This would average to a 2.5 overall.

Although Hesiod was given a similar status to Homer in Greek society, it seems pretty clear that they are not really on the same level, whichever of the two poems of either you compare. At first, confusingly, I thought the introduction was trying to claim that the Theogony and Works and Days were written by two different people (which is entirely plausible, and the introduction does at least bring this up and discuss it), hence the dual authorship in the title, but instead they’ve included a lesser-known work, Theognis’ Elegies, in this edition. I’m not sure why the decision was made to pair Hesiod and Theognis together like this, but I’m at least glad to have read them both now, albeit for very different reasons.

Theogony ★★☆ (I considered giving this three stars, but it was really more of a 2½.)

As the title might suggest, this poem concerns the creation of the universe and how the theological Greek canon of gods as we know it came to be. In the introduction: “The Theogony was such a strain to translate; I kept having to check an impulse to improve it a little, on nearly every page. It was wonderful, exciting material…but the writer had managed to make so much of it tedious.” This didn’t exactly give me high hopes for reading the text itself, but I found some value in it nonetheless. It is obviously impressive to see so many different aspects of Greek mythology drawn together for an origin story, and the absence of mankind is an interesting detail, and may suggest that we are not, in fact, front and centre in existence, and the poem (and general Greek mentality) seems to attest to this as well.

I would agree with the introduction that it has a skewed sense of proportion (dramatic episodes given too little weight and more minor details too much), but for me the mediocre style didn’t tarnish the content enough to detract from my enjoyment, whereas in the Works and Days the style wasn’t enough to make up for it. I might feel differently reading them in Greek, but in English the divide is not that wide for me. Since the Greeks had no real definitive holy book a text like this might give some idea of where they were actually getting their mythological canon from outside of the less-definitive folklore passed down, but in terms of its actual merits as a piece of poetry it is nothing particularly special.

Works and Days ★

This poem is more of a didactic type, and like a lot of didactic poetry attempts to take a mundane subject (in this case, farming and moral instruction) and use poetic skill to make it seem fit for artistic focus, even when it really isn’t. In contrast to the Theogony, “The Works and Days was a pleasure to work on, and full of surprises…And this was the poem I had dreaded, expecting dull moralizing and a farmer’s almanac.” Perhaps the writing is more fluent in this work, but that was not enough to make up for the dismal subject matter and extremely annoying authorial tone (to be fair, there are other ancient works that are well written with plain subject matter that are very valuable, but I don’t find this to be one of them because I don’t think the writing ‘makes up for’ the content here). Obviously, I don’t agree with the translator. It seems like its main value is as a historical and cultural curiosity, and not really worth reading aside from that.

The style, as the translator promised, is fairly good, and admittedly better than the Theogony but was not anything particularly special in the end and the text could not save itself on this merit alone – and I do wish the translator wouldn’t try and make the verses rhyme (!) since this sometimes lends to meandering away from the accuracy of the translation, and (at least for me) doesn’t increase enjoyment of the verse in English. It baffles me that people have ever felt it appropriate to compare Hesiod with Homer.

Also, misogyny kills. (Seriously, I can’t be expected to like a work in which this comes across quite as strongly as it does here, because who could possibly enjoy having abuse hurled at them and their kind?

Spoiler

You wouldn’t expect a black person to enjoy Heart of Darkness.

The Theogony has misogyny as well, but it is for the most part confined to one myth (and at least the goddesses are portrayed favourably, which seems a bit like cognitive dissonance to me since they are surely female as well) whereas here the prejudice seems to permeate much of the verse. I might have given this two stars since the farming advice is at least somewhat interesting and new to me, but I have no qualms about bringing it down to a 1.5 for this reason alone.)

Theognis’ Elegies ★★★★

Usually when a lesser-known work or author is tagged onto a more famous one, the content seems pretty underwhelming (especially by comparison to the major work), but here I had the opposite experience. I was disappointed by my experience with Hesiod, but Theognis (whom I have studied in the past, but only very briefly and only a few verses of his) far exceeded my expectations and seemed even better by comparison to the former.

To some, as the translator said, Theognis may come across as unpleasant and self-important, but personally I found myself a lot more sympathetic towards him than she seemed to be: I enjoyed his misanthropy (I’ll take misanthropy over misogyny any time) and his general mistrust of other people, and felt I could connect with how jaded he was in a way that is unusual for me to feel with ancient writers. It very much enlivened the reading experience and has made him stand out to me from the more banal subject matter of some other ancient poets.

At first the elegies only held my interest somewhat and I didn’t find them particularly special, but as I got more into them I found myself connecting with Theognis’ mentality and social concerns more and more. If anything, it seems like Hesiod isn’t really for me, and Theognis was the saving grace of this collection. I hope I have the chance to study him in more depth in the future.