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PROLOGE

The loving regard of Eirene manifests the proper relation of peace, the generating charity of prosperity, a generation founded on love. So does Hesiod expresses it to us at the dawn of Western culture.

The experience of peace that the Greek goddess inspires appears difficult to explicate it in philosophical words. Because eof this, the Prologue to this essay is simple the image of Eirene and Plutos. The suggesting iconicity of peace through the sensual materiality impresses on the mind in an unique and direct mode the intimate relation between peace and work, prosperity, common welfare, the especial activity of peace. I do not believe possible to exceed the evidence of this image by means of speculation. But, it has always been prevailing in civilization to develop the notion of peace, linked to work.

I believe that Philosophy is an inquisition, going beyond the personal or social justification. In this sense it is critical. And it is so regarding a possible reality always active. The real is act since Aristotle. Reality is activity. The productive and generating activity is labour, the task tat Increases an ephemeral and evanescent reality.

My investigation will search for peace, underlying the mutual relation with work.

I question that peace be immobility or mere repose and that work be suffering or chastisement. If history modelled thus these words, both founded on a pact, I think it is not necessary to confine peace to not activity (for example, pure contemplation) and labour to an ailing or expiatory task.

It could be intuited that it is presumptuous or arrogant to speak of reality as if it would exist the possibility of stating finally what it is the real. The human being intends science, being truly only an artist; the conjecture is his major approach to totality. The truth is undiscussable, even when it does not eixst absolutely; it is never late to recognize it. These hypotheses found the investigation about peace and work, criticizing notions considered as evident.

Reality is activity; and, perhaps, when one comprehends peace as quietness one cancels its energy. Labour allows the human reality of civilization and culture: it is not a simple suffering that would deserve to be obviated by leisure. Creativity and generation sprang from the task and performing activity; the civilizations are born out of the intelligent task of human being associated in the production of worldviews, possible due to the harmony of peace ( not only from peace and work understood as contract of pact).

Even in Physics, the energy is associated to work. Even in the quietness of contemplation, called peace, there is an active centre that allows it (God or Idea). Work and peace, implying each other, do not limit themselves to an agreement. Peace is the relating and generating activity, unfinished human task, utopia.

INTRODUCTION

Peace is utopia. Before the unquietness and the din of war, the serene gaze of Eirene expresses the relation of peace, founded in love.

The introduction of this essay is the image pf the goddess pf Peace, effectuating a non discursive beginning. The classical artistic interpretation simply shows in a glance, the intimate reference between peace and work. The image communicates the generating energy and prosperity proper to these principles. It also allows and convokes, to the daily labour (without the need of distinguishing between material and intellectual task), overcoming the notions of pact and contract generally associated with peace and work. It evinces that peace is not reduced to non aggression, nor labour to the technique or the art.

The image of Eirene transmits a comprehension of peace as concord and not merely a state arising from the cessation or war or truce. Peace is generating abundance, which, according with Hesiod and Isocrates, springs from work.

Homer depicts the scenes of peace and its prosperity in the shield which Hephaistos forged for Achilles (1). Hesiod refers her images in the shield of Herakles. Both texts include the artistic image of Eirene and Ploutos representing richness.

It is noteworthy that the sisters of Eirene are Dike (Justice) and Eunomia (Order, Harmony) and that she herself is the daughter of Zeus and Themis (Divine Justice), according to Hesiod (2).

A hymn of the V century says: “Peace gives birth of noble wealth... there is no din of bronze trumpets, and sleep, honey for the mind, still soothing the heart at daybreak is not pillaged from men´s eyelids... the songs of boys rise like flames”, in a similar way to the statement of Plutarch remembering the saying “in times of peace men are awaken by cocks, not by trumpets” (3). The comprehension of peace implied in that time in the charms of the sweetness of honey and the pious sacrifices to the gods (4).

Hesiod says that Peace edifies cities and their habitants flourish (5).

In the temple of Apollo, the Hymn to Peace had a liturgical function at the ceremonies (6).

