TFBT: West's Hesiodic Catalogue

I am re-reading M.L. West’s The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women.  This must be a really good book because I just finished it and started all over again.  In case you are wondering about the title; Hesiod composed a sequel to the Theogony.  It is called The Catalogue of Women.  There is no intact copy of this five volume work by Hesiod.  There are many fragments, which West has tried to arrange in the correct order.   

Hermione’s Birth

Today I was reading West comments about the finale of this work;

“Menelaus is born; Helen is born (unexpectedly¹ ); everyone needed for the Trojan War is born…Menelaus got Helen, and she bore Hermione…The moment Hermione’s birth has been registered, there is an abrupt switch to the gods.  They were riven with dissension because of Zeus’ great plan to stir up a war, destroy large numbers of men and remove the sons of the gods to live apart in the paradise conditions they had enjoyed in the beginning.”

The fatal Oath of Tyndareus and the abduction of Helen, which would ignite the war, were separated by six plus year. I always assumed this was because; Homer/Zeus was waiting for Achilles to be old enough to enter the war or the sudden and coincidental death of Menelaus’ grandfather was the first chance Homer/Zeus had to arrange a romance. But this fragment (204.94ff) suggests that Hermione’s birth suddenly triggered Zeus’ Plan.  Why did Hermione’s birth stir up dissension? 

A Fundamental Change in the Conditions of Life

What follows are his comments about Book 5.201 (Fragment 240.95). 

“What follows is astonishing.  So far as we can understand it, it describes not the abduction of Helen and the consequent outbreak of the war, but a fundamental change in the condition of life.  Man was no longer to enjoy the easy abundance of hitherto.  He was to be forced to sail about the seas, to adopt a trading economy, Apollo observed with pleasure as people busied themselves to keep their children from starvation…Gales blew from the north, bending the forest and bringing down their leaves and fruits, making the seas crash on the shore with terrifying force, wearing down human strength and devastates the growing crops.”    

I have found no copy of Fragment 204 anywhere except for the discussion of Hermione’s Birth in Gonzalez’s article.  But, I think we can rely on West’s summary here.  Mythologically speaking we can blame the Theban and Trojan War for the “historical” Bronze Age Collapse and Hellenic Dark Ages.  But is Hesiod introducing a mini ice-age here? 

I will have to revisit an excellent lecture; 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed (Eric Cline, PhD) 

 

¹ Gonzalez says Hermione’s birth was “unexpected” whereas West tosses the word “abrupt” into the telling of the tale.  "Catalogue of Women" and the End of the Heroic Age (Hesiod fr. 204.94-103 M-W)