Works and Days

The poem begins with an invocation to the Muses, a standard trope of epic poetry. Hesiod deviates from epic tradition by revealing information about himself and his family; epic poets did not typically identify themselves. Hesiod relays that he and Perses divided their family estate, but Perses absconded with more than his fair share by bribing judges to rule in his favor. In this scenario, both Perses and the judges attempt to subvert the will of Zeus, king of the Olympian gods, by enabling Perses to achieve wealth through, essentially, theft rather than work. Such an impious act could invite Zeus’s destructive wrath, which may be enacted not only against Perses and the judge but also their communities. In this sense, Hesiod’s advice can be understood as an appeal to justice and an attempt to stave off larger-scale disaster by championing the value(s) of work.

To further support his view of human labor as just, Hesiod explains why Zeus decreed men must work through the myths of Prometheus and Pandora. His spare retelling seems to assume that his