Martius de Jesus observes that “the established association of peace with wealth achieved great importance during the fifth century B:C:” (7), quoting the lost tragedy Cresophonte, which invokes Peace with her deepness of wealth to hinder Strife which takes pleasure in iron (8). That is to say, peace is prosperity. Peace gathers dances, flowers, abundance,

According to María Dolores Mirón Pérez, “la Paz, en su limitada y tradicional acepción de “ausencia de guerra” o – “paz negativa”... abarcaba un sistema conceptual y simbólico amplio”. Eirene was the friend of parties (9). Who assured agriculture, generation, and fertility (10). The development of culture, stability, equilibrium, and prosperity were included in peace (11).

Even in the reduced sense of peace as pact, the activity and task of agreeing is supposed.

Eirene sweetly looks at his divine son Ploutos, who announce the abundance with his plenty agricultural cornucopia, the task of concord. One of the Horae (divinities of time and fertility), ruled even agricultural and civic rythms of a society eminently agricultural, protecting the crops.

The sculpture work of Cephisodotus (370 a.D.), showing Eirene with her son Ploutos in her arms, reveals aspects of peace that the contemporary hippie symbols limits to love. The gestureof Eirene ,ay proogue the discourses of Hesiod and Isocrates, linking work and peace.

I believe it is important to remember that the noun “peace” derives from the Latin pax-pacis, related with pascisci, verb which signifies “to accord” or “make a treat”; from its participle pactum come “pact” and “payment”. It designates a period of stability and without war, as also the personal and social tranquillity, the absence of unrest, violence, conflict and disturb. The Hebrew term Shalom indicates a state of spiritual and material welfare coming from God. The Pax Romana, gained during the High Empire, is applied to situations in which the military power exerts its hegemony. With Christianism, Jesus is the Princip of Peace, announcing the quietness or rest in God of the evangelic community, without enemies and founded on the charity of the Spirit.

Regarding the noun “trabajo” in Spanish, “travail” in French and English, “travaglio” in Italian, it derives from the Latin word tripalium or trepalium. This word named a torture instrument or clamp which consisted in three stakes (tri palus). Because of this it pointed to a disagreeable situation or experience, especially that which implied a quantity of hard work or effort. According to the RAE, “trabajo” is a manual or intellectual activity performed for an economic compensation, implying a pact or treat. The word job translates to English this monetary connotation.

Different are the characteristics of the word “work, “Werk” in German, from an Indoeuropean root shared with the Greek ergon or activity, and it is opposed to leisure. It refers to a discreet act made by someone, a voluntary or requested action, a procedure or business, a manufacturing, a labour, an occupation.

I wish to observe that the term “trabajo”, in opposition to “work”, is related to the torture of slaves, to slave work, the suffering and penalty, the ailment of which the free citizen is exempt (who may dedicate himself to contemplation and politics, in the Antique World). The noun “trabajo” is essentially coloured with the idea of pity, chastisement and disagreement. It does not happen the same with the word “work”(12). It is noteworthy the research of Max Weber regarding the sense of work in the northern capitalism (13). One may comprehend in the word “work” not only the idea of contract, retribution, but also the ones of productivity and abundance which we find in the image of Eirene. Thus, peace and work intertwine themselves.

Because of what has been said, this essay starts from the experience that the image of Eirene and her son allows. It is a philosophical research about peace and work, in an expositive and historical mode. It will conclude with a reference to utopia, since the possibility of peace demands an effective material and ethical task of accretable, perfectible, critical exigence.

1. HESIOD

Hesiod (VIII BC,) is the first to consider the myth of Eirene in his Theogony (14).

His concern fir peace and work is clear in The Works and the Days (15). Work of piety, it opens with an invocation to the Muses of Pieria expressing his loath to Zeus (16). Addressed to his brother Perses in a counselling style, it distinguishes at the beginning two kinds of Strife, one of them being criticizable. The other one, eldest daughter of the dark Night, is more friendly to men; she hastens the human being to be looking forward for richness and directs them to work, not to war (17). In this way, Hesiod urges Perses not to abandon himself to the bad Strife, who would refrain hum from working (18).

Hesiod observes that the Gods keep hidden to men the means of life. Were it not so, work would be sufficiently ease to obtain a whole year of supplies even without work. He describes the myth of Prometheus and the fire in order to explain this fact:

“Zeus in the anger of his heart hid it, because Prometheus the crafty deceived him, therefore he planned sorrow and mischief against men... He hid fire, but the most noble son of Iapetus stole it again for men from Zeus, the counsellor in a hollow fennel stalk, so that Zeus who delights in thunder did not see”(19).

