Quotes from Theogony/Works and Days

Quotations follow the M.L. West translation (Oxford University Press, 2008) — our recommended edition.

1. 2

   Verily at the first Chaos came to be, but next wide-bosomed Earth, the ever-sure foundation of all the deathless ones who hold the peaks of snowy Olympus, and dim Tartarus in the depth of the wide-pathed Earth, and Eros (Love), fairest among the deathless gods.

2. 3

   Only Hope remained there in an unbreakable home within under the rim of the great jar, and did not fly out at the door.

3. 4

   Before the gates of excellence the high gods have placed sweat; long is the road thereto and rough and steep at first.

4. 5

   Badness can be got easily and in shoals: the road to her is smooth, and she lives very near us. But between us and Goodness the gods have placed the sweat of our brows: long and steep is the path that leads to her, and it is rough at the first; but when a man has reached the top, then is she easy to reach, though before that she was hard.

5. 6

   Work is no disgrace: it is idleness which is a disgrace.

6. 7

   We know how to speak many false things as though they were true; but we know, when we will, to utter true things.

7. 8

   First of all the deathless gods who dwell on Olympus made a golden race of mortal men who lived in the time of Cronos when he was reigning in heaven.

8. 9

   For now truly is a race of iron, and men never rest from labour and sorrow by day, and from perishing by night; and the gods shall lay sore trouble upon them.

9. 10

   Fools! They know not how much more the half is than the whole, nor what great advantage there is in mallow and asphodel.

10. 11

    So, after all, there was not one kind of Strife alone, but all over the earth there are two.

11. 12

    Observe due measure: and proportion is best in all things.

12. 13

    Do not put your work off till to-morrow and the day after; for a sluggish worker does not fill his barn, nor one who puts off his work.

13. 14

    And potter is angry with potter, and craftsman with craftsman, and beggar is jealous of beggar, and minstrel of minstrel.

14. 15

    Give is a good girl, but Take is bad and she brings death.

15. 16

    Hunger is altogether a meet comrade for the sluggard.

16. 17

    Thereafter, would that I were not among the men of the fifth generation, but either had died before or been born afterwards.