V. TO APHRODITE
VI. TO APHRODITE
VII. TO DIONYSUS
VIII. TO ARES
IX. TO ARTEMIS
X. TO APHRODITE
XI. TO ATHENA
XII. TO HERA
XIII. TO DEMETER
XIV. TO THE MOTHER OF THE GODS
XV. TO HERACLES THE LION-HEARTED
XVI. TO ASCLEPIUS
XVII. TO THE DIOSCURI
XVIII. TO HERMES
XIX. TO PAN
XX. TO HEPHAESTUS
XXI. TO APOLLO
XXII. TO POSEIDON
XXIII. TO THE SON OF CRONOS, MOST HIGH
XXIV. TO HESTIA
XXV. TO THE MUSES AND APOLLO
XXVI. TO DIONYSUS
XXVII. TO ARTEMIS
XXVIII. TO ATHENA
XXIX. TO HESTIA
XXX. TO EARTH THE MOTHER OF ALL
XXXI. TO HELIOS
XXXII. TO SELENE
XXXIII. TO THE DIOSCURI

THE EPIGRAMS OF HOMER

THE EPIC CYCLE
THE WAR OF THE TITANS
THE STORY OF OEDIPUS
THE THEBAID
THE EPIGONI
THE CYPRIA
THE AETHIOPIS
THE LITTLE ILIAD
THE SACK OF ILIUM
THE RETURNS
THE TELEGONY

HOMERICA
THE EXPEDITION OF AMPHIARAUS
THE TAKING OF OECHALIA
THE PHOCAIS
THE MARGITES
THE CERCOPES
THE BATTLE OF FROGS AND MICE

THE CONTEST OF HOMER AND HESIOD

ENDNOTES

This file contains translations of the following works: Hesiod: _Works
and Days_, _The Theogony_, fragments of _The Catalogues of Women and
the Eoiae_, _The Shield of Heracles_ (attributed to Hesiod), and
fragments of various works attributed to Hesiod.
Homer: _The Homeric Hymns_, _The Epigrams of Homer_ (both attributed
to Homer).

Various: Fragments of the Epic Cycle (parts of which are sometimes
attributed to Homer), fragments of other epic poems attributed to
Homer, _The Battle of Frogs and Mice_, and _The Contest of Homer and
Hesiod_.

This file contains only that portion of the book in English; Greek
texts are excluded. Where Greek characters appear in the original
English text, transcription in CAPITALS is substituted.

Project Gutenberg Editor’s Note: 262 footnotes notes previously
scattered through the text have been moved to the end of the file and
each given an unique number. There are links to and from each footnote.

PREPARER’S NOTE

In order to make this file more accessible to the average computer
user, the preparer has found it necessary to re-arrange some of the
material. The preparer takes full responsibility for his choice of
arrangement.

A few endnotes have been added by the preparer, and some additions have
been supplied to the original endnotes of Mr. Evelyn-White’s. Where
this occurs I have noted the addition with my initials “DBK”. Some
endnotes, particularly those concerning textual variations in the
ancient Greek text, are here omitted.

PREFACE

This volume contains practically all that remains of the post-Homeric
and pre-academic epic poetry.

I have for the most part formed my own text. In the case of Hesiod I
have been able to use independent collations of several MSS. by Dr.
W.H.D. Rouse; otherwise I have depended on the _apparatus criticus_ of
the several editions, especially that of Rzach (1902). The arrangement
adopted in this edition, by which the complete and fragmentary poems
are restored to the order in which they would probably have appeared
had the Hesiodic corpus survived intact, is unusual, but should not
need apology; the true place for the _Catalogues_ (for example),
fragmentary as they are, is certainly after the _Theogony_.

In preparing the text of the _Homeric Hymns_ my chief debt—and it is a
heavy one—is to the edition of Allen and Sikes (1904) and to the series
of articles in the _Journal of Hellenic Studies_ (vols. xv. _sqq_.) by
T.W. Allen. To the same scholar and to the Delegates of the Clarendon
Press I am greatly indebted for permission to use the restorations of
the _Hymn to Demeter_, lines 387-401 and 462-470, printed in the Oxford
Text of 1912.

Of the fragments of the Epic Cycle I have given only such as seemed to
possess distinct importance or interest, and in doing so have relied
mostly upon Kinkel’s collection and on the fifth volume of the Oxford
Homer (1912).

The texts of the _Batrachomyomachia_ and of the _Contest of Homer and
Hesiod_ are those of Baumeister and Flach respectively: where I have
diverged from these, the fact has been noted.

Owing to the circumstances of the present time I have been prevented
from giving to the _Introduction_ that full revision which I should
have desired.

Hugh G. Evelyn-White,
Rampton, NR. Cambridge.
_Sept_. 9_th_, 1914.

INTRODUCTION

General

The early Greek epic—that is, poetry as a natural and popular, and not
(as it became later) an artificial and academic literary form—passed
through the usual three phases, of development, of maturity, and of
decline.

No fragments which can be identified as belonging to the first period
survive to give us even a general idea of the history of the earliest
epic, and we are therefore thrown back upon the evidence of analogy
from other forms of literature and of inference from the two great
epics which have come down to us. So reconstructed, the earliest period
appears to us as a time of slow development in which the characteristic
epic metre, diction, and structure grew up slowly from crude elements
and were improved until the verge of maturity was reached.