Homeric Hymn II, To Demeter

This file contains translations of the following works: Hesiod: _Works
and Days, The Theogony, fragments of The Catalogues of Women and
the Eoiae, The Shield of Heracles_ (attributed to Hesiod), and
fragments of various works attributed to Hesiod.
Homer: The Homeric Hymns, The Epigrams of Homer (both attributed
to Homer).

Various: Fragments of the Epic Cycle (parts of which are sometimes
attributed to Homer), fragments of other epic poems attributed to
Homer, The Battle of Frogs and Mice, and _The Contest of Homer and
Hesiod_.

This file contains only that portion of the book in English; Greek
texts are excluded. Where Greek characters appear in the original
English text, transcription in CAPITALS is substituted.

Project Gutenberg Editor’s Note: 262 footnotes notes previously
scattered through the text have been moved to the end of the file and
each given an unique number. There are links to and from each footnote.

In order to make this file more accessible to the average computer
user, the preparer has found it necessary to re-arrange some of the
material. The preparer takes full responsibility for his choice of
arrangement.

A few endnotes have been added by the preparer, and some additions have
been supplied to the original endnotes of Mr. Evelyn-White’s. Where
this occurs I have noted the addition with my initials “DBK”. Some
endnotes, particularly those concerning textual variations in the
ancient Greek text, are here omitted.

This volume contains practically all that remains of the post-Homeric
and pre-academic epic poetry.

I have for the most part formed my own text. In the case of Hesiod I
have been able to use independent collations of several MSS. by Dr.
W.H.D. Rouse; otherwise I have depended on the apparatus criticus of
the several editions, especially that of Rzach (1902). The arrangement
adopted in this edition, by which the complete and fragmentary poems
are restored to the order in which they would probably have appeared
had the Hesiodic corpus survived intact, is unusual, but should not
need apology; the true place for the Catalogues (for example),
fragmentary as they are, is certainly after the Theogony.

In preparing the text of the Homeric Hymns my chief debt—and it is a
heavy one—is to the edition of Allen and Sikes (1904) and to the series
of articles in the Journal of Hellenic Studies (vols. xv. sqq.) by
T.W. Allen. To the same scholar and to the Delegates of the Clarendon
Press I am greatly indebted for permission to use the restorations of
the Hymn to Demeter, lines 387-401 and 462-470, printed in the Oxford
Text of 1912.

Of the fragments of the Epic Cycle I have given only such as seemed to
possess distinct importance or interest, and in doing so have relied
mostly upon Kinkel’s collection and on the fifth volume of the Oxford
Homer (1912).

The texts of the Batrachomyomachia and of the _Contest of Homer and
Hesiod_ are those of Baumeister and Flach respectively: where I have
diverged from these, the fact has been noted.

Owing to the circumstances of the present time I have been prevented
from giving to the Introduction that full revision which I should
have desired.

Hugh G. Evelyn-White,
Rampton, NR. Cambridge.
Sept. 9th, 1914.

General

The early Greek epic—that is, poetry as a natural and popular, and not
(as it became later) an artificial and academic literary form—passed
through the usual three phases, of development, of maturity, and of
decline.

No fragments which can be identified as belonging to the first period
survive to give us even a general idea of the history of the earliest
epic, and we are therefore thrown back upon the evidence of analogy
from other forms of literature and of inference from the two great
epics which have come down to us. So reconstructed, the earliest period
appears to us as a time of slow development in which the characteristic
epic metre, diction, and structure grew up slowly from crude elements
and were improved until the verge of maturity was reached.

