Use the following persistent identifier: http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Petropoulos.Heat_and_Lust.1994.
Appendix 2. On Zephyros (WD 594)
Ζεφυρίη πνείουσα τὰ μὲν φύει, ἄλλα δὲ πέσσει.
ὄγχνη ἐπ’ ὄγχνῃ γηράσκει, μῆλον δ’ ἐπὶ μήλῳ,
αὐτὰρ ἐπὶ σταφυλῇ σταφυλή, σῦκον δ’ ἐπὶ σύκῳ.
But Zephyros, always
blowing, makes some fruit grow, while others it ripens.
Pear after pear grows old, apple after apple,
grape cluster after grape cluster, fig after fig.
The burgeoning of crops is an implicit theme of Hesiod’s festival scene. The allusion to Zephyros at WD 594 serves as a pointed reminder that this wind in particular has been instrumental to the success of the cereal harvest; hence the reposing farmer gratefully faces westward. An attitude of thankfulness makes good sense also because an archaic farmer would be well aware of the potentially devastating effects of Zephyros, particularly on the cereal crop:
λάβρος ἐπαιγίζων, ἐπί τ’ ἠμύει ἀστάχυεσσιν,
ὣς τῶν πᾶσ’ ἀγορὴ ἐκινήθη.
rushing on in violence, and the field bends with its stalks,
just so the entire throng moved.
This wind, too, cools the heroic dead (cf. ἀναψύχειν ἀνθρώπους, Odyssey 4.568) in the Elysian fields, and presumably does the same to Hesiod’s farmer at midsummer. [3]
Footnotes