The Works and Days is a poem of great interest to students of Greek and comparative literature, ancient society, early agriculture, and folklore and superstition. This edition, the first in English for over forty years, follows the pattern of the author's edition of Hesiod's Theogony (OUP 1966). In the commentary problems of text, language, interpretation and construction are discussed thoroughly, and the subject matter explained and illustrated. The poem is seen against the background of the Near Eastern tradition of wisdom literature, a survey of which and of similar traditions current in later cultures forms part of the Prolegomena. These also deal with the question of Hesiod's Greek antecedents, his personal circumstances, the reality of his addressee Perses, the composition of the poem, its transmission from antiquity, and the various ancient and medieval critics and commentators who worked on it. The text is based for the first time on knowledge of all manuscripts down to about 1400 as well as of fourteen more papyri than were available to the last editor.
Release Date:
June 14, 1978
