LiteratureBook · -700
Works and Days
Hesiod
Hesiod addresses the poem to Perses, who cheated him out of an inheritance, and turns it into a work of advice: when to plough, when to sail, why the gods hid an easy living from men. The Pandora story and the five ages of man are both here. The link is to the Oxford volume that pairs it with the Theogony.
Why you should read this
A didactic poem mixing farming advice, moral instruction and the myth of the Five Ages, this is among the earliest surviving examples of Greek wisdom literature. Best for readers interested in early Greek ethics and everyday life rather than narrative epic.
- Field
- Literature
- Form
- Fiction
- Published
- 700 BCE
- Themes
- Ancient GreeceLiterature
