File:Werke_und_Tage.jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons
Works and Days
Sign in to saveAlso known as Hes. WD
didactic poem in 828 lines of dactylic hexameter by Hesiod in which Hesiod instructs his brother Perses in agriculture
Key facts
- Original title
- Ἔργα καὶ Ἡμέραι
- Country
- Aeolis
- Language
- Ancient Greek
- Subject s
- Story of Prometheus and Pandora , and the so-called Myth of Five Ages
- Genre
- Didactic poem
- Meter
- dactylic hexameter
- Publication date
- 700 BC
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- literary work
- Author
- Hesiod
- Genre
- poetry
- Main subject
- Ages of Man
- Image
- Werke und Tage.jpg
Show 9 more facts
- characters
- Hesiod
- inception
- 0800-00-00
- title
- Ἔργα καὶ Ἡμέραι
- language of work or name
- Homeric Greek
- entry in abbreviations table
- Hes. WD
- first line
- μοῦσαι πιερίηθεν, ἀοιδῇσιν κλείουσαι
- form of creative work
- poem
- used metre
- dactylic hexameter
- Commons category
- Works and Days
via Wikidata · CC0
~14 min read
Encyclopedic overview
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 his brother Perses in the agricultural arts.
Scholars have seen this work against a background of agrarian crisis in mainland Greece, which inspired a wave of colonial expeditions in search of new land. In the poem, Hesiod also offers his brother extensive moralizing advice on how he should live his life. Works and Days is perhaps best known for its two mythological aetiologies for the toil and pain that define the human condition—the story of Prometheus and Pandora, and the so-called Myth of Five Ages.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Works and Days” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.