Hesiod brief biography of prophet

[ back ] 24. Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature 24. also, J. A. Symonds, p. It is not that this gesture is meant to make Hesiod a king. The hymnic salutation khaire / khairete is used in the Homeric Hymns to address the given god / gods presiding over the performance of each given hymn.

[58] In this case, Hesiod’s localization in the stationary and even static setting of the Helladic Mainland is being contrasted with Homer’s localization in the mobile and dynamic setting of the Asiatic Mainland.

When and where did such points of contrast develop between Hesiodic and Homeric poetry?

Life

As with Homer, legendary traditions have accumulated around Hesiod.

But there is still a question about the myth that signals this pan-Hellenization in terms of Hesiod’s relationship with the Muses. [91] On the beach where the corpse of Melikertes / Palaimon was reportedly deposited, visitors could see a pine tree and an altar sacred to this cult hero, whose corpse was said to be hidden inside an aduton ‘inner sanctum’ accessible only by way of an underground descent (Pausanias 1.44.8, 2.1.3).

Here is the relevant passage, referring to a contest of Homer and Hesiod that took place at Delos:

Φιλόχορος δὲ ἀπὸ τοῦ συντιθέναι καὶ ῥάπτειν τὴν ᾠδὴν οὕτω φησὶν αὐτοὺς προσκεκλῆσθαι. Paris. They provide evidence only about the “reception” of Hesiodic poetry. Allen), where it is part of an epigram ascribed to Hesiod, who reputedly composed it in celebration of his victory over Homer.

All this is not to question whether the variant verse as attested in the medieval manuscript tradition of the Works and Days (657) is genuine.

Despite the totalizing ideology implicit in the term pan-Hellenic, the pan-Hellenization of Homer and Hesiod was not an absolute: it was merely a tendency toward a notional absolute. But this master singer is not explicitly named as Homer. In other words, this detail as reported by Plutarch fills out a parallelism that is not fully expressed in the text of the Contest. The parallelism of Homer and Hesiod as symmetrically matched poetic opponents is formalized in that text only at the very end, when the storytelling reaches the final phase of the contest (Vita 2.176–210): “It {303|304} is only when each poet is asked to recite the finest piece of his poetry that their abilities can be weighed against one another.” [84]

I have saved for last what may be the most decisive piece of evidence to show that the symmetrical myths about Homer and Hesiod as embedded in the text of the Contest of Homer and Hesiod are not mere inventions made by antiquarians.

For an objective analysis of these stories in their historical contexts, the point of reference must be the real world in which the stories were told, not the artificial world as created by the artifice that went into the telling of the stories.

From here on, I will refrain from using either term, “biography” or “legends,” in referring to stories about the life and times of Hesiod.

The poem begins with Chaos and proceeds to describe the emergence of Gaia (Earth), Uranus (Sky), and their numerous divine offspring. Now we see that this symmetry is aetiologized in the myth that tells of a contest of Homer and Hesiod on the island of Delos.

The symmetry of mythological details about Homer and Hesiod can be supplemented with still further details we find in texts that are independent of the text of the Contest of Homer and Hesiod.

Master of the Game: Competition and Performance in Greek Poetry.