The second period, which produced the Iliad and the Odyssey, needs
no description here: but it is very important to observe the effect of
these poems on the course of post-Homeric epic. As the supreme
perfection and universality of the Iliad and the Odyssey cast into
oblivion whatever pre-Homeric poets had essayed, so these same
qualities exercised a paralysing influence over the successors of
Homer. If they continued to sing like their great predecessor of
romantic themes, they were drawn as by a kind of magnetic attraction
into the Homeric style and manner of treatment, and became mere echoes
of the Homeric voice: in a word, Homer had so completely exhausted the
epic genre, that after him further efforts were doomed to be merely
conventional. Only the rare and exceptional genius of Vergil and Milton
could use the Homeric medium without loss of individuality: and this
quality none of the later epic poets seem to have possessed. Freedom
from the domination of the great tradition could only be found by
seeking new subjects, and such freedom was really only illusionary,
since romantic subjects alone are suitable for epic treatment.

In its third period, therefore, epic poetry shows two divergent
tendencies. In Ionia and the islands the epic poets followed the
Homeric tradition, singing of romantic subjects in the now stereotyped
heroic style, and showing originality only in their choice of legends
hitherto neglected or summarily and imperfectly treated. In continental
Greece 1101, on the other hand, but especially in Boeotia, a new form
of epic sprang up, which for the romance and PATHOS of the Ionian
School substituted the practical and matter-of-fact. It dealt in moral
and practical maxims, in information on technical subjects which are of
service in daily life—agriculture, astronomy, augury, and the
calendar—in matters of religion and in tracing the genealogies of men.
Its attitude is summed up in the words of the Muses to the writer of
the Theogony: ‘We can tell many a feigned tale to look like truth,
but we can, when we will, utter the truth’ (Theogony 26-27). Such a
poetry could not be permanently successful, because the subjects of
which it treats—if susceptible of poetic treatment at all—were
certainly not suited for epic treatment, where unity of action which
will sustain interest, and to which each part should contribute, is
absolutely necessary. While, therefore, an epic like the Odyssey is
an organism and dramatic in structure, a work such as the Theogony is
a merely artificial collocation of facts, and, at best, a pageant. It
is not surprising, therefore, to find that from the first the Boeotian
school is forced to season its matter with romantic episodes, and that
later it tends more and more to revert (as in the Shield of Heracles)
to the Homeric tradition.

The Boeotian School

How did the continental school of epic poetry arise? There is little
definite material for an answer to this question, but the probability
is that there were at least three contributory causes. First, it is
likely that before the rise of the Ionian epos there existed in Boeotia
a purely popular and indigenous poetry of a crude form: it comprised,
we may suppose, versified proverbs and precepts relating to life in
general, agricultural maxims, weather-lore, and the like. In this sense
the Boeotian poetry may be taken to have its germ in maxims similar to
our English

“Till May be out, ne’er cast a clout,”

or

“A rainbow in the morning
Is the Shepherd’s warning.”

Secondly and thirdly we may ascribe the rise of the new epic to the
nature of the Boeotian people and, as already remarked, to a spirit of
revolt against the old epic. The Boeotians, people of the class of
which Hesiod represents himself to be the type, were essentially
unromantic; their daily needs marked the general limit of their ideals,
and, as a class, they cared little for works of fancy, for pathos, or
for fine thought as such. To a people of this nature the Homeric epos
would be inacceptable, and the post-Homeric epic, with its conventional
atmosphere, its trite and hackneyed diction, and its insincere
sentiment, would be anathema. We can imagine, therefore, that among
such folk a settler, of Aeolic origin like Hesiod, who clearly was well
acquainted with the Ionian epos, would naturally see that the only
outlet for his gifts lay in applying epic poetry to new themes
acceptable to his hearers.

Though the poems of the Boeotian school 1102 were unanimously assigned
to Hesiod down to the age of Alexandrian criticism, they were clearly
neither the work of one man nor even of one period: some, doubtless,
were fraudulently fathered on him in order to gain currency; but it is
probable that most came to be regarded as his partly because of their
general character, and partly because the names of their real authors
were lost. One fact in this attribution is remarkable—the veneration
paid to Hesiod.

Life of Hesiod

Our information respecting Hesiod is derived in the main from notices
and allusions in the works attributed to him, and to these must be
added traditions concerning his death and burial gathered from later
writers.

