ABSTRACT
Hesiods poem looks at life through the eyes of a peasant, not of a noble, and its ethics are narrow, leaving but little room for generosity, charity, or sympathy with the weak and unfortunate. It countenances childish superstitions which Homer has outgrown. Yet it does insist, with an earnestness which he lacks, on the existence of justice as a universal principle, the especial care of the greatest god. It also is more reflective, and shows that not uncommon mark of the beginnings of reflection, pessimism of a much deeper kind than his. Its attitude towards women is decidedly more illiberal than that of epic; generally speaking women are a snare and a temptation, and Pandora was the origin of all our woes. The view of society has analogies to that of Piers Plowman; the present state of things is bad, but Hesiod has no political scheme for putting it right.
