1 00:00:04,082 --> 00:00:08,074 With Hesiod, we're carrying forward with Greek epic poetry. 2 00:00:08,074 --> 00:00:12,094 So, we're in the same genre of work that we were in with Homer. 3 00:00:12,302 --> 00:00:18,009 But there are some differences also in the way Hesiod approaches this genre. 4 00:00:18,009 --> 00:00:23,693 He puts his own stamp on it and we want to be attentive to those as we get started. 5 00:00:23,693 --> 00:00:27,124 In terms of similarities we can notice several of them. 6 00:00:27,124 --> 00:00:30,865 First of all what we're talking about is epic poetry. 7 00:00:30,865 --> 00:00:35,508 This is a certain kind of genre. It is written in a certain kind of meter. 8 00:00:35,675 --> 00:00:38,844 Hesiod has that same dactylic hexameter Homer used. 9 00:00:38,844 --> 00:00:44,242 They also used the same diction. They have this special poetic epic poetic 10 00:00:44,242 --> 00:00:49,580 diction which draws on dialects from many pieces around the Greek world and is not 11 00:00:49,580 --> 00:00:52,696 anything that any particular person would have spoken. 12 00:00:52,861 --> 00:00:57,140 When it starts to come out of someone's mouth, you'd think, well, gosh, they're 13 00:00:57,140 --> 00:01:01,662 trying to sound like an epic poet. And it's a specialized kind of language 14 00:01:01,854 --> 00:01:06,386 that they both use. The tone that would have been conveyed by 15 00:01:06,386 --> 00:01:11,490 the special diction and this dactylic hexameter meter, in both cases, would have 16 00:01:11,490 --> 00:01:17,090 been very powerful very moving and quite grand, in some cases, kind of hypnotic. 17 00:01:17,090 --> 00:01:23,040 You have line after line after line of cadences that add up to a, a kind of other 18 00:01:23,040 --> 00:01:28,056 worldliness to the thing as a whole. They both claimed to be inspired by the 19 00:01:28,056 --> 00:01:30,739 muses. Hesiod is inspired by multiple muses, 20 00:01:30,739 --> 00:01:36,437 Homer only by one but both imagine themselves as being a conduit for the muse 21 00:01:36,437 --> 00:01:40,737 to speak through them. Also, we've got a, a potential function 22 00:01:40,737 --> 00:01:44,013 for both of them that lines up in an interesting way. 23 00:01:44,217 --> 00:01:49,007 Each of these poets given their collective sense of how the diction works. 24 00:01:49,007 --> 00:01:54,001 And given the different kinds of stories they tell, which are drawn from lots of 25 00:01:54,001 --> 00:01:58,200 different parts of the Greek world. Each of them has probably, a functional 26 00:01:58,200 --> 00:02:02,691 role to play in helping the Greek city states to start thinking of themselves as 27 00:02:02,691 --> 00:02:06,603 one collective entity. Mostly, what we're dealing with when we 28 00:02:06,603 --> 00:02:10,885 we're talking about Ancient Greece is a lot of very desperate city states. 29 00:02:10,885 --> 00:02:14,786 They're at war with one another for centuries before Homer and centuries 30 00:02:14,786 --> 00:02:17,622 after. And if one thinks of one's identity, one 31 00:02:17,622 --> 00:02:20,880 is, first of all, a Spartan or an Athenian but not a Greek. 32 00:02:21,034 --> 00:02:25,333 Eventually though, these Pan-Hellenic notions of what a cultural identity is 33 00:02:25,505 --> 00:02:28,432 have a little bit more greater power over time. 34 00:02:28,432 --> 00:02:34,534 Homer and Hesiod are really important in this sense of, of a kind of communal Greek 35 00:02:34,534 --> 00:02:38,773 identity in which all Greek-speaking city states could share. 36 00:02:38,986 --> 00:02:44,877 The other cult or links that makes, that puts poetry in the same kind of rough 37 00:02:44,877 --> 00:02:49,892 cultural world as we see with famous games like that centered at Olympia. 38 00:02:50,076 --> 00:02:56,061 And then, broader sometimes very certain kinds of Greek of religious festivals 39 00:02:56,296 --> 00:03:02,761 bring people together and there a very prominent oracular shrines that brings 40 00:03:02,761 --> 00:03:09,316 lots of different Greeks together. So, the poets, the epic poems fit in that 41 00:03:09,316 --> 00:03:14,058 kind of a space of, of providing a potential for a Pan-Hellenic identity 42 00:03:14,058 --> 00:03:18,062 overlaid on top of a lot of still, city by city rivalry. 