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There are two kinds of Eris, or strife. One breeds war and lawsuits. The other drives a lazy man to work when he sees his neighbor growing rich, so potter envies potter and craftsman envies craftsman. Competition is harmful when it seizes what others have and useful when it pushes you to match what they produce.
Prometheus stole fire from Zeus. In return Zeus sent Pandora, a beautiful gift whose jar released toil, sickness and sorrow on humankind, leaving only Hope trapped inside. The myth explains why the gods hid humanity's livelihood: food that once came without effort now has to be worked for, and every clever gain brings a matching cost.
Human history runs through five races: Gold, Silver, Bronze, Heroes and Iron. Each loses more of its piety, justice and ease of life, except the Heroes, who break the pattern with a brief improvement. The present Iron Age is marked by broken oaths, children who dishonor parents, and might making right.
A hawk carries off a nightingale in its talons and tells her that her crying is pointless, because the stronger does what it likes and the weaker who resists only adds shame to pain. Hesiod gives this fable to the bribe-eating lords, then turns it around. The law of force belongs to animals, and Zeus gave humans justice so they would not devour one another.
A city whose judges give straight verdicts to citizens and strangers alike flourishes: there is peace, full harvests, and children who resemble their fathers. When crooked judgments are taken for bribes, Zeus's punishment falls on the whole community through famine, plague and barren women. One corrupt man can bring ruin on an entire city, because justice acts as the shared infrastructure of collective welfare.
The farming calendar ties each task to natural signals: plough when the cranes call, reap when the Pleiades rise, prune before the swallow returns. Success depends less on raw effort than on acting at the right moment, since the man who puts off work always wrestles with ruin. Seen this way, labor becomes a question of reading cues and refusing to procrastinate, and the question of how hard to work matters less.