Casual thots about the passage from Hesiod that I didn't have time to include in yesterday's entry

Dear diary,

Yesterday I wanted to do nothing more than let two passages from Hesiod’s Works and Days stand next to each other. My reason for wanting to do this was as follows:

One never gets to see the Very First Mortals on the same page as the Most Recent Mortals, when reading Hesiod; one always must start with the Age of Gold, duly proceed to the Silver and Bronze Ages, then swerve over to the Generation of Heroes, and finally end at the Age of Iron. That’s the sequence that Hesiod gives us. Instead, for our own epistle, let us butt the Gold Age right against the Iron Age, so that we can stare at them and seethe.

But I screwed up when I was writing my entry, cuz I ran out of time: All I was able to do is recap the Golden Generation and then I had to sign off.

So in this present entry I wanna redeem my sins from last morning, and fulfill my promise to myself by considering the Iron Age. Yet, to remain true to my obsession, first I need to recap my recap, so that Gold and Iron may be tied to the selfsame post. As it is written: Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree. [Galatians 3:13] So, like I did before, when presenting these ideas of Hesiod, I’ll either quote or paraphrase Richmond Lattimore’s translation:

As we established, the story starts back in exteen hundred B.Z. (Before Zeus, in the days when Kronos was the ruler of heaven.) The immortals on Mount Olympus created the first age of humankind, a “golden generation of mortal people”. These folks of the Gold Age lived like gods, with sorrow-free hearts. No hard work; no pain. Their bodies did not age or suffer signs of decay. Life for them was a constant festival, free from all trouble. Even when they died, “it was as if they fell asleep.” They had everything desireable. “The fruitful grainland yielded its harvest to them of its own accord.” They spent their days in quiet pleasure, looking after their interests amid all these good things. They owned plentiful livestock. And they remained on friendly terms with the immortals.

Then when this gold generation passed away, they became “pure and blessed spirits”. In this spiritual form, they continue to live upon earth, beneficently monitoring and protecting mortals: they provide free legal aid (“keep watch over lawsuits”), and help out with “hard dealings”. They travel all over the place; but it’s difficult to see them, because they shroud their appearance “in dark mist”. They were also granted the right to make folks wealthy.

My own reaction to this initial generation is plain and simple envy. I want to turn time back and join them in their pre-phantom heyday.

Now, for the sake of brutal contrast, let us skip ahead to the Iron Age: the latest generation of mortal people (5th of 5, at the time when Hesiod’s poem was composed). This is the age that Hesiod himself occupies. Here’s how he broaches the subject:

I wish that I were not any part
   of the fifth generation
of men, but had died before it came,
   or been born afterward.

In my previous entry, I spoke of this last age as the same one that we who live now, in the 2019th Year of our Lord Zeus, endure. Yet, upon considering the above wish of Hesiod, that he had either died before that constituency arose or had been born afterward, I wonder whether he himself would catalog modern humans as a continuation of his Iron Age, or if he’d consider us a yet-unlisted other-life. Nonetheless, I will go on speaking of us contemporaries as belonging to the Iron Age of Hesiod, for two reasons:

1. When you read what Hesiod says about his own generation, it perfectly matches our modern-day existence.
2. Since, compared to the Iron Age, the present is just as awful or perhaps even awfuller, it would make no sense for Hesiod to wish that he had been born in the same hospital as you and I, and gotten his crib situated between yours and mine: because that would sustain, if not escalate, his hard luck; and it is in defiance of logic to suppose that Hesiod is anything other than a sensible wisher.

So I’ll continue speaking of today’s generation as a continuation of Hesiod’s. Now therefore here is what he says about OUR PRESENT AGE (again, I’m restating Lattimore’s version):

In the Age of Iron, there is no end to misfortune. It’s nothing but hard work and pain: every day, all day. And then, when night comes, instead of rest, the gods send us anxiety and weariness.

Admittedly tho, there are a few small good things mixt in with this age’s abundant evils.

But here’s the best news: Zeus will destroy this generation. And here’s how the age shall appear when it’s time for its end:

Children, soon after they are born, will grow gray on the temples. Parents will neglect their kids, and kids will turn against their own parents. Houseguests and hosts also will be enemies of each other. Your own brother will no longer be your friend. When the children grow up, they’ll repeal their elderly parents’ rights, and they’ll mock each other, and each side will bitterly deride the other. The children will refuse to pay back their parents for years of nurture; they will say: “Our parents availed us nothing; fuck them.”

Commerce and trade shall devolve to a question of “How much can I strong-arm from the downtrodden?” Extract what you can steal. It’s all a game of siege warfare.

Are you as good as your word; do you keep your promises? Then you’re a sucker. No one respects fair play. The trick is to get ahead by any means. Duplicity is cleverness: it’s a savvy business practice. Ethics?—don’t make us laugh. The end justifies the means; the only thing people respect is WINNING.

All praise military might. There is no law but violence. Peacekeeping equals weakness.

The vile man will crowd his better out, attack him with twisted accusations, and broadcast his slander under oath.

Envy with be mankind’s common denominator. Decency and respect will forsake the entire race. All that will be left to mortals is wretched pain. And there shall be no defense against evil.

Well, there you go. That’s Hesiod’s take on modernity. It strikes me as familiar. Especially the auguries of expiry. But, unlike his accounts of the other metallic ages, Hesiod refrains from revealing what will happen in this Iron Age’s aftermath, once “the earth has gathered over” this generation. Probably cuz the age hadn’t yet ended. But the insinuation is that another age will take its place, as that’s what happened to every epoch since the golden-folk. But how many more metals might there be? Gold Silver Bronze Iron and…?

I say the next generation should be the Plastic Age. Those folks will have the distinction of being born dead. Pure spirits of pure fire. Then the current Olympians will get ousted. I wonder who will be heaven’s christ after Zeus. Will the offspring of the upcoming generation of immortals seize control of the heavenly kingdom, the way that Zeus and his confrères stole it from Kronos? Or does the rule keep toggling between the same couple regimes? — I vote that we hand the reins back to Mr. Chaos himself: the very first of the gods to stagger forth. (I waste my vote cuz I got no choice.)