43 00:03:18,254 --> 00:03:22,028 Thirdly, we can look at a similarity in terms of just raw themes. 44 00:03:22,028 --> 00:03:24,079 Both of them are interested in god and heroes. 45 00:03:24,256 --> 00:03:26,821 Hesiod, a little bit more interested in the hods. 46 00:03:26,981 --> 00:03:32,265 Homer more interested in heroes but for each of them this is these two groups the 47 00:03:32,265 --> 00:03:37,048 gods on the one hand, heroes on the other, that was one of the things they are most 48 00:03:37,048 --> 00:03:41,009 interested in and focus on. There are also differences in these 49 00:03:41,009 --> 00:03:45,951 different epics and I wanted to spend some time just pulling some of those out and 50 00:03:45,951 --> 00:03:50,773 highlighting them. There are three that I'll just point out 51 00:03:50,773 --> 00:03:56,189 here in formal structure also, in addition to these formal differences there are 52 00:03:56,189 --> 00:04:00,094 differences in content, where they actually disagree on how the story goes. 53 00:04:00,094 --> 00:04:04,018 And then finally, there are differences in overall purpose. 54 00:04:04,018 --> 00:04:07,024 And I'll spend some time looking at each of those. 55 00:04:07,024 --> 00:04:12,025 In formal structure, Hesiod does not give his story over to the flow of a lovely, 56 00:04:12,025 --> 00:04:16,065 elegant linear-narrative story. Homer, I think it's fair enough to say, is 57 00:04:16,065 --> 00:04:20,014 a master of narrative. He tells a story, and that's the thing 58 00:04:20,014 --> 00:04:25,015 that keeps us linked into his epic poem. Hesiod does not focus on a narrative 59 00:04:25,015 --> 00:04:28,332 teleology. There's something else that's pressing his 60 00:04:28,332 --> 00:04:31,290 story along. And I'll just point to two things 61 00:04:31,471 --> 00:04:36,861 different kinds of anchoring mechanisms that we see in, you see in the unfolding 62 00:04:36,861 --> 00:04:40,061 of Hesiod's story. First of all, let's start with lists. 63 00:04:40,061 --> 00:04:43,949 Lists are very prominent in Hesiod. They play some role in Homer and those of 64 00:04:43,949 --> 00:04:47,956 you who know the Iliad we haven't read it for this class, but in Book two, there's a 65 00:04:47,956 --> 00:04:52,065 long catalog of ships which has a strong place in the tradition, very important, 66 00:04:52,065 --> 00:04:55,520 very powerful. Hesiod, the whole epic is kind of peppered 67 00:04:55,520 --> 00:04:58,054 with lists. Short lists, long lists, complex lists, 68 00:04:58,054 --> 00:05:01,061 more simple lists. And for some of us, as we're reading it, 69 00:05:01,061 --> 00:05:05,138 just sitting there on the page, we say to ourselves, oh, my goodness, what am I 70 00:05:05,138 --> 00:05:09,210 supposed to make of something like this? And here, we have the list of Nereid 71 00:05:09,210 --> 00:05:14,492 nymphs where you got just all of a sudden 50 proper names as you're reading along. 72 00:05:14,492 --> 00:05:18,581 You say to yourself, you know, how is this advancing the story, it doesn't seem so 73 00:05:18,581 --> 00:05:21,935 fascinating? Why would people have celebrated and had 74 00:05:21,935 --> 00:05:26,165 50 proper names listed in their epic? Well, there's a few things, I think we can 75 00:05:26,165 --> 00:05:30,833 pull out to try to get a fix on this. Number one is something that's completely 76 00:05:30,833 --> 00:05:35,095 lost to us on a page, and that's the performative potential built into a long 77 00:05:35,095 --> 00:05:39,155 list of proper names. Remember, our poets are doing what they're 78 00:05:39,155 --> 00:05:45,011 doing in public, for an audience in a performative way from memory. 79 00:05:45,011 --> 00:05:50,041 Hard enough to imagine memorizing hundreds and thousands of lines of poetry. 