Primary Text Index | Hesiod Text Index
Evelyn-White's Translation of Works and Days
Evelyn-White's Translation of Works and Days
ENDNOTES:
(1) That is, the poor man's fare, like `bread and cheese'.
(2) The All-endowed.
(3) The jar or casket contained the gifts of the gods mentioned
in l.82.
(4) Eustathius refers to Hesiod as stating that men sprung `from
oaks and stones and ashtrees'. Proclus believed that the
Nymphs called Meliae ("Theogony", 187) are intended.
Goettling would render: `A race terrible because of their
(ashen) spears.'
(5) Preserved only by Proclus, from whom some inferior MSS. have
copied the verse. The four following lines occur only in
Geneva Papyri No. 94. For the restoration of ll. 169b-c see
"Class. Quart." vii. 219-220. (NOTE: Mr. Evelyn-White means
that the version quoted by Proclus stops at this point, then
picks up at l. 170. -- DBK).
(6) i.e. the race will so degenerate that at the last even a
new-born child will show the marks of old age.
(7) Aidos, as a quality, is that feeling of reverence or shame
which restrains men from wrong: Nemesis is the feeling of
righteous indignation aroused especially by the sight of the
wicked in undeserved prosperity (cf. "Psalms", lxxii. 1-19).
(8) The alternative version is: `and, working, you will be much
better loved both by gods and men; for they greatly dislike
the idle.'
(9) i.e. neighbours come at once and without making
preparations, but kinsmen by marriage (who live at a
distance) have to prepare, and so are long in coming.
(10) Early in May.
(11) In November.
(12) In October.
(13) For pounding corn.
(14) A mallet for breaking clods after ploughing.
(15) The loaf is a flattish cake with two intersecting lines
scored on its upper surface which divide it into four equal
parts.
(16) The meaning is obscure. A scholiast renders `giving eight
mouthfulls'; but the elder Philostratus uses the word in
contrast to `leavened'.
(17) About the middle of November.
(18) Spring is so described because the buds have not yet cast
their iron-grey husks.
(19) In December.
(20) In March.
(21) The latter part of January and earlier part of February.
(22) i.e. the octopus or cuttle.
(23) i.e. the darker-skinned people of Africa, the Egyptians or
Aethiopians.
(24) i.e. an old man walking with a staff (the `third leg' -- as
in the riddle of the Sphinx).
(25) February to March.
(26) i.e. the snail. The season is the middle of May.
(27) In June.
(28) July.
(29) i.e. a robber.
(30) September.
(31) The end of October.
(32) That is, the succession of stars which make up the full
year.
(33) The end of October or beginning of November.
(34) July-August.
(35) i.e. untimely, premature. Juvenal similarly speaks of
`cruda senectus' (caused by gluttony).
(36) The thought is parallel to that of `O, what a goodly outside
falsehood hath.'
(37) The `common feast' is one to which all present subscribe.
Theognis (line 495) says that one of the chief pleasures of
a banquet is the general conversation. Hence the present
passage means that such a feast naturally costs little,
while the many present will make pleasurable conversation.
(38) i.e. `do not cut your finger-nails'.
(39) i.e. things which it would be sacrilege to disturb, such as
tombs.
(40) H.G. Evelyn-White prefers to switch ll. 768 and 769, reading
l. 769 first then l. 768. -- DBK
(41) The month is divided into three periods, the waxing, the
mid-month, and the waning, which answer to the phases of the
moon.
(42) i.e. the ant.
(43) Such seems to be the meaning here, though the epithet is
otherwise rendered `well-rounded'. Corn was threshed by
means of a sleigh with two runners having three or four
rollers between them, like the modern Egyptian "nurag".
The URL for this resource page is
http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_text_hesiod_worksendnotes.htm
This page is copyright © 2000-2006 N.S. Gill.
