(fl ? late 8th century bce). Greek poet. He was clearly later than Homer, whose work he used. His particular genre was the didactic epic, in which he retained much Homeric diction as well as dactylic hexameter; unlike Homer, however, he was an explicit teacher and thus dispensed with the objective narrative method. Two major works are attributed to Hesiod, the Works and Days and the Theogony. The first of these, a kind of versified farmer's almanac, contains half a dozen references to music centred on the Muses. Givers of glory through song (1), they have taught Hesiod the art (657–62), and he begins by bidding them sing the praise of Zeus (2). The rivalry of bard with bard (26), which had remained implicit in the Odyssey, is directly commended. In the Theogony, or ‘Genealogy of the Gods’, references to music are confined to the long initial invocation of the Muses (1–115), who appear once again as singers (10, 36–41, 60–69) and this time as dancers too (4, 70). It is they who grant ‘lovely song’ (104); with Apollo, they are the patrons of bards and kithara players (94–5). The power of music is acknowledged: men forget their sorrows ‘when a singer … chants the glorious deeds of men of old’ (98–103). Hesiod’s own gift of song was imparted to him during a single brief visitation by the Muses.
The opening portion (1–56) of the Shield of Heracles, an obvious imitation of Iliad, book xviii, may conceivably be Hesiodic. The remainder, however, must be attributed to his successors; and it is here that specific references to musical instruments occur – to Apollo's phorminx (202–3), and elsewhere (278–81; cf 283) to syrinx and aulos. The syrinx, or shepherd's panpipe, is mentioned outside a pastoral context, as once in Homer (Iliad, x.13; cf xviii.526). (See also Linus.)
In the works that may with reasonable confidence be assigned to Hesiod, instrumental music is mentioned only once (Theogony, 95). His silence reflects the fact that he was not writing for an audience of aristocrats who would gather at feasts to listen to a kithara-playing bard or a girl aulos player. He set forth a plebeian ethic, profoundly different from the feudal standards of Homeric heroism yet not inferior to them. Plato recognized this: in the Laws (ii, 658d6–e3) he wrote approvingly of awarding the prize to recitations of Homer or Hesiod in a competition among both bards and rhapsodes. His comment serves to emphasize the point that, despite various references to singing, Hesiod represented the first evidence in Greek literature of rhapsodes, the professional reciters of poetry (see Aoidos). Originally they accompanied their recitations on the kithara; later, when musical accompaniment had been abandoned, they held a staff instead (Pausanias, ix.30.iii, explicitly associated Hesiod with the later stage, but also asserted, in x.7.3, that Hesiod was debarred from the Pythian games because he could not accompany himself on the kithara). So, in the Theogony (30), the Muses present Hesiod with a staff as they fill him with their inspiration. It is a moment of transition, and not an insignificant one, in the musical history of Greece.
A. Rzach, ed.: Hesiodi carmina (Leipzig, 1902, abridged 1913/R)
H.G. Evelyn-White, ed. and trans.: Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns and Homerica (London and Cambridge, MA, 1914, 2/1936/R)
R. Lattimore, trans.: Hesiod: The Works and Days; Theogony; The Shield of Herakles (Ann Arbor, 1959)
M.L. West, ed.: Theogony (Oxford, 1966) [with commentary]
F. Solmsen, ed.: Hesiodi Theogonia; Opera et dies; Scutum (Oxford, 1970, 3/1990) [with R. Merkelbach and M.L. West, ed.: Fragmenta selecta]
F. Solmsen: Hesiod and Aeschylus (London, 1949/R)
H. Schwabl: ‘Hesiodos’, Paulys Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, suppl.xii (Stuttgart, 1970), 434–86
A. Barker, ed.: Greek Musical Writings, i: The Musician and his Art (Cambridge, 1984), 33–7 [translated excerpts referring to musical subjects]
WARREN ANDERSON/THOMAS J. MATHIESEN