80 00:05:50,281 --> 00:05:55,723 Even more hard, to imagine memorizing many lines in, in succession that only have 81 00:05:55,723 --> 00:05:58,086 proper names. There's nothing, there's no mnemonic 82 00:05:58,086 --> 00:06:03,051 device you can kind of, of lock into. You can't kind of inhabit the character 83 00:06:03,051 --> 00:06:08,016 and remember what comes next in the motivational structure or something like 84 00:06:08,016 --> 00:06:10,082 that. Instead, you've just got a long list of 85 00:06:10,082 --> 00:06:13,041 proper names. Try memorizing the phone book. 86 00:06:13,242 --> 00:06:17,812 It's pretty darn hard. In Hesiod's case though that obviously, 87 00:06:17,812 --> 00:06:23,237 he's, he's representing a kind of poetry that shows a, a performative virtuosity. 88 00:06:23,389 --> 00:06:27,688 Watch this oral poet just go and deliver a long list of proper names from perfect 89 00:06:27,688 --> 00:06:30,101 memory. He'll do it in perfect cadence according 90 00:06:30,101 --> 00:06:35,039 to the metrical constraints of the epic poem and he'll do it, you can imagine, you 91 00:06:35,039 --> 00:06:38,077 know, drawing in some breath to get through a long list of names. 92 00:06:38,077 --> 00:06:42,094 And, in the end, having drawn a little bit more, and, and having people at each go 93 00:06:42,094 --> 00:06:45,037 wondering, is this person going to finish this? 94 00:06:45,037 --> 00:06:48,064 Are we actually, is this poet actually going to perform this well? 95 00:06:48,064 --> 00:06:51,097 You know, the guy last week only got through 29 of these things. 96 00:06:51,097 --> 00:06:55,077 Can this one get through 50? So, it would have been very hard would 97 00:06:55,077 --> 00:06:59,097 have been interesting to watch, and we would have seen Rhapsodic poets from 98 00:06:59,097 --> 00:07:02,085 memory doing quite amazing things in front of us. 99 00:07:03,003 --> 00:07:07,073 That's, of course, entirely lost to us on the page, but it must have been in there 100 00:07:07,247 --> 00:07:12,020 in the case of Hesiod's performance. Also, these lists remind us that what we 101 00:07:12,020 --> 00:07:15,765 are seeing in the form of this ancient epic poetry is something much more than 102 00:07:15,765 --> 00:07:20,026 just a great story. We are also seeing a cultural repository. 103 00:07:20,026 --> 00:07:24,073 All the stuff that's most important that the culture is getting get contained 104 00:07:24,073 --> 00:07:27,091 inside the epic. Short stories of great past, that's 105 00:07:27,091 --> 00:07:32,074 important we definitely see that in Homer. But in Hesiod's case, we have more of a 106 00:07:32,074 --> 00:07:37,079 connection to what was surely a really important function in all the ancient epic 107 00:07:37,079 --> 00:07:40,054 that was just a sheer record keeping, memory. 108 00:07:40,245 --> 00:07:43,072 You got to remember the past, names are important. 109 00:07:43,090 --> 00:07:49,069 We can all relate to this knowing the names and of, of in, in, important people 110 00:07:49,069 --> 00:07:54,010 in the past, people who have been lost, people who are killed or who, who lost in 111 00:07:54,010 --> 00:07:57,088 battle. Keeping track of those names is something 112 00:07:57,088 --> 00:08:01,043 that groups of people like to do and cultures like to do. 113 00:08:01,241 --> 00:08:05,933 So, there's a sense in, I think, these names of Hesiod making sure that we keep 114 00:08:05,933 --> 00:08:11,095 track of all of the names of figures that have been around in our past. 115 00:08:11,095 --> 00:08:17,339 This is, at a time, remember, before there is ample record keeping Hesiod and Homer 116 00:08:17,339 --> 00:08:22,089 are performing during a time when the alphabet is just arriving. 117 00:08:22,285 --> 00:08:27,726 Instead, we've got rather clunky lists used before their time with this 118 00:08:27,726 --> 00:08:31,356 pictographic script which was not all that efficient. 119 00:08:31,567 --> 00:08:37,258 So, oral poetry was really a, a, a, a main source of preserving cultural memory and 120 00:08:37,258 --> 00:08:40,062 that had to include a list of specific names. 121 00:08:40,062 --> 00:08:44,607 These list of names are also going to perform a function of bringing desperate 122 00:08:44,607 --> 00:08:47,083 groups together. So, when one local town has a water nymph 123 00:08:47,083 --> 00:08:52,037 near by them, another local town has a different water nymph and so on and so on 124 00:08:52,037 --> 00:08:54,072 so on. Well, look, Hesiod is going to string them 125 00:08:54,072 --> 00:08:58,049 altogether to tell us how they are related and how they are connected. 