Paul Mazon (1874–1955)

Well, Hesiod’s stuff is what it is: eventually we come to the patriarchs’ opinion of Pandora, and throughout there’s no female as boss as Zeus, of course: it’s the poetry of the patriarchs…. I do like this better than Homer, though. The Ancient Greek consensus was that Homer was more ancient or whatever and more boss: but screw the consensus. I like Hesiod because, while it is still mythology and is quite similar to Homer—it’s not ordinary life poetry or philosophical poetry; “general poetry” as I call it; it’s about the gods—but it’s more abstract than the epics. Like, it’s more about teaching about the gods, like as a serious topic, and not so much about how they…. I mean, we all want to express ourselves, but sometimes men and gods be tripping, right. I feel like Hesiod’s poetry is more religious—not scripture in the Hebrew sense, but learning-centric—and Homer seems more like “entertainment”, basically, to me. Of course, I’m biased in that I read Homer as “education”—although I wasn’t naive, right—and Hesiod I read to compare patriarchal with matriarchal (“Lost Goddesses of Early Greece”) mythology. (shrugs) But it could be synchronicity, you know. Makes a lot more sense to me than the “educational” colonial-philological, the-best-paleface-language-gave-rise-to-the-robot-kings view of Greek mythology, you know. 👌

…. Yeah, I feel like I like Hesiod better than Homer. Some of it seems rather useful, more educational-religious, although of course much of it is random people just being boss, of course. And there is some overlap, of course, since heroes are like gods, and religion involves the human as well as the divine, (sometimes you lose sight of that in Christianity, with the whole Jesus saves you suck thing, “remember to tell God you’re a sinner”), and obvs Zeus is every boy’s fantasy, right—which is both very boss, and a little…. “And finally, at the top of the head is the Crown Chakra.” (Zeus) (pointing to Sacral Chakra) “Got my Crown Chakra right here, bitches.”

But the antique farming advice is actually quite interesting; I feel like the lived details of experience really mean as much as the abstractions; I’m not going to tell you what I learned, because it’s easy to write it off as boring/un-abstract or whatever, but I was lost driving along these crappy rural roads for like an hour yesterday, and I feel like I learned a lot about life, you know…. And the actual magical/superstitious qualities of days (days numbered in the lunar month? Or the solar month?) in “Works and Days” is really cool; I regret that it’s not longer….

But yeah, Hesiod is also kind of a bastard, much of the time, right. Hesiod war ein Mann, Kinder. Hesiod was a man, children. Although he wrote about the most rational, Kantian things, like how wives are bitches, and killing wild animals is both economically effective, (cartoon voice), and, fun! And on an unrelated—totally unrelated—note, he also loved golden Aphrodite…. Although, having accomplished his desire, 😉, he immediately got up and went off to kill more wild animals, right….… (more)

A partial guide to the gods is provided, which is somewhat helpful. Gaia is one of the original four gods (along with Chaos, Darkness, and Night), and she and her offspring made more and more offspring. Theogony outdoes the Bible in listing the names of all of these by the dozens upon dozens upon dozens. It must have been quite a feat to recite all of this by memory but that's what was done.

Works and Days is full of aphorisms, and Shield describes the imaginatively profuse artwork on the shield of Herakles, which includes all sorts of scenes of war, peace and strife.

Tbh, I found it all pretty dry compared to the works Xenophon, Sophocles, Homer or Virgil, but it was still worthwhile given its age, and relatively short. Well over half of this particular book was commentary on the texts.… (more)