> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.urantia.dev/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Hesiod API

> Hesiod API: get any passage by its reference, as JSON. Hugh G. Evelyn-White, 1914. 171 passages, public domain, no key needed.

The API serves **Hesiod: Theogony and Works and Days** (Hugh G. Evelyn-White, 1914) as JSON, one passage at a time, by the reference people use. Hesiod's poems of the birth of the gods and of the life of work. It has 171 passages in 2 poems. No key and no account.

## Get a passage

```bash theme={null}
# Theogony 116-138
curl https://api.urantia.dev/scriptures/hesiod/Theogony%20116
```

```json theme={null}
{
  "data": {
    "corpus": {
      "slug": "hesiod",
      "title": "Hesiod: Theogony and Works and Days",
      "translator": "Hugh G. Evelyn-White",
      "year": 1914
    },
    "passages": [
      {
        "ref": "Theogony 116-138",
        "division": 1,
        "text": "Verily at the first Chaos came to be, but next wide-bosomed Earth, the ever-sure foundations of all the deathless ones who hold the peaks of snowy Olympus, and dim Tartarus in the depth of the wide-pathed Earth, and..."
      }
    ]
  }
}
```

The slug `hesiod`, the id `hesiod-evelyn-white-1914`, and the prefix `hesiod` all name this text.

## References

Poem and line, `Theogony 116` or `Works and Days 293`. A passage covers a range of lines, such as `Works and Days 293-319`.

`GET /scriptures/hesiod` lists every poem with its first and last reference.

## Search

```bash theme={null}
# By meaning
curl -X POST https://api.urantia.dev/scriptures/search/semantic \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"q":"your question","corpus":"hesiod","limit":5}'
# By keyword
curl 'https://api.urantia.dev/works/search?q=your%20words&work=hesiod'
```

Each passage also links to the closest paragraphs of the Urantia Papers: `GET /scriptures/hesiod/Theogony%20116/urantia-parallels`. The [world religions guide](https://docs.urantia.dev/scriptures.md) explains how the links are made, and the [MCP server](https://docs.urantia.dev/mcp-servers.md) has the same calls for AI agents.

## Source

* **Text:** Hesiod: Theogony and Works and Days, translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White (1914)
* **Source:** [www.gutenberg.org](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/348)
* **License:** Public domain in the United States
* **Notes:** The prose translation, cut where Evelyn-White marks the Greek line numbers (Theogony 116-138). The Shield of Heracles and the fragments of the lost poems are not here.


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