Hesiod: The Ancient Greek Poet Who Described the Birth of the Cosmos

Hesiod was an ancient Greek poet whose epic work Theogony has elevated him to the status of Homer and “a major source on Greek mythology,” according to modern scholars.

Theogony (Birth of the gods in Greek) is a monumental work that sets out to explain how the cosmos was born and what the gods and other supernatural entities of the ancient Greeks were like. Most of what is known today about Greek mythology stems from Theogony and Homer’s epics.

Western authors praise Hesiod as “the first written poet in the Western tradition to regard himself as an individual persona with an active role to play in his subject.”

Hesiod (Greek:Ησίοδος) was born in Boeotia, Central Greece and is believed to have been active at the same time period as Homer (ca. 750-650 BCE). Ancient authors credited Hesiod and Homer with establishing Greek religious beliefs and customs.

In Hesiod’s epic poem, the anthropomorphism and brutality of the gods is stressed much more so than in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Both ancient Greek poets, however, ascribe human characteristics, good and bad, to the gods .

Xenophanes of Colophon, a philosopher who lived in the 6th and early 5th centuries BCE, wrote, “Homer and Hesiod have ascribed to the gods all things that are a shame and a disgrace among mortals—stealings and adulteries and deceivings of one another.”

Nevertheless, the epics of Hesiod and Homer were the basis of Greek mythology and later Greek literature; and to a large extent Western literature as well.

Theogony summary

Every epic poem has a hero, and the ancient Greek poet’s hero in Theogony is Zeus, the eventual master of all gods and the Earth.

Theogony details the genealogy of ancient Greek gods, from the beginning of the universe, through the Olympian gods, and the various monsters and heroes descended from them. As an epic poem, it begins with an invocation to the Muses, but with a twist: Hesiod claims that the Muses themselves once descended to visit him and taught him “fine singing.” He describes the origins of the Muses and their benefits to men who gain their favor, including good judgment, beautiful speech and reverence from peers.

The poem describes the beginning of the universe: Chasm and Earth come into being, followed by Tartara and Eros. Eros is to act as the indirect guiding force behind much of the rest of the poem, which focuses on successive generations of gods and goddesses being conceived and born.

Heaven is born from Earth, and many more divine beings are born from their union, including their son Kronos. Heaven fearing that his new children might oppose his dominance, locks them with their mother Earth in a cave, visiting only at night when he is “desirous of love.”

Earth and Kronos soon come up with a plan to overthrow cruel Heaven, and Earth crafts an adamantine sickle with which to attack him. Next time Heaven visits, Kronos ambushes him and castrates him with the sickle, effectively ending his reign over the gods and assuming the role of king of the gods in his place.

The genealogy of gods continues, charting the births of numerous gods and goddesses, nymphs, heroes and monsters. Hesiod also includes various myths such as that of Medusa and Heracles, as well as a lengthy description of Hecate, who is especially involved in human affairs and generous toward her worshippers.

The poem then returns to successors of Kronos and Rhea. Knowing what he did himself to his own father, Kronos swallows each of these children back into himself once they are born, having learned from Earth and Heaven that he would one day be defeated by his own child.

Rhea, however, gave birth to Zeus in secret and gave him to Earth to raise, while tricking Kronos into swallowing a disguised stone in Zeus’s place. Once he matured, Zeus, too, tricked his father, forcing Kronos to spit back up all of the children—Zeus’s siblings—that he had swallowed.

Prometheus and the Olympians against the Titans

The poem then moves to Prometheus who attempts to trick Zeus into taking a smaller cut of meat after a sacrifice. Prometheus also steals fire and gives it to humans, enraging Zeus even more. Hesiod details Prometheus’ punishment, to be chained up on a rock, his liver eaten by eagles, for eternity. Meanwhile humankind’s punishment takes the form of a woman, Pandora, and her box of evils, as well as the female race more generally, whom Hesiod describes as “a great affliction.”

Zeus and the other Olympians then wage war against Kronos and the Titans, with the help of other gods and goddesses whom Kronos had spurned, including Obriareos, Kottos and Gyges. The gods triumph over the Titans, and Zeus locks them away in Tartarus so that they cannot escape to cause further conflict.

The ancient Greek poet goes on to describe the origins of a variety of other deities, monsters and heroes related to or otherwise descended from the Olympians. Earth then bears a new rival to Zeus’ power, Typhoeus, whose father was Tartarus. Threatened by his power, Zeus does battle with him and destroys him. Zeus becomes the king of the gods of Olympus and is the powerful ruler of the cosmos.