Hesiod’s father (whose name, by a perversion of Works and Days, 299
PERSE DION GENOS to PERSE, DION GENOS, was thought to have been Dius)
was a native of Cyme in Aeolis, where he was a seafaring trader and,
perhaps, also a farmer. He was forced by poverty to leave his native
place, and returned to continental Greece, where he settled at Ascra
near Thespiae in Boeotia (Works and Days, 636 ff.). Either in Cyme or
Ascra, two sons, Hesiod and Perses, were born to the settler, and
these, after his death, divided the farm between them. Perses, however,
who is represented as an idler and spendthrift, obtained and kept the
larger share by bribing the corrupt “lords” who ruled from Thespiae
(Works and Days, 37-39). While his brother wasted his patrimony and
ultimately came to want (Works and Days, 34 ff.), Hesiod lived a
farmer’s life until, according to the very early tradition preserved by
the author of the Theogony (22-23), the Muses met him as he was
tending sheep on Mt. Helicon and “taught him a glorious song”—doubtless
the Works and Days. The only other personal reference is to his
victory in a poetical contest at the funeral games of Amphidamas at
Chalcis in Euboea, where he won the prize, a tripod, which he dedicated
to the Muses of Helicon (Works and Days, 651-9).

Before we go on to the story of Hesiod’s death, it will be well to
inquire how far the “autobiographical” notices can be treated as
historical, especially as many critics treat some, or all of them, as
spurious. In the first place attempts have been made to show that
“Hesiod” is a significant name and therefore fictitious: it is only
necessary to mention Goettling’s derivation from IEMI to ODOS (which
would make ‘Hesiod’ mean the ‘guide’ in virtues and technical arts),
and to refer to the pitiful attempts in the Etymologicum Magnu
(s.v. {H}ESIODUS), to show how prejudiced and lacking even in
plausibility such efforts are. It seems certain that “Hesiod” stands as
a proper name in the fullest sense. Secondly, Hesiod claims that his
father—if not he himself—came from Aeolis and settled in Boeotia. There
is fairly definite evidence to warrant our acceptance of this: the
dialect of the Works and Days is shown by Rzach 1103 to contain
distinct Aeolisms apart from those which formed part of the general
stock of epic poetry. And that this Aeolic speaking poet was a Boeotian
of Ascra seems even more certain, since the tradition is never once
disputed, insignificant though the place was, even before its
destruction by the Thespians.

Again, Hesiod’s story of his relations with his brother Perses have
been treated with scepticism (see Murray, Anc. Gk. Literature, pp.
53-54): Perses, it is urged, is clearly a mere dummy, set up to be the
target for the poet’s exhortations. On such a matter precise evidence
is naturally not forthcoming; but all probability is against the
sceptical view. For 1) if the quarrel between the brothers were a
fiction, we should expect it to be detailed at length and not noticed
allusively and rather obscurely—as we find it; 2) as MM. Croiset
remark, if the poet needed a lay-figure the ordinary practice was to
introduce some mythological person—as, in fact, is done in the
Precepts of Chiron. In a word, there is no more solid ground for
treating Perses and his quarrel with Hesiod as fictitious than there
would be for treating Cyrnus, the friend of Theognis, as mythical.

Thirdly, there is the passage in the Theogony relating to Hesiod and
the Muses. It is surely an error to suppose that lines 22-35 all refer
to Hesiod: rather, the author of the Theogony tells the story of his
own inspiration by the same Muses who once taught Hesiod glorious
song. The lines 22-3 are therefore a very early piece of tradition
about Hesiod, and though the appearance of Muses must be treated as a
graceful fiction, we find that a writer, later than the _Works and
Days_ by perhaps no more than three-quarters of a century, believed in
the actuality of Hesiod and in his life as a farmer or shepherd.

Lastly, there is the famous story of the contest in song at Chalcis. In
later times the modest version in the Works and Days was elaborated,
first by making Homer the opponent whom Hesiod conquered, while a later
period exercised its ingenuity in working up the story of the contest
into the elaborate form in which it still survives. Finally the
contest, in which the two poets contended with hymns to Apollo 1104,
was transferred to Delos. These developments certainly need no
consideration: are we to say the same of the passage in the _Works and
Days?_ Critics from Plutarch downwards have almost unanimously rejected
the lines 654-662, on the ground that Hesiod’s Amphidamas is the hero
of the Lelantine Wars between Chalcis and Eretria, whose death may be
placed circa 705 B.C.—a date which is obviously too low for the
genuine Hesiod. Nevertheless, there is much to be said in defence of
the passage. Hesiod’s claim in the Works and Days is modest, since he
neither pretends to have met Homer, nor to have sung in any but an
impromptu, local festival, so that the supposed interpolation lacks a
sufficient motive. And there is nothing in the context to show that
Hesiod’s Amphidamas is to be identified with that Amphidamas whom
Plutarch alone connects with the Lelantine War: the name may have been
borne by an earlier Chalcidian, an ancestor, perhaps, of the person to
whom Plutarch refers.

The story of the end of Hesiod may be told in outline. After the
contest at Chalcis, Hesiod went to Delphi and there was warned that the
‘issue of death should overtake him in the fair grove of Nemean Zeus.’
Avoiding therefore Nemea on the Isthmus of Corinth, to which he
supposed the oracle to refer, Hesiod retired to Oenoe in Locris where
he was entertained by Amphiphanes and Ganyetor, sons of a certain
Phegeus. This place, however, was also sacred to Nemean Zeus, and the
poet, suspected by his hosts of having seduced their sister 1105, was
murdered there. His body, cast into the sea, was brought to shore by
dolphins and buried at Oenoe (or, according to Plutarch, at Ascra): at
a later time his bones were removed to Orchomenus. The whole story is
full of miraculous elements, and the various authorities disagree on
numerous points of detail. The tradition seems, however, to be constant
in declaring that Hesiod was murdered and buried at Oenoe, and in this
respect it is at least as old as the time of Thucydides. In conclusion
it may be worth while to add the graceful epigram of Alcaeus of Messene
(Palatine Anthology, vii 55).

“When in the shady Locrian grove Hesiod lay dead, the Nymphs washed his
body with water from their own springs, and heaped high his grave; and
thereon the goat-herds sprinkled offerings of milk mingled with
yellow-honey: such was the utterance of the nine Muses that he breathed
forth, that old man who had tasted of their pure springs.”

The Hesiodic Poems

The Hesiodic poems fall into two groups according as they are didactic
(technical or gnomic) or genealogical: the first group centres round
the Works and Days, the second round the Theogony.

I. “The Works and Days”

The poem consists of four main sections. (a) After the prelude, which
Pausanias failed to find in the ancient copy engraved on lead seen by
him on Mt. Helicon, comes a general exhortation to industry. It begins
with the allegory of the two Strifes, who stand for wholesome Emulation
and Quarrelsomeness respectively. Then by means of the Myth of Pandora
the poet shows how evil and the need for work first arose, and goes on
to describe the Five Ages of the World, tracing the gradual increase in
evil, and emphasizing the present miserable condition of the world, a
condition in which struggle is inevitable. Next, after the Fable of the
Hawk and Nightingale, which serves as a condemnation of violence and
injustice, the poet passes on to contrast the blessing which
Righteousness brings to a nation, and the punishment which Heaven sends
down upon the violent, and the section concludes with a series of
precepts on industry and prudent conduct generally. (b) The second
section shows how a man may escape want and misery by industry and care
both in agriculture and in trading by sea. Neither subject, it should
be carefully noted, is treated in any way comprehensively. (c) The
third part is occupied with miscellaneous precepts relating mostly to
actions of domestic and everyday life and conduct which have little or
no connection with one another. (d) The final section is taken up
with a series of notices on the days of the month which are favourable
or unfavourable for agricultural and other operations.