Above all else, however, Hesiod pays homage to Zeus. In page after page, the adulation that the author holds for the thunder god is unmistakable. There is no doubting as to who the "hero" of the poem is.

"Works And Days" can best be described as one of the earliest farmers almanacs in the western world. It is written as an "instruction manual for life" for his indolent brother, Perses. Throughout the work, Hesiod admonishes Perses on the subjects of ethics, self-control and moderation. He also writes on how to run a farm and when the best times to sail are. Later authors of this genre, such as Xenophon & Virgil, doubtlessly were inspired by Hesiod.

Theognis came a few centuries later than Hesiod, somewhere around 550 BC. His "Elegies" give a fascinating look at the transformation of Greek life in the 6th century. Slowly but surely, the Aristoi (the Greek ruling party) saw the erosion of its status, power & wealth. No longer were armies made up of the elite class; more and more, armies were comprised of hoplites, made up of working-class peasants. Along with the wartime duties went the justification (Arete) of the Aristoi's claim to power.

In the "Elegies" we discover the frustrations of an upper-class Grecian gentleman who is forced to deal with the changing idealogies. He spurns the thought of poverty above all else, but comes to the realization that, for the 1st time, it is possible for a member of the Aristoi to be poor.

Like Hesiod, much of Theognis is told in an advisory manner. However, Theognis is far more inconsistent than H, especially when it comes to the concept of wealth.

Wender does an exceptional job at translating these early Greek texts. She also offers helpful introductions which set the tone for both authors' poems. Her commentary is especially insightful on why she believes there were "2" Hesiods (1 artist for each poem) rather than 1.

I will leave you with a sagacious passage from one of Theognis' elegies:

No one is always lucky in all things;

Good men endure bad luck without complaint,

The common man cannot control himself

In good times or in bad. All sorts of gifts

Come to us mortals from the gods; we must

Endure, whatever sorts of gifts they give.

441-446

In her introduction Wender goes on and on about how rotten a poem the "Theogony" is. She carps over this so much, that one wonders: if it's so bad, then why translate it? Because it is so bad, she argues, it could not have been written by the Hesiod who wrote the "Works and Days", because no poet who wrote good in one place could write so bad in another. Whether or not Hesiod wrote both pieces, Wender is being incredibly naive if she thinks that a good poet is consistently good. Whitman and Coleridge, great poets both, have some really sorry stuff in their body of work, but they wrote it all none the less. Anyway, I read the "Theogony," and liked it, so I don't know what Wender was complaining about. From the nature of her complaints (Hesiod didn't play up such-and-such incident, etc.) it looks like a 20th century individual unable to properly appreciate 8th century BC interests and poetics. I do agree with her that the "Works and Days" is a wonderful piece of poetry.

As for Theognis, he is uneven. Much of his stuff is pedestrian, although quite a bit is interesting, like "The city's pregnant, Kurnos, and I fear | She'll bear a man to crush our swelling pride," which is rather an acute and vivid description of how dictators grow out of mob rule. One thing that annoyed me, though, was the way Wender marked out the poems of Theognis she liked with an asterisk. I don't know why, but that just rubbed me the wrong way. For one, it's all subjective, and many of the poems she liked I didn't care for, and many of the poems I liked were unasterisked. Basically, who cares about her opinion of the poems? If I like it, I like it - her asterisk or not.