Thanks for supporting The Classics Cave.

Please visit and support our sponsors.

This reading comes from the Cave’s

The Best of Hesiod’s Theogony & Works and Days

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

__________

OBSERVE WELL THE DAYS THAT come from Zeus.

Point out what portion comes with each day to your slaves. The thirtieth day of the month is best for overlooking the work they have done and to deal out allotted food.

When the people judge the truth of things, these days are the days that come from Zeus, who is wise in counsel.

[770] To begin, the first, the fourth, and the seventh day—the day on which Leto gave birth to Apollo with his sword of gold—each is a holy day.

The eighth and the ninth, two days of the waxing month, stand out as good for the toiling works of man.[i]The eleventh and the twelfth days are also excellent for shearing sheep and for gathering the merry grain—though the twelfth is much better than the eleventh. The reason: on that day the high-soaring spider spins its web during the fullness of day and the well-prepared one, the ant, gathers its pile of things. A woman should set up her loom on that day and get on with her work.

[780] Do not begin to sow on the thirteenth day of the waxing month. Avoid it. Yet it is the best day to tend plants.

The sixth day of the mid-month is very unfavorable for plants. But it is good for male births, though unfavorable for a girl to be born or to be married. Nor is the first sixth day fitting for a girl’s birth. But it is a favorable day for castrating young goats and sheep and for building a sheep pen for your flocks. The same day is favorable for the birth of a boy. But such a boy will be fond of sharp speech, lies, cunning words, and secret discourse.

[790] On the eighth day of the month, castrate a boar and the loud-bellowing bull. But do hard-working mules on the twelfth.

A man who knows what is right is begotten on the great twentieth day of the month in the fullness of the day. Such a man’s mind is well guarded.

The tenth day is favorable for a male to be born. But for a girl, the fourth day of the mid-month is favorable.

On that day, the fourth of the mid-month, apply your hand to tame the sheep, and the lumbering, curved-horned oxen, and the dog with jagged teeth, and the hard-working mules.

But on the fourth day of the beginning and the ending of the month, take care to shun the troubles that gnaw at the heart. This day can very well fulfill them.

[800] Lead a wife into the house on the fourth day of the month, but distinguish the birds of omen that are best for this business.

Avoid fifth days. They are difficult, horrible. On the fifth, they say, the Furies (Erinyes) assisted at the birth of Oath (Horkos), whom Strife (Eris) brought into the world to trouble those who have sworn falsely.

On the seventh day of the mid-month, look around very carefully and throw out Demeter’s holy grain upon a smooth threshing floor. The woodcutter should cut beams for adding onto the house and many planks for building ships.

You should begin to build narrow ships on the fourth day.

[810] The ninth day of the mid-month improves toward the evening. But the first ninth is completely harmless for human beings. It is a good day both for begetting children and for being born—for a male and a female. It is never a wholly evil day.

Again, few know that the twenty-seventh day of the month is best for opening a wine-jar, and for setting a yoke on the necks of oxen and mules and swift-footed horses, and for hauling a swift ship with many benches into the wine-faced sea. Few men call this day by its true name.

Open a jar on the fourth day, a day that is holy above all other days—[820] the mid-month fourth day.

And again, few men know that the fourth day after the twentieth is best while it is morning. Toward the evening it is not as good.

For men upon the earth, these days are a great advantage.

But the rest fall haphazardly. They are harmless and bring nothing. Everyone praises one day or another, but few know them. Sometimes a day is a stepmother, sometimes a mother.

Divinely favored and happy in wealth is the man who knows all these things and does his work, blameless before the immortals, distinguishing the birds of omen and shunning transgressions.[ii]

So ends Reading 14, “The Days from Zeus – The Happy Man.” See you in another Cave reading in the Cave Library.

Notes

[i] Hesiod seems to divide the month in two ways. One, he does so according to the waxing and waning of the moon. Accordingly, the first half of the month would be 14 to 15 days long, depending on the month. Otherwise, he adds a “middle” portion that would seem to divide the month three ways, into a waxing, middle, and waning portion.

[ii] The translation “divinely favored” for eudaimōn—which is often given as “happy”—is inspired by Cornelius de Heer’s arguments in ΜΑΚΑΡ− ΕΥΔΑΙΜΩΝ−ΟΛΒΙΟΣ−ΕΥΤΥΧΗΣ: A Study of the Semantic Field Denoting Happiness in Ancient Greek to the End of the 5thCentury B.C. Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert, 1969.