Works and Days
Also known as: Works & Days, Erga kai Hēmerai, Erga kai Hemerai, Hesiod's Works and Days
A didactic hexameter poem in which Hesiod instructs his brother Perses on justice, labor, and right living, embedding mythic exempla—Prometheus and Pandora, the Five Ages of humankind—alongside a practical farmer’s calendar and auspicious-day lore.
Description
Hesiod addresses his brother Perses amid a family dispute, urging him to shun corrupt judges and embrace honest toil. The poem opens with two kinds of Strife and proceeds through mythic exempla: Prometheus’s deception at Mecone, Zeus’s withdrawal of fire, Pandora’s arrival with her jar, and the sequence of human races from Golden to Iron. These frame a moral vision in which Zeus upholds justice (Dike) and punishes hubris. A long practical section details an agricultural calendar keyed to stellar risings (Pleiades, Orion, Sirius), advice on ploughing, sailing windows, household management, and choosing companions. It concludes with maxims about auspicious and inauspicious days. Part gnomic wisdom, part farmer’s almanac, the poem fuses myth and practice to teach right measure under divine order.
Historiography
Preserved in a medieval manuscript tradition alongside Theogony and Shield of Heracles, with earlier papyrus fragments attesting lines and variants. Ancient scholia and authors cite the poem as authoritative on ethics, agriculture, and seasonality. Questions of Hesiodic authorship surround the wider “Hesiodic” corpus, but Works and Days is generally accepted as core. Modern editions draw on a limited but coherent family of manuscripts, with significant commentary traditions from antiquity through the Renaissance.
Date Notes
Likely composed in Boeotia; reflects early Archaic agrarian life; transmitted with other Hesiodic poems.
Major Characters
- Hesiod
- Perses
- Zeus
Myths
- Pandora and the Jar
- The Five Ages of Humankind
- Dike and the Justice of Zeus
- The Just Measure in Labor and Seasons
Facts
- Addressed to Hesiod’s brother Perses amid an inheritance dispute.
- Composed in dactylic hexameter; part ethical teaching, part practical almanac.
- Distinguishes two forms of Strife: one destructive, one productive of work.
- Sets Pandora’s jar and Prometheus’s deception as causes of human hardship.
- Outlines five races of humankind: Gold, Silver, Bronze, Heroes, Iron.
- Links farm tasks to heliacal risings and settings of key stars.
- Denounces corrupt, bribe-taking kings and upholds Dike under Zeus.
- Gives specific sailing windows and praises staying close to shore.
- Concludes with a catalogue of lucky and unlucky days for actions.
- Core text of the Hesiodic corpus; widely cited in antiquity.