,

                        winning with a song, I carried off an eared tripod.

                        Indeed I dedicated it to the Muses of Helicon,

                        where to begin with they set me onto “clear song.”

                        So much see is my experience with what are many-pegged ships.[24]

(vv. 654-60)

To this is to be compared, first, the statement of a contestant at the more well known funeral games, those for Patroclus. The boxer Epeius brags before his contest:

 

                        not I say will any of the other Achaeans lead away the mule (i.e., the prize),

                        winning at boxing ... .

(Il. 23.668-9)

(Pugmēi nikēsant’ is parallel to humnōi nikēsanta in our 657.) Second, after Mentor (Athena) advises Telemachus to consult with no less than Nestor, he objects:

 

                        not at all do I have experience in intricate discourse.

(Od. 3.23)

(Pepeirēmai pukinoisin is parallel to pepeirēmai polugomphōn in our 660.) But Epeius won the match in spite of not even being a warrior, while Telemachus would go on to acquit himself well even though initially immature. And so, for an audience recalling the earlier passages, the point that our poet wins in poetry in spite of having only “sailed” across a channel is underscored by comparison with other overachievers. Thus, as the aside giving the “exception” concludes, the rhetorical device this concept constitutes has served well.[25]

            At this point the audience is set up to be bowled over, and the poet does not disappoint. Using association of ideas from having just said the Muses had initiated him (at some time before the poetry contest, often thought to be the occasion cited in the Theogony), he inserts a couplet neither part of the aside nor explicitly about sailing:[26]

 

                        But even so I will tell the mind of aegis-bearing Zeus;

                        for the Muses have taught me to sing unlimited song.[27]

(vv. 661-2)

To be sure, with Bona Quaglia and Arrighetti one can stress that this statement gives Hesiod the authority to instruct in the rules humans must follow. For his part, West notices that it denies his being taught by normal human experts. Either way, the thought gains pith by association with Odysseus saying that poets like Demodocus are to be respected, since “the Muse has taught them poems” (oimas Mous’ edidaxe, as compared with Mousai ... edidaxan ... humnon, 662). But the immediate point is that the assertion of the poet gaining that much ability is outrageous on its face, since, as noted earlier in con­nection with the cuckoo’s message, “the mind of aegis-bearing Zeus” is inexorable.[28]

            However, it is most important to notice that, whereas the subject had nominally been sai­l­ing, if with poetry embedded in the subject via the speaker’s purported sailing experience, now it is overtly poetry. That is to say, to conclude the “present composition” portion of the history of poet­ry, the figure becomes literal. If one insists on writing off the autobiography as a digression from pragmatic advice on sea-faring, then the rest of it is at least properly connected, that is, as illustrative of the author’s cited lack of sailing experience. But there is no reason for vv. 661-2 within such a framework. One might speculate that a free-associating poet with the interests of ours felt a need to compensate for the fact that, unlike Homer, he could not refer to Demodocus or Phemius as forebears. But as literature as opposed to authorial psychology, the segment has no role other than to lead “good sailing” directly into good poetry.[29]

 

From poetry to sailing: illustration.

            Actually, although vv. 661-2 constitute the peak of the previous discussion, one cannot conceive of ending with the segment: it cries out for a denouement. One way to give such a con­clusion is to exemplify the “unlimited song,” i.e., to expound on some subject at least briefly. I take it the poet decides that the one he has just used for figurative purposes is as good as any, so that after going from sailing to poetry he goes back to sailing as an illustration of poetry.[30]

            Indeed, the sequel does look more like real sailing than occasion for a figure:

 

                        Around fifty days after the sun’s turnings (i.e., again, the solstice),

                        at the coming to the end of summer, of the exhausting season,

                        is the timely sailing for mortals: neither will the ship

                        you wreck nor will the sea kill off men

                        -- that is, if not, with their will, Poseidon the earth-shaker

                        or Zeus the king of immortals want to destroy(?) (ships or men),

                        for theirs is the fulfillment of good and bad alike.

                        Then the breezes are regular and the sea safe:

                        then without distraction, entrust your “fast(?) ship” to the winds

                        and drag it to sea (ponton) and put all your cargo (phorton) in it.

                        But hurry, as quickly as possible come back home;

                        don’t wait for the new wine and the late-summer rain,

                        and the wintry weather coming on and the terrible gales of Notus (the south wind):

                        he stirs up the sea, acting with Zeus’s rain

                        much (rain) in late-summer, and yes makes the sea difficult.[31]

(vv. 663-77)

It is true that epic forms are present (e.g., “then drag your fast ship to sea,” as at 631), but there are explicit references to the “agricultural” portion of our poem. We recall “sixty (days) after the sun’s (winter) turnings” (564), or the cicada’s “exhausting summer season” (584). The segment about Poseidon and Zeus parallels Odysseus telling the Cyclops Poseidon wrecked his ship, but also the oxen potentially breaking the plow (440). Notus “stirs up the sea” just as had Boreas (507-8). All in all, the “ship” of this passage seems less like those of 619-30 which esta­blished the figure subsequently elaborated than the farm implements put into use earlier. Thus we get real sailing advice in about the sense that we got real agricultural advice (lack­­ing details about anchors and sails, just as they were lacking, e.g., for the wagon in the wood-cutting segment).[32]

            But all this means that in this location the sailing/poetry relation extends the earlier vir­tual story exemplified by agriculture. The development of that relation in vv. 619-62 remains in our minds even as 663-77 are enunciated, in particular to remind us that our poet’s poetry is what is desired. Thus, just as plowing stands for organization; or winter, adversity, sailing (if as advised by our poet, not the epic bards) evokes listening to poetry as an essential part of life.

            Still, at the beginning v. 618 did not cite poetry, but told us that sailing is escape. It certainly has its dangers, but at least for the moment, “the breezes are regular.” (We will see that most of the danger is shunted into the section which comes after 677, to be discussed in the next chapter.) We must now understand this to mean that the poetry which sailing evokes is transcendence. Humanity “does not live by bread alone.” Thus if the agricultural part of the poem is allegorical of the human condition, then the aspect of the human entity which requires transcendence should also be represented. As the ancient Indians said, one needs all four of artha (wealth, worldly goods, material substance), dharma (duty, structure), kāma (pleasure) and moksha (the liberation or transcendence which Vedāntists, Buddhists, Jains, and some now for­gotten groups have all sought). I take it the last is necessary for the human because the first three (including social solidarity) are characteristic of some animals as well. Our poet has cer­tain­ly discussed at least the first two matters in his way. (And perhaps kāma ultimately means love in the sense of desire for unification with another; if so, our poet’s many suggestions of tak­ing one’s proper place in the community of humans and gods could conceivably play this role.) But as to the last, transcendence through poetry -- the proper kind, i.e., that which illuminates the other features, not traditional epic -- is his version of moksha.[33]  (to Chap. 9)

 

NOTES: