In this post we will concentrate on Works and Days, an 800 line poem which is not idyllic like Homer, but instead describes the moral life of a farmer. The setting for the poem is the dispute between Hesiod and his brother Perses over the brother’s trickery in obtaining the majority of the inheritance meant for both of them. Hesiod urges his brother to give up selfishness which will destroy his virtue and maybe his life. In the first 369 lines he moralizes by telling two stories: the evil of Pandora (1- 109) and the ages of man put on earth by Zeus and how violent men were punished (110-369).
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