126 00:08:58,224 --> 00:09:02,059 So, there is a connecting function that is happening through these lists. 127 00:09:02,059 --> 00:09:06,096 May not be apparent to us, but it surely would have be apparent to those that 128 00:09:06,096 --> 00:09:10,089 thought one of their nymphs was Thalia, and another group that thought the other 129 00:09:10,089 --> 00:09:13,043 nymph was Doris. Seeing them in the same list and seeing 130 00:09:13,043 --> 00:09:17,019 they're genealogically connected, would have said well, maybe, I'll have something 131 00:09:17,019 --> 00:09:20,037 in common with you over there and the feeling could then be mutual. 132 00:09:20,037 --> 00:09:24,725 So, a sense of making people feel like they have something in common, I think is 133 00:09:24,725 --> 00:09:29,045 also an important aspect of these lists. Then finally, with respect to lists, 134 00:09:29,045 --> 00:09:32,011 there's a strong sense of grandeur in an epic. 135 00:09:32,167 --> 00:09:35,093 There's a sense of in these lists, completeness and totality. 136 00:09:36,010 --> 00:09:39,028 We got to get at everything and make sure its included. 137 00:09:39,234 --> 00:09:44,075 Stringing together whole bunches of stuff says, don't worry, everything that's 138 00:09:44,075 --> 00:09:49,534 culturally important to remember is going to get in here and we're just going to 139 00:09:49,534 --> 00:09:55,444 make it in make sure that it gets in. It's conveys a sort of encyclopedic aspect 140 00:09:55,651 --> 00:10:01,481 to this epic poem saying, it is the most important and most full repository of 141 00:10:01,481 --> 00:10:07,127 cultural information you can find. In addition to lists Hesiod replaced this 142 00:10:07,127 --> 00:10:11,447 narrative thrust that drives Homer's epic forward with genealogy. 143 00:10:11,447 --> 00:10:17,681 Genealogy, a huge part of Hesiod's story contained right in his title as we already 144 00:10:17,681 --> 00:10:20,311 saw. It is, his, its main structuring device 145 00:10:20,311 --> 00:10:25,004 for how poetry supposed to work. It organizes the world for him. 146 00:10:25,004 --> 00:10:29,661 It surely organizes family trees that introduces some order into the cast that 147 00:10:29,661 --> 00:10:32,406 surround us, there's no question about that. 148 00:10:32,606 --> 00:10:36,169 But there's something, I think, even a little bit more. 149 00:10:36,376 --> 00:10:41,831 Hesiod lets that genealogical template expand, its not just talking about human 150 00:10:41,831 --> 00:10:46,499 genealogies and the connections of ancestors, its talking about the 151 00:10:46,499 --> 00:10:49,740 genealogies of all the pieces of the universe. 152 00:10:49,740 --> 00:10:54,383 So, there's now a genealogical connection between gods and heroes, between abstract 153 00:10:54,383 --> 00:10:59,926 forces in the cosmos in and, and themselves, or between those abstract 154 00:10:59,926 --> 00:11:04,269 forces in individual divinities. So, all things that we see around us now, 155 00:11:04,269 --> 00:11:07,854 are made, to be orderly via this genealogical template. 156 00:11:07,854 --> 00:11:13,085 It serves for him the main, as the main way of, of anchoring all these stuff. 157 00:11:13,085 --> 00:11:17,957 And just as, a family tree, doesn't necessarily have a single narrative to it. 158 00:11:17,957 --> 00:11:22,702 So also, Hesiod's story is not going to have a single narrative to it. 159 00:11:22,906 --> 00:11:29,626 In addition to these formal differences we looked at Odysseus' lack of narrative, 160 00:11:30,147 --> 00:11:33,990 teleology. There are also differences in content. 161 00:11:33,990 --> 00:11:39,981 We've got, in the case of Hesiod and Homer, different versions of the story. 162 00:11:40,213 --> 00:11:44,919 They disagree on things. Hesiod clearly, really likes Hecate. 163 00:11:44,919 --> 00:11:50,137 He spends a lot of time talking about her. Homer doesn't even know Hecate. 164 00:11:50,137 --> 00:11:55,186 He doesn't even mention her. So, there's a difference instantly that's 165 00:11:55,186 --> 00:11:58,310 obvious just from first reading of the story. 