Works and Days

Hesiod

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

  • On the fourth of the month bring home your bride, but choose the omens which are best for this business. Avoid fifth days: they are unkindly and terrible. On a fifth, they say, the Erinyes assisted at the birth of Horcus (Oath) whom Eris (Strife) bore to trouble the forsworn.
  • Look about you very carefully and throw out Demeter's holy grain upon the well-rolled[*](Such seems to be the meaning here, though the epithet is otherwise rendered “well-rounded.” Corn was threshed by means of a sleigh with two runners having three or four rollers between them, like the modern Egyptiannurag. ) threshing floor on the seventh of the mid-month. Let the woodman cut beams for house building and plenty of ships' timbers, such as are suitable for ships. On the fourth day begin to build narrow ships.
  • The ninth of the mid-month improves towards evening; but the first ninth of all is quite harmless for men. It is a good day on which to beget or to be born both for a male and a female: it is never a wholly evil day. Again, few know that the twenty-seventh of the month is best