CHAPTER TWO
5.7 Ethics of acquiring wealth: why work?
The question why people should work is addressed by Hesiod in the myth of Prometheus and Zeus at Mecone (Theog. 535‒616) where the two gods come into conflict over the division of meat (an ox). Here emphasis is placed on the fact that the Fall of Man is first premised on meat.
If one attempts to reconcile the two Prometheus passages from Theogony and Works and Days, one quickly notes that in the story of Pandora, (Op. 42‒105), Hesiod categorically states that the reason why man should work is because κρύψαντες γὰρ ἔχουσι θεοὶ βίον ἀνθρώποισιν, ‘the gods have hidden the means of production from mankind’ on account of Prometheus’ favour of giving fire (to cook the meat) to humanity.51 Prometheus’ trick on Zeus marks the first separation of
50 Interview held at Diba village, Zimbabwe, 15 April 2011.
51 Fraser (2011), 11.
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man from the gods.52 Hesiod points out that work is the lot of man, as opposed to the pre-Pandora generations where little work would be required (Op. 43‒44).
Most Archaic Age poetry seems to suggest that man has to work because the gods hate us and we must create our own wealth. As such, there is a pervading sense that in making wealth, we have to remember that the best wealth is that which is earned justly, for example (Sol., fr.i. 13.7‒8).
Therefore it exhorts man to honest labour. Indeed, John Heath notes that one of the major differences between man and the gods is that, besides being athanatoi ‘immortal’ and ‘all-knowing,’ the gods live easily while mankind lives wretchedly: the gods eat nectar and ambrosia, while mortals eat the produce of their fields; they must work.53 On the question that Socrates asks: ‘Is it good to be rich?’54 David Schaps observes that this question was never asked in Archaic Age Greece, as the answer ‘was too obvious.’55 However, one will observe that there is a general fear of excessive wealth. ‘In general, the worst thing an archaic Greek could say about wealth is that a person who was lucky enough to have it should be careful not to let it corrupt him.’56
Commenting on the Fall of Man as necessitating the need to work in traditional Chewa (Malawi) folktale, T. E. Knight mentions the story of Chiuta, whereby death comes to man via the agency of the chameleon.57 Mhlabi’s collection of Ndebele folktales Sizwe elikantulo, (‘We Heard the Lizard’s Message First’) is a book whose title derives from a similar story which explains the
52 Fraser (2011), 15‒16.
53 Heath (2005), 51. Refers to passages like Il.(21.465) and Od.(8.222; 9.89). Also Tandy & Neale (1996) talk of
‘…the universal plight of the peasantry throughout human history….’ 1.
54 Schaps (2003), 133.
55 Schaps (2003), 134.
56 Schaps (2003), 139.
57 Knight (1997).
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origins of death in a manner similar to the way in which Hesiod explains the origins of suffering through the story of Prometheus. In the Chewa and Ndebele folktales, God wished to grant human beings immortality, and sent Chameleon to take the message to the people. However, chameleon was tardy until God began to think that the people were being ungrateful. God then decided to send Lizard to go and tell human beings that they would not live forever, as a result of their ingratitude. Lizard raced to the people and delivered the message of human mortality way before Chameleon, who was still struggling to get to the humans with the good news. Finally, Chameleon got to the people with the message of the promised immortality. The people were angry at Chameleon and told him that, ‘We heard the Lizard’s message first’.
The same story is told in Kalanga by Balekang Maikano, and it features Zhayivi (Chameleon) and Tantabe (Lizard). For Maikano, the story is a way of philosophising about the origin of death.58 Unlike its Mediterranean counterparts, the African story does not explicitly say that man will have to work in atonement for his transgression. The difference between the African and the Mediterranean, that is, the Old Testament and Hesiod, is that African tales do not premise this myth as the origin of work but as the origin of death.
In Maikano’s, Mhlabi’s and Knight’s accounts, the chameleon’s tardiness versus the speedy lizard can also be read as an encouragement to thrift and single-mindedness in the performance of work. The similarity between the Kalanga, Ndebele and the Chewa tales can be explained as part of the Bantu stock of folklore that seeks to explain the wretchedness of mankind, and the need to work. Commenting on such stories, John Mbiti says,
58 Maikano (1977), 1.
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‘In many myths, the lizard is featured as the messenger who brought news from God that man should die. The chameleon, on the other hand, is featured as the messenger who should have brought news of immortality or resurrection, but either lingered on the way, or altered the message slightly or stammered in delivering it. Meanwhile lizard (or another animal) arrived on the scene and delivered the tragic news’. 59
In the two traditions, one immediately notes that there is a deep sense of being away from God or the gods that necessitates the need to work. There is a deep sense in both the Greek and the African psyche that man is further from the numinous being than he previously was. For the Greeks, this distance means that man must work, among other sufferings, while for the African, this distance presages the mortality of man. There is also a resonance between such passages and the story of the Fall of Man in Genesis, thereby making this a universal feeling that characterises many cultures. Although their deployment is different and less central, one also notes the presence of animals in all the cultures in storylines of this type.
The view that work is the universal lot of man also allows for a discussion of the controversial Ἐλπίς (Hope) that remains inside after Pandora opens the lid of the jar in Hesiod Op. 96. This has been explained variously by different scholars. Commenting on the ambiguity of Ἐλπίς remaining in the πίθος, Fraser reads Hope as meaning two things: either that hope is good for man as it can help them understand their own human condition, ‘...it distinguishes men from omniscient gods who have no need for expectation, and men from beasts which are unaware of their own mortality.’ Fraser bases her conclusion on Op. 498 and 500 which reflect that Hope is indeed available and accessible to mankind. On the other hand, she says there is also a possibility
59 Mbiti (1969), 51.