Hesiod Notes
Hesiod’s Theogony
Hesiod is estimated to have been alive between the 8th and 7th Century BC The Theogony is presumed to have been written around 700 BC
“Theogony” literally means “birth of (the) gods,” or “divine genealogy,” and the text begins as a creation myth; the first four entities in existence are: Chaos, literally “emptiness,” and this being is feminine (in Greek); Gaia, literally “earth”, also feminine; Eros, literally “love”, masculine; and Tartaros, literally a name for part of the “underworld,” a dark pit imagined by the Greeks as the place where breath/shadow-like souls of humans travelled after their bodily death, but here apparently something like “what is below or beyond the Earth.”
Hesiod’s story then continues to describe the offspring and creation of the gods and goddesses. You can see the entire chart laid out here: http://www.theoi.com/TreeHesiod.html
The Muses are the starting point of the entire Theogony, and we spent a fair amount of time in class analyzing them, their father Zeus, and their mother Mnemosyne. The beginning of Theogony is something like a hymn, first to the Muses themselves and then to their creation of and preservation of the world through song (the words for “poetry” and “song” for the Greeks are the same – melos means both “lyric song” and “poem”, and the other words for poetry and singing are interchangeably used). Apparently this is Hesiod’s idea, that song/music/poetry is the way that all of sacred and secular history and genealogy is preserved among human beings, and so the Muses are in a way the supreme deities, even though the original deities, Earth, Chaos, Eros, and Tartaros, were first in the world.
The Titans are described in detail, as are the other genealogical groups. Gods seem to be grouped according to “families,” that is, gods that bear some similarity to each other are said to have one parent, --a good example of this is Night (Nyx) and her “children,” whom she bore with Erebos (Darkness/Underworld), who turn out to be very varied—even Light (Aether) and Day (Himera) are children of Erebos and Night—and to include many abstract entities that one might associate loosely with nighttime or death, such as Doom, Death, Sleep, Dreams, Misery, Fates, Destiny, Nemesis, Deceit, as well as some that seem more distant but perhaps understandable, such as Sex, Old Age, Strife, Blame, and the Hesperides—the goddesses who live at the very western edge of the world and guard the Golden Apples of strife. Many stories are told about the effects of these apples, and some heroes such as Herakles even went on quests to steal them—it seems like the connection to Night and Erebos is simply that these daughters live at the very edge of the world, where day meets night, east meets west, and in their garden lie fruits that cause mischief to humans, and make them fight one another (strife).
Earth (Gaia) gives birth to Sea (Pontos), Mountains, and Sky (Ouranos)—and each of these bear further children, the Sea many sea monsters and beings, the Sky (Ouranos) together with Gaia bearing 3 Kyklopes, 3 Hundred-Handers, all monsters—and 12 Titans (including Mnemosyne and 11 others). Two of the Titans were Kronos and Rhea, the mother and father or grandmother/grandfather of the Olympian gods who ultimately are the ones in power in our age—i.e. Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, Zeus, and then Zeus’ children Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Hermes and Dionysos. Zeus’ other children are either minor deities on Olympus (such as Hebe, Youth), or demigods (Herakles ultimately in some versions of the story made it to Olympus, but only after long struggles on earth and leaving behind his mortality).
Interestingly, in Theogony, it is only Aphrodite among the Olympian gods who was born differently, springing directly from the sea after the genitals of Ouranos were cut off and tossed into the sea by his son Kronos, at the behest of Gaia (because Ouranos was pressing her down too hard). The sea-foam created by the genitals’ falling into the sea birthed Aphrodite, whose name means literally “gift of the sea-foam.”
Tartaros (the Pit of darkness beyond the world) bears Typhoeus, a monster who with Echidna gives birth ultimately to the Winds (Anemoi), another interesting connection – “beyond the world” = “grandfather of the winds.”
Students reviewing thought this was an attempt by the Greeks to answer the universal question of where we came from. This was their view of “The Big Bang Theory” or Christian/Judaic belief in a monotheistic god created the world.
Another point was how the succession story gave lineage claims to the Greeks; that they could trace back to a source, similar to the idea of the divine right of kings.
Another idea was that this provided Greeks different gods to pray to or give sacrifice to in their time of need, celebration, or other feelings, situations, or provide reasons to why something has happened good or bad.
Of course, all of this is true—but grouping the deities into families is not just a Greek phenomenon in the ancient world. One could also compare the way that the Egyptian deities work as a “family” of gods, sometimes jealous of one another and sometimes working to overthrow another god or group of gods—reflecting power relationships on earth.
Hesiod talks about this in Works and Days, where he urges his brother Perses to work hard, and to stay out of the way of “the greedy kings”, -- the rulers of the human society cause everyone as much trouble as the individual deities in the family of gods cause their “subordinates” trouble.
The Theogony & Works and Days also provides us the stories of Prometheus and Pandora. Prometheus’ story is of a Culture Hero who helps humans – the story tells us how we humans got fire, and why, when we sacrifice to the gods, we still get to eat the meat afterwards (because Prometheus tricked Zeus into choosing for himself and the other deities the fat and bones only!); the story also tells how Prometheus suffered for cheating the gods and helping humans because he “stole” fire and sent it down to help the miserable human race who was about to die out. Zeus, who in this story is portrayed as a cruel and even evil tyrant, chained Prometheus to a cliff in the Caucasus Mountains (southern Russia), and sent an eagle to torment him, tearing out Prometheus’ liver daily from his body—overnight, in the frost, Prometheus’ liver regenerated, because he was immortal. The punishment is reminiscent of the punishment of Sisyphus in the Underworld, who was set continually to roll a gigantic, heavy stone uphill, until when he reached the top it rolled back down again, and he had to start over. In stories like these, we see a different side of Zeus—he is not sympathetic or fatherly, but vindictive and cruel, and he reflects the cruelty of the human rulers/kings in these stories.
Pandora was sent to earth as a punishment to humans for Prometheus trying to trick Zeus of his proper sacrifices and distributing sacred knowledge (fire). Hephaestus creates this woman from the earth: “Athena taught her needlework and weaving (63–4); Aphrodite"shed grace upon her head and cruel longing and cares that weary the limbs" (65–6); Hermes gave her "a shameful mind and deceitful nature" (67–8); Hermes also gave her the power of speech, putting in her "lies and crafty words" (77–80) ; Athena then clothed her (72); next Persuasion and the Charites adorned her with necklaces and other finery (72–4); the Horae adorned her with a garland crown (75). Finally, Hermes gives this woman a name: Pandora – "All-gifted" – "because all the Olympians gave her a gift" (81). Before Pandora's arrival, man had lived free from evils, toil and illness, but she had been given a jar which contained all these curses; this she opened, releasing all its contents but hope.” (Note: these quotations are not from our translation of Hesiod, but are taken from Wikipedia)