Reviewed by Jim Vandergriff*

Every book has its flaws, as one must expect in a flawed universe. Frazer's new edition of Hesiod is no exception. I sigh with him for the typesetting errors on pages 139 and 141. More problematic and likely the weakest point in a generally good book is the question of audience. One infers from page ix that Frazer envisions a general audience, and the extent of the commentaries reinforces that inference. Yet, the Introduction seems to be directed to specialists in literature, perhaps even classicists: the references to Greek and Roman poetics (p. 15) are not detailed enough for non-specialists. Similarly, I find the frequent alliterated lines distracting; they remind one too strongly of Anglo-Saxon poetics.

Overall, though, the translation is good even if not glittering. Frazer retains the essential flavor of Greek poetry both by attending carefully to the rhythms of the lines and by the traditional practice of rendering poetic epithets as hyphenated adjectives. Many of the lines, in fact, fairly sing:

and ushered them down into the wide-wayed earth, where they bound them securely in bondage grevious to bear.

—(11. 717-718)

Such lines compensate for the occasional infelicities.

The commentaries are good, too. They not only illuminate the poems but also present the scholarly debates surrounding particular passages, even the vexed question of Hesiod's view of women, for which Frazer neither apologizes nor makes excuses. As one who teaches mythology, I find the discussions very helpful, as I do the etymologies and the correlations of passages within and between the two poems. This last is a major strength of the edition. Balanced against these successes and the readability of the translation, all the flaws recede in importance. One must make choices in an imperfect universe; I applaud Frazer for choosing good poetry.

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*Jim Vandergriff, a dialectologist, poet, and folklorist, is currently teaching Latin and English at McCluer North High School in St. Louis. He has taught English and Latin at the college level for most of his career. He has also conducted seminars on classical poetry, written poetry modelled on Horace and Catullus, and generally dallied in the classics from the Egyptians to the Anglo-Saxons to T. S. Elliot.