C.S. Morrissey’s brilliant translations bring a modern, lyrical sensibility to Theogony and Works and Days, Hesiod’s two great poems that paved the way for subsequent achievements in Greek philosophy. Theogony tells of the first generations of the gods and recollects how Zeus established his cosmic reign of justice. Works and Days examines the two-fold role of competition in life, what Hesiod calls “the bad strife” and “the good strife” and how they affect our struggle to maintain order in the wake of chaos and the primeval void.