Unlike Homer, who has the aristocratic reader in mind in his poems, Hesiod, in his Works and Days, addresses ordinary people. Hesiod does not escape into the realm of myth but rather deals with everyday realities. He describes the toil and plight of a simple farmer. At the same time, the author venerates labor and encourages his compatriots to work hard and honestly. He even praises the spirit of healthy competition; according to the translation by Glenn W. Most:

For a man who is not working but who looks at some other man, a rich one who is hastening to plow and plant and set his house in order, he envies him, one neighbor envying his neighbor who is hastening towards wealth: and this Strife is good for mortals.

The descriptions of the farmer’s work are accompanied by practical advice and are narrated in calendar order (hence the use of “Days,” in reference to the progression of the year). Hesiod explains which days are better suited for plowing and which for harvesting. For any work, according to him, there are good and evil days:

For beginning with the sowing, avoid the thirteenth day after the month begins; and yet it is the best one for getting your plants bedded in.

Additionally, the deterioration of the living conditions on the earth is explained in Hesiod by way of the myth of Pandora:

And the messenger of the gods placed a voice in her and named this woman Pandora (All-Gift), since all those who have their mansions on Olympus had given her a gift—a woe for men who live on bread. . . . Only Anticipation remained there in its unbreakable home under the mouth of the storage jar, and did not fly out; for before that could happen she closed the lid of the storage jar, by the plans of the aegis-holder, the cloud-gatherer, Zeus. But countless other miseries roam among mankind; for the earth is full of evils, and the sea is full; and some sicknesses come upon men by day, and others by night, of their own accord, bearing evils to mortals in silence.

Pandora is Zeus’s instrument of vengeance on humanity for Prometheus’s theft of fire: Prometheus stole the fire in order to aid mankind in their plight, but this was in direct disobedience of Zeus. Thus, Zeus resolved to punish both Prometheus and humanity. Prometheus’s improvident brother, Epimetheus, therefore bestowed Pandora as a gift from the gods—despite the fact that Prometheus warned Epimetheus not to accept anything from Zeus. As a result, Pandora succumbs to her curiosity and removes the lid from the fatal jar where all the world’s evils have been stored and unleashes them on the mortal world.

The idea of degradation is also reflected in Hesiod’s story about the five successive ages of history: those of gold, silver, bronze, heroes, and iron. The Golden and Silver Ages encompass the period when Cronus, Zeus’s titan father, ruled. The latter three, the ages of bronze, heroes, and iron, are explained as Zeus’s own epochs. Hesiod explains that the first generation of people in the Golden Age were crafted from gold by the gods, and thus these people lived blessed existences of peace and harmony. Hesiod narrates how the subsequent races then become more and more inferior—a degradation that he claims will only continue. He states that the current age is that of iron, and he laments:

If only then I did not have to live among the fifth men, but could have either died first or been born afterwards!

It is interesting to note that,...