__NOTOC__ The "Megala Erga" (), or "Great Works", is a now fragmentary

didactic Didacticism is a philosophy that emphasises instructional and informative qualities in literature, art, and design. In art, design, architecture, and landscape, didacticism is a conceptual approach that is driven by the urgent need to explain. ...

poem that was attributed to the

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

oral poet

Hesiod Hesiod ( or ; ''Hēsíodos''; ) was an ancient Greece, Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer.M. L. West, ''Hesiod: Theogony'', Oxford University Press (1966), p. 40.Jasper Gr ...

during antiquity. Only two brief direct quotations can be attributed to the work with certainty, but it was likely similar to the Hesiodic ''

Works and Days ''Works and Days'' ()The ''Works and Days'' is sometimes called by the Latin translation of the title, ''Opera et Dies''. Common abbreviations are ''WD'' and ''Op'' for ''Opera''. is a didactic poem written by ancient Greek poet Hesiod around ...

'', with the "''Megala''", "great", of the title implying that it was longer than the extant poem. As such, the ''Megala Erga'' would appear to have the same relation to the ''Works and Days'' as does the ''

Megalai Ehoiai __NOTOC__ The ''Megalai Ehoiai'' (, ), or ''Great Ehoiai'', is a fragmentary Greek epic poem that was popularly, though not universally, attributed to Hesiod during antiquity. Like the more widely read Hesiodic ''Catalogue of Women'', the ''Mega ...

'' to the ''

Catalogue of Women The ''Catalogue of Women'' ()—also known as the ''Ehoiai '' (, )The Latin transliterations ''Eoeae'' and ''Ehoeae'' are also used (e.g. , ); see Catalogue of Women#Title and the ē' hoiē-formula, Title and the ''ē' hoiē''-formula, below. Th ...

''., . Although the remains of the poem found in other ancient authors are meager, it can be said that the ''Megala Erga'' appears to have been concerned with both morality and the conveyance of more-or-less practical information like the extant Hesiodic poem upon which its title drew. The

scholia Scholia (: scholium or scholion, from , "comment", "interpretation") are grammatical, critical, or explanatory comments – original or copied from prior commentaries – which are inserted in the margin of the manuscript of ancient a ...

to the

Myth of the Ages The Ages of Man are the historical stages of human existence according to Greek mythology and its subsequent Roman interpretation. Both Hesiod and Ovid offered accounts of the successive ages of humanity, which tend to progress from an origin ...

in the ''Works and Days'', à propos of the Race of Silver (''WD'' 128), reports that in the ''Megala Erga'' a genealogy for silver was given: it was a descendant of

Gaia In Greek mythology, Gaia (; , a poetic form of ('), meaning 'land' or 'earth'),, , . also spelled Gaea (), is the personification of Earth. Gaia is the ancestral mother—sometimes parthenogenic—of all life. She is the mother of Uranus (S ...

. The other securely attributed fragment resembles many of the gnomic utterances that characterize the ''Works and Days'': Other fragments that have been tentatively assigned to the poem concern the strengths man possesses at different points in his life (fr. 321), religious practices (fr. 322) and

filial piety Filial piety is the virtue of exhibiting love and respect for one's parents, elders, and ancestors, particularly within the context of Confucian ethics, Confucian, Chinese Buddhism, Chinese Buddhist ethics, Buddhist, and Daoism, Daoist ethics. ...

(fr. 323)."To your father you must

lacuna Lacuna (plural lacunas or lacunae) may refer to: Related to the meaning "gap" * Lacuna (manuscripts), a gap in a manuscript, inscription, text, painting, or musical work **Great Lacuna, a lacuna of eight leaves in the ''Codex Regius'' where there ...

'' ] be obedient." For the attribution of these fragments to the ''Megala Erga'' see .

Select editions and translations

Critical editions

Translations

Notes

Bibliography