HESIODUS. Hesiodi Ascraei Quae exstant, ex recensione Joannis Georgii Graevii. Cum ejusdem animadversionibus & notis auctioribus. Accedit commentarius nunc primum editus Joannis Clerici, et Notae Variorum, scilicet Josephi Scaligeri, Danielis Heinsii, Francisci Guieti, & Stephani Clerici, ac Danielis Heinsii introductio in doctrinam Operum et Dierum. Nec non index Georgii Pasoris. Amsterdam (Amstelodami), Apud G. Gallet, praefectum Typographiae Huguetanorum, 1701. 8vo. 2 volumes in 1: (XXVI),351,(1);(VIII),326 p., frontispiece, 2 folding plates. Vellum. 21 cm (Ref: STCN ppn 23618525X; Hoffmann 2,250; Brunet 3,141; Graesse 3,263; Ebert 9604: 'it is scarce and belongs to the series 'cum notis Variorum'; Dibdin 2,35; Moss 1,470/71) (Details: Greek text and parallel Latin translation. Boards with blind stamped decoration. Title printed in red & black. The frontispiece depicts a bucolic scene with group of nymphs, one of them giving a branch of a palm to a shepherd. The plates have as subject the plough and other farmer's tools. Volume 2 contains also 120 pages with extensive notes to Hesiod by Graevius, and the Introduction of 64 pages to the 'Works and Days' by Daniel Heinsius. At the end a 140 page index) (Condition: Vellum soiled. Head & tail of spine somewhat chafed. Upper hinge cracking, but strong. Both pastedowns discoloured and detached. Name erased from the front pastedown, resulting into a small hole. Front flyleaf removed. All 4 decorative fastening ribbons gone. First title slightly finger soiled) (Note: Hesiodus from Askra, a small town in Boiotia, born ca. 775 BC, is one of Greek's oldest poets. His poems are in Homeric hexameters and show his interest in ethics and systematization. His work was known throughout antiquity to rhapsodes, scholars and schoolboys. The Byzantines compiled scholia from ancient commentaries for elucidation. The Renaissance did not quite appreciate him. Until 1667 circa 18 editions of his 'opera omnia' were published, not much. Hesiod's reception chiefly concerns myths and the motifs that he provides, and these motifs certainly appealed to mythographers, historians of religion, poets and painters. 'Hesiodic details of myth saturate European epic and mythopoeic writings, perhaps most spectacular in Dante, Milton, Blake (...) who make much of Hesiod's infernal regions, his Titans and primordial monsters, his giant battles'. (The Classical Tradition, N.Y, 2010, p. 435) Of Hesiod survives his 'Theogonia' or 'Theogony', which 'deals with the origin and genealogy of the gods (...) and the events that led to the kingship of Zeus: the castration of Uranos by Kronos and the overthrow of Kronos and the Titans by the Olympians' (OCD, 2nd ed., p. 510) The 'Works and Days' or 'Erga kai Hêmerai' of Hesiod, which was always most read, has been called a 'gospel of labour'. The poet recommends the hard and honest life of a farmer. He 'inveighs against dishonesty and idleness by turns, using myth (...) parable, allegory and threats of divine anger. (...) The poem as a whole is a unique source for social conditions in early archaic Greece.' (Idem, p. 511) The third poem that has survived is the 'Shield', or 'Aspis', a short narrative poem on Heracles' fight with Cycnus, a bloodthirsty son of the god Ares. It derives its name from the long description of Heracles' shield. § 'Artists have never abandoned a fascination with Hesiod on the Muses. In the 19th century the artist Gustave Moreau created many visual representations of their initiation of the poet. Both Rubens and Goya painted famous and harrowing pictures of Kronos (Saturn) devouring one of his children, a motif from the Theogony; William Blake engraved a series after drawings by his friend John Flaxman (...). Georges Braque chose the 'Theogony' as the subject of 20 etchings'. (The Classical Tradition, N.Y., 2010, p. 436) § This edition of 1701 is, except for a short 'dedicatio' and 'ad lectorem' at the beginning of volume 1, the work of the Dutch/Swiss scholar Johannes Clericus, or Jean Le Clerc, 1657-1736, mainly a reissue of the Hesiod edition of 1667 that was produced by the Dutch classical scholar of German descent Johann Georg Greffe, better known as Graevius, 1632-1703, professor of Latin at the University of Utrecht during the last forty years of his life. The Hesiod was his only edition of a Greek classic. Graevius limited his attention mainly to writers of Latin prose, and primarily to Cicero. Graevius corrected the text of the 'Works and Days' with the help of two manuscripts owned by Isaac Vossius. One them contained commentary of Tzetzes. From the French scholar Emericus Bigotius he received annotations of J.J. Scaliger and Franciscus Guietus. The first volume contains the Greek text revised by Graevius, and a corrected Latin translation. The second Graevius' own annotations and the observations of Scaliger and Guietus, and the 'Introductio' to the 'Works and Days' of the Dutch scholar Daniel Heinsius)) (Provenance: On the verso of the front flyleaf 'Ex libris H.J. Borgers'. And on the flyleaf in the rear: 'Wilhelmus Henricus Wicherlink 1741, verus hujus libri possessor'. One H.J. Borgers published in 1826 in Leiden a dissertation: 'Specimen Academicum Inaugurale exhibens Recensionem et Interpretationem M. Tullii Ciceronis Paradoxorum ad M. Brutum'. One H.J. Borgers (the same or his father?) retired in 1854 as prorector of the Gymnasium of Nijmegen, where he started his teaching career in 1819. § Dr. Willem Hendrik Wicherlinck, 1728-1808, belonged to the elite of the Dutch city of Zwolle. He was a member of the 'Raad van Zwolle' between 1770 and 1795, and a member of 'Gedeputeerde Staten van Overijssel' for Zwolle between 1784 and 1795) (Collation: pi1 (frontispiece), *8 (minus blank leaf *8), 2*6; A-Y8, 2*4, 2A-V8, 2X4 (leaf 2X4 blank) (The catchword on leaf *7 verso regularly connects to the following page **1 recto)) (Photographs on request)
Book number: 130356 Euro 250.00

Keywords: (Oude Druk), (Rare Books), Dutch imprints, Greek literature, Greek text, Griechische Literatur, Hesiod, Hesiodus, Latin translation, antike altertum antiquity, epic