Works and Days is a didactic poem written by ancient Greek poet Hesiod around 700 BC. It is in dactylic hexameter and contains 828 lines. At its center, the Works and Days is a farmer's almanac in whi
An image from a 1539 printing of Works and Days
Engraving of the myth of Pandora based on a painting by F. S. Church
Lucas Cranach the Elder, The Golden Age (c. 1530)
Hesiod was an Ancient Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer.
Works and Days
…Works and Days (Ancient Greek: Ἔργα καὶ Ἡμέραι, romanized: Érga kaì Hēmérai) is a didactic poem written by ancient Greek poet Hesiod around 700 BC. It is in dactylic hexameter and contains 828 lines. At its center, the Works and Days is a farmer's almanac in which Hesiod instructs…
A possible imaginative depiction of Hesiod (Roman copy of a Greek original)
Hesiod and the Muse (1891), by Gustave Moreau. The poet is presented with a lyre, in contradiction to the account given by Hesiod himself, in which the gift was a laurel staff.
The Dance of the Muses at Mount Helicon by Bertel Thorvaldsen (1807). Hesiod cites inspiration from the Muses while on Mount Helicon.
Modern Mount Helicon. Hesiod once described his nearby hometown, Ascra, as "cruel in winter, hard in summer, never pleasant."