166 00:11:58,462 --> 00:12:01,306 We've got different versions of Aphrodite's birth. 167 00:12:01,306 --> 00:12:06,310 Hesiod's is this violent strange one. Homer's is a more kind of normal 168 00:12:06,497 --> 00:12:11,797 genealogical connection between Zeus and Dione that brings about Aphrodite. 169 00:12:12,019 --> 00:12:16,621 We're going to see differences in the births of the gods. 170 00:12:16,621 --> 00:12:23,836 Homer doesn't have a really long thought out set of stories about how all the gods 171 00:12:23,836 --> 00:12:28,083 came into being. Vaguely, the Homeric gods kind of grow out 172 00:12:28,083 --> 00:12:32,759 of the ocean, and then they come from relations that the gods have with each 173 00:12:32,759 --> 00:12:36,684 other. Homer doesn't set out to create a kind of, 174 00:12:36,684 --> 00:12:39,949 you know, grand narrative of where all the gods come from. 175 00:12:39,949 --> 00:12:44,242 A very strong contrast with Hesiod. There is a complex genealogical 176 00:12:44,242 --> 00:12:48,353 organization to everything. Hesiod makes sure it all fits in and 177 00:12:48,353 --> 00:12:52,495 especially also the gods. Now finally, in addition to these 178 00:12:52,714 --> 00:12:58,419 differences in formal structure and in content, there are also going to be 179 00:12:58,419 --> 00:13:04,008 differences in overall purpose. Homer wants to remember great deeds. 180 00:13:04,008 --> 00:13:09,021 Hesiod wants to peel back a veil that overlays the secrets of the deep past and 181 00:13:09,021 --> 00:13:13,089 tell us about how the world works. Two different approaches, two different 182 00:13:13,089 --> 00:13:17,062 purposes in mind. Homer, a preserver of legends of the past. 183 00:13:17,062 --> 00:13:22,030 Hesiod, a revealer of, of hidden truths. And these differences show through in 184 00:13:22,030 --> 00:13:27,005 their different temperaments and their ways of approaching their material. 185 00:13:27,005 --> 00:13:31,087 Especially, when we get to the differences in the content though, we may ask 186 00:13:31,087 --> 00:13:34,088 ourselves the question though, well, who's right? 187 00:13:34,088 --> 00:13:39,025 If Hesiod or Homer disagree, well, what's the true version of the myth? 188 00:13:39,025 --> 00:13:43,080 This brings us back to a point that we made in one of our early lectures. 189 00:13:43,268 --> 00:13:48,053 Sad to say, there really isn't one single true version of any of these myths. 190 00:13:48,053 --> 00:13:52,052 There's not a definitive version that you can always just go to. 191 00:13:52,052 --> 00:13:55,570 Instead there are more or less authoritative versions. 192 00:13:55,570 --> 00:13:59,347 What we are going to see in Hesiod is deeply authoritative. 193 00:13:59,347 --> 00:14:03,772 It is as deeply authoritative as Homer is. He was well feted in antiquity. 194 00:14:03,928 --> 00:14:08,868 But none of them can be appealed to as a final story about any of the versions of 195 00:14:08,868 --> 00:14:13,571 the story that we're going to see. All we have is more or less authoritative, 196 00:14:13,571 --> 00:14:18,554 multiple versions of many of these tales. Sure we'll run into disagreements between 197 00:14:18,554 --> 00:14:21,457 the poets. There are also disagreements that we'll 198 00:14:21,457 --> 00:14:25,720 find in local traditions reflected in folk remembering of stories. 199 00:14:25,896 --> 00:14:30,708 We'll see it recorded in some of the artistic representations that we've seen 200 00:14:30,708 --> 00:14:33,568 behind us at some of the points in, in our stories. 201 00:14:33,755 --> 00:14:37,809 So, what we have is a, a collection of desperate tales woven together. 202 00:14:37,979 --> 00:14:41,969 And on occasion, will have some grand voice that comes along and makes a 203 00:14:41,969 --> 00:14:47,362 powerful stamp on the, on the tradition. We'll see it later when we get to 204 00:14:47,362 --> 00:14:49,759 [unknown]. We've already seen it in the case of 205 00:14:49,759 --> 00:14:52,212 Homer. And for our topic this week, we're surely 206 00:14:52,212 --> 00:14:54,070 going to see it in the case of Hesiod.