Zeus has other children as well. When his first wife, Metis, is pregnant with Athena, Zeus swallows her, fearing a child who might overtake him, and gives birth to Athena out of his head instead. The poem ends by detailing the genealogies of various other mythological characters, including notable mythological figures who have both human and divine parents.

Excerpt from Theogοny

Below is an excerpt of Hesiod’s Theogony in a translation by classicist and archaeologist Hugh G. Evelyn-White published in 1914:

Hail, children of Zeus! Grant lovely song and celebrate the holy race of the deathless gods who are for ever, those that were born of Earth and starry Heaven and gloomy Night and them that briny Sea did rear. Tell how at the first gods and earth came to be, and rivers, and the boundless sea with its raging swell, and the gleaming stars, and the wide heaven above, and the gods who were born of them, givers of good things, and how they divided their wealth, and how they shared their honors amongst them, and also how at the first they took many-folded Olympus.

These things declare to me from the beginning, you Muses who dwell in the house of Olympus, and tell me which of them first came to be. In truth at first Chaos came to be, but next wide-bosomed Earth, the ever-sure foundation of all the deathless ones who hold the peaks of snowy Olympus, and dim Tartarus in the depth of the wide-pathed Earth, and Eros, fairest among the deathless gods, who unnerves the limbs and overcomes the mind and wise counsels of all gods and all men within them.

From Chaos came forth Erebus and black Night; but of Night were born Aether and Day, whom she conceived and bore from union in love with Erebus. And Earth first bore starry Heaven, equal to herself, to cover her on every side, and to be an ever-sure abiding-place for the blessed gods. And she brought forth long hills, graceful haunts of the goddess Nymphs who dwell amongst the glens of the hills. She bore also the fruitless deep with his raging swell, Pontus, without sweet union of love.

But afterwards she lay with Heaven and bore deep-swirling Oceanus, Coeus and Crius and Hyperion and Iapetus, Theia and Rhea, Themis and Mnemosyne and gold-crowned Phoebe and lovely Tethys. After them was born Cronos the wily, youngest and most terrible of her children, and he hated his lusty sire.

Earth, in the cosmology of Hesiod, is a disk surrounded by the river Oceanus and floating upon a waste of waters. It is called the foundation of all—the qualification “the deathless ones . . .” etc., is an interpolation, because not only trees, men and animals, but even the hills and seas are supported by it.

Aether is the bright, untainted upper atmosphere, as distinguished from Aer, the lower atmosphere of the earth.

Works and Days

Another important poem of Hesiod that has survived is a didactic poem entitled Works and Days. Here, the ancient Greek poet describes the Five Ages of Man and includes practical advice such as agricultural practices and economics, and also didactic myths such as the story of Pandora’s Box.

Written around 700 BCE, Works and Days is like a farmer’s almanac written in dactylic hexameter. The poet wrote it as a warning to Perses, his brother, who was a drunk. The ancient Greek poet gives the brother a lot of advice on earning a living in an honorable way. Again, as in Theogony, Hesiod puts himself in the poem.

He presents himself as the heir of a farm bequeathed to his brother Perses and him. Perses squandered his money and came back asking for the share that belongs to Hesiod. To get that, he went to the law and bribed the lords to judge in his favor. The poem contains a sharp attack against corrupt judges like those who decided in favor of Perses. He depicts them as pocketing bribes to render unfair verdicts.

The ancient Greek poet advises his brother to get a job, stressing the importance of work as the source of all that is good. He dislikes idleness and attacks all those people who are idle, suggesting that everyone, men and gods, hate the sluggishness. The tips the poet gives to Perses are essential as he tries to convince him to start earning in an honorable way.

From the myth of Prometheus, the story of Pandora, and the myth of the five races of humanity (the golden age, the silver, the bronze, the age of heroes and the iron age), the poet derives the thought that once upon a time, life was carefree. In contrast, the present is bitter and not as shiny and happy as before.

Overall, the ancient Greek poet praises fairness and justice, personal happiness, and work. At the same time, he rejects destructive war and raw heroism. He focuses on describing landscapes, villages, and other places in detail, with deep feelings and personal observations.

Hesiod explains that the foundation of morality lies in justice and labor. The poet managed to show the Hellenic spirit of the time and its fundamental features. He rejects chaos, passion and indeterminacy. He supports order, logic, certainty and moderation.

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