(after Hesiod)

Those who adhere to nature’s laws are spared a fall. No hunger brings them to their knees. They’ll have their fill at harvest homes. Earth will bestow a rich reward.

Their oakheads swell with acorns. Their oakhearts swarm with honey bees.

Peter Fallon’s widely acclaimed translation of The Georgics of Virgil appeared in 2004. A subsequent edition was published by Oxford in its World’s Classics series. Now he turns his hand to a poem by Hesiod (c.700 bce) which was a model for Virgil’s ‘song of the earth’.

In his rendition of the work commonly referred to as Works and Days the energy of his sprightly verses propels a version of man’s origins, an ancient almanac, a store of instructions for the best way to live on earth and the drama of the poet’s address to, and condemnation of, his brother, Perses.

Peter Fallon’s skills as a translator have never been more clear.