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This reading comes from the Cave’s

The Best of Hesiod’s Theogony & Works and Days

(where it appears as chapter seven of the Works and Days).

__________

LISTEN, PERSES, YOU BIG FOOL. I will proclaim all this noble knowledge for you.

It is easy to grab at Failure (Kakotēs).[i] It is there in abundance for you. The way is smooth to her, and she dwells very near to you.

But the immortal gods have put sweat in front of Success (Aretē).[ii] [290] The path to her is long and steep. And so it is rough-going at first. Nevertheless, when one comes to the highest point, then the path becomes easy—however hard it is at first.

Best of all is the man who thinks about everything for himself, pondering how things will turn out in the end and what will be better. And noble too is the kind of man who is won over by good advice. But good for nothing is the man who does not think for himself or take to heart what he hears from another man. He’s useless.

But you, god-born Perses, always keep in mind my command to work. You should work so that Hunger [300] will hate you and leave you alone, and so that highly-regarded, well-crowned Demeter will love you and fill your storehouse with what it takes to live. For Hunger is best friends with the lazy man. Both the gods and men resent the man who lives without working. This one’s disposition is like that of the stingless drone, which consumes the labor of the other bees, eating without working. Not you. You should get used to arranging your work in due order. That’s how your storehouse will be filled with what it takes to live at the right time and season. For it is from work that men have many sheep and other riches. And working men will be far dearer to the immortals [310] and to mortals—for they hate men who don’t work.

Work is no disgrace; rather, it is not working that is the disgrace. And if you work, the man who does not work will quickly become jealous when you are wealthy because the excellence of success and glory of being a prominent man follow upon wealth. Whatever you are by some god, by fortune, working is better if you turn your thoughtless desires and muddled mind away from another man’s possessions. Turn them instead toward work and, as I have encouraged you, think about what it takes to live.

Self-respecting shame doesn’t take care of the needy man—shame, which can greatly harm and benefit a man. Rather, for the needy man, self-respecting shame brings poverty and unhappiness, whereas boldness brings wealth and happiness.

[320] Property should not be stolen. God-given property is much better. For if a man seizes a pile of wealth and happiness with the strength of his hands or he plunders it with his tongue—the sort of things that are frequently done when the love of gain deceives the mind of human beings and when shameless effrontery follows self-respecting shame—then do the gods easily leave that man in the dark, obscure, and they diminish his household, and wealth and happiness are his for a very brief time.

The same holds for the man who harms a suppliant or a stranger looking for hospitality. Or the man who wrongly climbs into his own brother’s bed to have sex with his brother’s wife in secret. [330] Or the man who thoughtlessly does anything wrong to an orphaned child. Or the man who abuses his aged father, who is travelling along the pathway of evil old age, with words that are hard to bear.

Zeus himself views this man with indignation. In the end, he imposes a stiff penalty upon his unjust deeds.

But you, Perses, should restrain your thoughtless desires and muddled mind from such deeds.

So ends Reading 7, “The Easy and Hard Paths – The Goodness of Work.” See you in Reading 8, “Feasting with Gods and Men – Friends and Neighbors, Giving and Getting.”

Notes

[i] For Hesiod, kakotēs connotes failure in terms of mediocrity, inferiority, badness, harm, misery, and misfortune. “Badness” does not imply moral evil or vice as the later Greek tradition and others came to understand it. Rather, as in Homer, badness was failure, the inability to survive and thrive. For its opposite, see endnote 2.

[ii] For Hesiod, aretē connotes success in terms of excellence, superiority, goodness, benefit, thriving, and prosperity. Just as with “badness,” “goodness” does not imply moral goodness or virtue as the later Greek tradition and others came to understand it. Rather, as in Homer and much of near contemporary Greek literature, goodness was success, the ability to survive and thrive to the greatest extent possible. For aretē’s opposite, see endnote 1.