A strong characteristic of Hesiod’s style is his sententious and proverbial philosophy (as in Works and Days, 24-25, 40, 218, 345, 371). There is naturally less of this in the Theogony, yet there too not a few sentiments take the form of the saw or adage. He has undying fame as the first of didactic poets (see [Didactic Poetry]), the accredited systematizer of Greek mythology and the rough but not unpoetical sketcher of the lines on which Virgil wrought out his exquisitely finished Georgics.
Bibliography.—Complete works: Editio princeps (Milan, 1493); Göttling-Flach (1878), with full bibliography up to date of publication; C. Sittl (1889), with introduction and critical and explanatory notes in Greek; F. A. Paley (1883); A. Rzach (1902), including the fragments. Separate works: Works and Days: Van Lennep (1847); A. Kirchhoff (1889); A. Steitz, Die Werke und Tage des Hesiodos (1869), dealing chiefly with the composition and arrangement of the poem; G. Wlastoff, Prométhée, Pandore, et la légende des siècles (1883). Theogony: Van Lennep (1843); F. G. Welcker (1865), valuable edition; G. F. Schömann (1868), with text, critical notes and exhaustive commentary; H. Flach, Die Hesiodische Theogonie (1873), with prolegomena dealing chiefly with the digamma in Hesiod, System der Hesiodischen Kosmogonie (1874), and Glossen und Scholien zur Theogonie (1876); Meyer, De compositione Theogoniae (1887). Shield of Heracles: Wolf-Ranke (1840); Van Lennep-Hullemann (1854); F. Stegemann, De scuti Herculis Hesiodei poëta Homeri carminum imitatore (1904); the fragments were published by W. Marckscheffel in 1840; for the Ἀγὼν Ὁμήρου (ed. A. Rzach, 1908) see F. Nietzsche in Rheinisches Museum (new series), xxv. p. 528. For papyrus fragments of the “Catalogue,” some 50 lines on the wooing of Helen, and a shorter fragment in praise of Peleus, see Wilamowitz-Möllendorff in Sitzungsber. der königl. preuss. Akad. der Wissenschaften, for 26th of July 1900; for fragments relating to Meleager and the suitors of Helen, Berliner Klassikertexte, v. (1907); of the Theogony, Oxyrh. Pap. vi. (1908).
On the subject generally, consult G. F. Schömann, Opuscula, ii. (1857); H. Flach, Die Hesiodischen Gedichte (1874); A. Rzach, Der Dialekt des Hesiodos (1876); P. O. Gruppe, Die griechischen Kulte und Mythen, i. (1887); O. Friedel, Die Sage vom Tode Hesiods (1879), from Jahrbücher für classische Philologie (10th suppl. Band, 1879); J. Adam, Religious Teachers of Greece (1908). There is a full bibliography of the publications relating to Hesiod (1884-1898) by A. Rzach in Bursian’s Jahresbericht über die Fortschritte der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft, xxvii. (1900).
There are translations of the Hesiodic poems in English by Cooke (1728), C. A. Elton (1815), J. Banks (1856), and specially by A. W. Mair, with introduction and appendices (Oxford Library of Translations, 1908); in German (metrical version) with valuable introductions and notes by R. Peppmüller (1896) and in other modern languages.
(J. Da.; J. H. F.)
[1] Part of the poem was called Eoiai, because the description of each heroine began with ἤ οἴη, "or like as." (See Bibliography.)
HESPERIDES, in Greek mythology, maidens who guarded the golden apples which Earth gave Hera on her marriage to Zeus. According to Hesiod (Theogony, 215) they were the daughters of Erebus and Night; in later accounts, of Atlas and Hesperis, or of Phorcys and Ceto (schol. on Apoll. Rhod. iv. 1399; Diod. Sic. iv. 27). They were usually supposed to be three in number—Aegle, Erytheia, Hesperis (or Hesperethusa); according to some, four, or even seven. They lived far away in the west at the borders of Ocean, where the sun sets. Hence the sun (according to Mimnermus ap. Athenaeum xi. p. 470) sails in the golden bowl made by Hephaestus from the abode of the Hesperides to the land where he rises again. According to other accounts their home was among the Hyperboreans. The golden apples grew on a tree guarded by Ladon, the ever-watchful dragon. The sun is often in German and Lithuanian legends described as the apple that hangs on the tree of the nightly heaven, while the dragon, the envious power, keeps the light back from men till some beneficent power takes it from him. Heracles is the hero who brings back the golden apples to mankind again. Like Perseus, he first applies to the Nymphs, who help him to learn where the garden is. Arrived there he slays the dragon and carries the apples to Argos; and finally, like Perseus, he gives them to Athena. The Hesperides are, like the Sirens, possessed of the gift of delightful song. The apples appear to have been the symbol of love and fruitfulness, and are introduced at the marriages of Cadmus and Harmonia and Peleus and Thetis. The golden apples, the gift of Aphrodite to Hippomenes before his race with Atalanta, were also plucked from the garden of the Hesperides.