Prometheus, creator of humanity from clay, stole Zeus the fire allowing the technique or art of metals. Zeus, angry, responds to this deed augurating:

“Son of Iapetus, surpassing in all cunning, you are glad you have... stolen fire, a real plague to you... and to men shall be... I wil give men as the price for fire an evil thing which they may all be glad of hrat... while they embrace their own destruction”(20).

Fire turns up to be the destruction and doom of of man. Zeus orders to Hephaistos to mix earth and water and put it in the voice and strength of human race, modelling a sweet and beautiful woman, similar to the goddesses. He asks Athenea that she teaches her to sew and knit , and to the golden Aphrodite that she infuses her grace and zeal, and to Hermes that he gives her of a shameless soul and a deceitful nature (21). And he calls her Pandora, sending her to Epimetheus. Prometheus warns him not to accept any of her presents, but he understood it when it was late (22).

“Men lived... free from ill and hard toil... for in misery men grow old quickly. But the woman took of the great lid of the jar... and scattered all these and her thought caused sorrow and mischief to men. Only hope remained there. Countless plagues wander amongst men; for earth is full of evils and the sea is full... So there is no way to escape the will of Zeus”(23).

Hesiod expresses that it is impossible to escape the will of Zeus. The myth of Pandora, who opens the box liberating all possible unfortune, aging man through suffering and work, shows that only hope remains, the only gift which remains inside the chest.

Thus, work is a sorrow that man must endure with spirit. In the same way, this idea is comprehended in Christian culture.

Hesiod observes that the gods and the mortals spring from the same stream (24). In a first period, the Olympian gods made a race of gold of mortal men who lived in the time of Chronos as gods without sadness and free from work and disgrace. They lived in peace. At death they were caught by a dream. They were rich in cattle and loved by saint gods (25). Then, the gods made a second race of silver, less noble. They were like children, and their disgrace was due to their silliness, without piety towards the immortals. Zeus, angry, put them apart because of this (26). Zeus made a third race of bronze, sprung out of ash trees, terrible and strong. They loved the pitiful works of Ares, the violent deeds. They did not nourish out of bread. Their heart was hard, fearful. Armed with bronze shields they were unconquerable; they reached the Hades: taken by the Black Death, they left the bright light of the sun (27). Zeus still even made another race, the fourth, out of the fruitful earth. Nobler and more just, it was the race of the semidivine heroes, before the human one. They were partially destroyed by war and terrible battles (28). Zeus made them live at the end of earth, not reachable by pain. Hesiod says, in his mythological history of mortal ages:

“And again, far seeing Zeus made yet another generation, the fifth, of men who are upon... earth.. now is a race of iron and never rest from labour and sorrow by day, and from perishing by night... the gods lay trouble upon them... even these have some food mingled with their evils”(29).

So, Zeus makes a fifth race, the one of iron. The mortals suffer from work without rest and from pain, dying by night. They have certain goodness mixed with an evil will. Zeus destroys them because because of their oblivion in caring about old persons and of piety. They envious and violent (30).

The myth of Prometheus, of Pandora, the human ages found in this work the following statements to Perses regarding peace and work. The observations of Hesiod, even from a primitive, mythological, Olympian worldview in an agricultural, seacraft, warlike age, persist in a noteworthy way. They root peace in daily work and labour in serenity.

Hesiod advieses to Perses:
“Perses, do not foster violence, for violence is bad for a poor man. Even the prosperous cannot easily bear its burden but he is weighed down under it, when he has fallen into the delusion the better path is to go by on the others towards justice, for justice beats outrage”(31).

Violence is a burden so much for the poor as for the rich one; and, it is an illusion to believe that it may lead towards justice. But only when the fool has suffered it , he may learn it (32). When one does not stay apart from the just, the city flourishes, the people thrive (33).

“peace, the nurse of children,... and all seeing Zeus never decrees cruel war against them. Neither famine nor disaster ever haunt men who do justice... but they happily tend their fields which all their care” (34).