God and the Land : The Metaphysics of Farming in Hesiod and Vergil: The Metaphysics of Farming in Hesiod and VergilIn this pathbreaking book, which includes a powerful new translation of Hesiod's Works and Days by esteemed translator David Grene, Stephanie Nelson argues that a society's vision of farming contains deep indications about its view of the human place within nature, and our relationship to the divine. She contends that both Hesiod in the Works and Days and Vergil in the Georgics saw farming in this way, and so wrote their poems not only about farming itself, but also about its deeper ethical and religious implications. Hesiod, Nelson argues, saw farming as revealing that man must live by the sweat of his brow, and that good, for human beings, must always be accompanied by hardship. Within this vision justice, competition, cooperation, and the need for labor take their place alongside the uncertainties of the seasons and even of particular lucky and unlucky days to form a meaningful whole within which human life is an integral part. Vergil, Nelson argues, deliberately modeled his poem upon the Works and Days, and did so in order to reveal that his is a very different vision. Hesiod saw the hardship in farming; Vergil sees its violence as well. Farming is for him both our life within nature, and also our battle against her. Against the background of Hesiods poem, which found a single meaning for human life, Vergil thus creates a split vision and suggests that human beings may be radically alienated from both nature and the divine. Nelson argues that both the Georgics and the Works and Days have been misread because scholars have not seen the importance of the connection between the two poems, and because they have not seen that farming is the true concern of both, farming in its deepest and most profoundly unsettling sense. |
Contents
2 | |
5 | |
9 | |
HESIOD POET AND FARMER | 31 |
1 THE COMPOSITION OF HESIODS POEMS | 41 |
2 THE MYTHIC BACKGROUND | 59 |
VERGILS FARM | 82 |
4 GOD | 98 |
5 THE HUMAN CONTEXT | 125 |
6 THE PLACE OF NATURE | 152 |
Notes | 171 |
Bibliography | 231 |
Index | 247 |
Common terms and phrases
Aeschylus Ancient animals appears Aristaeus become bees begins bring Cambridge Classical comes Composition connection contrast cosmos created Days death describes destroyed divine earth evil fable fact fall farmer farming father feel first follow force Georgics gives gods Golden Age Greek hand harvest Heroes Hesiod History Homer honor human importance individual Interpretation Iron justice kind kings labor land lines live look means mind moral moves myth nature opening original Orpheus oxen Oxford particular peasant Perses picture plow poem poet Poetry present Prometheus punishment race reference relation Religion Roman sailing season sense shows simply society spring story Strife Studies suffering tells Theogony things tion Tradition turn understanding University Press Vergil violence vision West whole Zeus
Popular passages
Page 115 - Tam multae scelerum facies; non ullus aratro Dignus honos; squalent abductis arva colonis, Et curvae rigidum falces conflantur in ensem. Hinc movet Euphrates, illinc Germania bellum ; Vicinae ruptis inter se legibus urbes 510 Arma ferunt ; saevit toto Mars impius orbe : Ut cum carceribus sese effudere quadrigae, Addunt in spatia, et frustra retinacula tendens Fertur equis auriga, neque audit currus habenas.
Page 84 - Ante lovem nulli subigebant arva coloni; 125 ne signare quidem aut partiri limite campum fas erat: in medium quaerebant, ipsaque tellus omnia liberius nullo poscente ferebat.
Page 93 - Me vero primum dulces ante omnia Musae, Quarum sacra fero ingenti percussus amore, Accipiant, caelique vias et sidera monstrent, Defectus solis varios lunaeque labores...
Page 158 - Strymonis undam flesse sibi et gelidis haec evolvisse sub antris mulcentem tigris et agentem carmine quercus ; 510 qualis populea maerens philomela sub umbra amissos queritur fetus, quos durus arator observans nido implumis detraxit ; at illa flet noctem, ramoque sedens miserabile carmen integrat, et maestis late loca questibus implet.
Page 113 - Idcirco certis dimensum partibus orbem per duodena regit mundi sol aureus astra. quinque tenent caelum zonae: quarum una corusco semper sole rubens et torrida semper ab igni...
Page 85 - ... hanc olim veteres vitam coluere Sabini, hanc Remus et frater, sic fortis Etruria crevit scilicet et rerum facta est pulcherrima Roma, septemque una sibi muro circumdedit arces. 535 ante etiam sceptrum Dictaei regis et ante impia quam caesis gens est epulata iuvencis, aureus hanc vitam in terris Saturnus agebat; necdum etiam audierant inflari classica, necdum impositos duris crepitare incudibus enses.
Page 83 - ... saepe ego, cum flavis messorem induceret arvis agricola et fragili iam stringeret hordea culmo, omnia ventorum concurrere proelia vidi...
Page 160 - Grandaevis oppida curae et munire favos et daedala fingere tecta, at fessae multa referunt se nocte minores 180 crura thymo plenae; pascuntur et arbuta passim et glaucas salices casiamque crocumque rubentem et pinguem tiliam et ferrugineos hyacinthos. Omnibus una quies operum, labor omnibus unus.