This commentary contains a detailed discussion of the problems of the text, its interpretation, construction, and religious and mythological background. The Prolegomena deal with the nature of theogonic literature and the forms it has taken among many peoples, the relationship between Hesiod's poem and Near Eastern myths, the principles on which his genealogies are constructed, his date, the transmission of the poem, and the language and metre both of the Theogony and of the Works and Days. The text is based on a complete view of the manuscript tradition accompanied by critical apparatus.