What was Hesiod’s view of the mankind’s past and future?”
Hesiod’s book work and days is one of the most important texts in the world today. It depicts stories of the Gods and the history of the world. It depicts how the Gods behaved, and how mortal living people behaved with and without the Gods. Without the book, we would not have the understanding we have today of Greek religion. We would be almost uneducated because how important this book is. Within the Book, Hesiod describes how bad mankind will get. He tells the reader of how man kind is by each generation getting worse and worse. He strongly believed that human kind’s morals and ethics were slowly and inevitably decaying.
As stated previously, Hesiod believed that with man kinds each generation., the race in which walked the earth would get to be less than the previous. Within the poem, he talks about the God Zeus. He believed Zeus was to be the punish er of the wicked, and that Zeus decided what the punishment would be. Continually, he wrote about how the Gods viewed the 5 different races of human. These races went from the best to the worst. These races are : Gold, Silver, Bronze, Demi God, and Iron Race. The first and best of the races is the Gold Race. They were peaceful and successful in their time, they were favored by the Gods. When they passed away, they turned into spirits. The Silver Race came after the Gold had passed. They were not like the Gold at all. They refused to worship the Gods. In return the were sent to the underworld by the Gods, when they died.
The next of the races is the Bronze Race. They were ruled by Zeus and were very violent and warlike people. They were so bad, in fact, they ended up over time slowly killing each other. In the end they had created their own demise. The next of these races are the Demi- Gods. They were people who believed themselves to be half God, and half Human. They like the Bronze people, were very violent and warlike. Many of them died in battle with each other. Those who survived were brought by the Gods to “Blessed Islands.” The last and worst of the Races was the Iron Race. They were unjust, evil, and the absolute worst of all the races. They had a terrible relationship with the Gods. They were so bad that the gods created troubles and problems for the race. This race is supposed to be the human race. In Hesiod’s, opinion he despised this race and called them hopeless, even though he was also part of the race.
Within the Book Works and Days, Hesiod writes about the people of earth and the Gods themselves. He writes about each and every race that has walked the earth, and their relation to the Gods and to each other. He believed that as humanity went on, the worse things would get. He believed the Future would spell out doom for the races of humanity. He believed that the past was better than the future and that things would only get worse.
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