Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica

This file contains translations of the following works: Hesiod: Works and Days , The Theogony , fragments of The Catalogues of Women and the Eoiae , The Shield of Heracles (attributed to Hesiod), and fragments of various works attributed to Hesiod. Homer: The Homeric Hymns , The Epigrams of Homer (both attributed to Homer). Various: Fragments of the Epic Cycle (parts of which are sometimes attributed to Homer), fragments of other epic poems attributed to Homer, The Battle of Frogs and Mice , and The Contest of Homer and Hesiod . This file contains only that portion of the book in English; Greek texts are excluded. Where Greek characters appear in the original English text, transcription in CAPITALS is substituted.
Project Gutenberg Editor’s Note: 262 footnotes notes previously scattered through the text have been moved to the end of the file and each given an unique number. There are links to and from each footnote.
In order to make this file more accessible to the average computer user, the preparer has found it necessary to re-arrange some of the material. The preparer takes full responsibility for his choice of arrangement.
A few endnotes have been added by the preparer, and some additions have been supplied to the original endnotes of Mr. Evelyn-White’s. Where this occurs I have noted the addition with my initials “DBK”. Some endnotes, particularly those concerning textual variations in the ancient Greek text, are here omitted.
This volume contains practically all that remains of the post-Homeric and pre-academic epic poetry.
I have for the most part formed my own text. In the case of Hesiod I have been able to use independent collations of several MSS. by Dr. W.H.D. Rouse; otherwise I have depended on the apparatus criticus of the several editions, especially that of Rzach (1902). The arrangement adopted in this edition, by which the complete and fragmentary poems are restored to the order in which they would probably have appeared had the Hesiodic corpus survived intact, is unusual, but should not need apology; the true place for the Catalogues (for example), fragmentary as they are, is certainly after the Theogony .