Works and Days

Hesiod

Hesiod, creator; Homer, creator; Evelyn-White, Hugh G. (Hugh Gerard), d. 1924, translator

  • demi-gods, the race before our own, throughout the boundless earth. Grim war and dread battle destroyed a part of them, some in the land of Cadmus at seven-gated Thebes when they fought for the flocks of Oedipus, and some, when it had brought them in ships over the great sea gulf
  • to Troy for rich-haired Helen's sake: there death's end enshrouded a part of them. But to the others father Zeus the son of Cronos gave a living and an abode apart from men, and made them dwell at the ends of earth.
  • And they live untouched by sorrow in the islands of the blessed along the shore of deep-swirling Ocean, happy heroes for whom
  • the grain-giving earth bears honey-sweet fruit flourishing thrice a year,
  • far from the deathless gods, and Cronos rules over them;
  • for the father of men and gods released him from his bonds.
  • And these last equally have honor and glory.
  • And again far-seeing Zeus made yet another generation, the fifth, of men