Comparison of Works and Days with The Eumenides

"How does the view of ethical cause and effect in history in Works and Days compare with the furies' view in The Eumenides?"

     In both Works and days and The Eumenides, we see a clear view of ethical sanctions.  Works and days gives instructions on how to live a good life and it also talks about the repercussions of living a morally wrong life.  The same goes for The Eumenides, although it is more so showing the negative sanctions instead of telling you about the good ones.

     One of the first similarities that I notice between these two pieces of literature is that they both have very distinct characteristics as far as revenge is concerned.  In Works and Days it talks about how it's alright to seek out revenge if the person has wronged you. The same goes for The Eumenides.  In The Eumenides, Orestes is being tried to see if he was in the right when he sought out revenge on his mother who killed Orestes' father.  This is one of the distinct characteristics that I talked about a second ago.  In this play we see that it was completely acceptable to commit murder in the name of revenge.

     Another similarity that I see is how in Works and Days it talks about finding a good wife.  It says that if you don't, then you will reap the consequences.  We can see this played out in The Eumenides.  In The Eumenides, Agamemnon's wife was Clytemnestra.  She committed adultery and then killed her husband.  In the view of Hesiod, the writer of Works and days, Clytemnestra would have been considered a bad wife.


     The furies did not see Clytemnestra as a "bad" wife.  They saw her as taking completely just revenge.  This is one of the places where the course of ethical cause and effect in Works and Days varies with the view of the furies in The Eumenides.

     We also see that both the furies' view and the view of ethical cause and effect in Works and Days agree with one another on the topic of "Honesty is the best policy".  In Works and Days, Hesiod says to be honest.  When asked to testify, the furies are honest about what Orestes did to his mother and Orestes is honest about why he killed her.  The furies in this situation agree with Works and Days because of the presence of honesty.

     Now I would like to compare the furies' view with the view of ethical cause and effect in Works and days on the subject of hard work.  In Works and Days, Hesiod says that hard work pays off.  We can see the furies' hard work paying off in The Eumenides when they became respected gods.  No, Orestes wasn't found guilty, but they did receive fame and honor from the city of Athens.

     As you can see, there are many similarities between these two works of art.  I encourage you to take a look at them yourself and see if you are able to find any more similarities/non-similarities between them.

Thank you for reading, and please let me know what you think!