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REMAINS OF HESIOD.
The tenth propitious lends its natal ray
To men, to gentle maids the fourteenth day:
Tame too thy sheep on this auspicious morn,
And steers of flexile hoof and wreathed horn,
And labour-patient mules; and mild command
Thy sharp-tooth’d dog with smoothly flattering hand.
The fourth and twenty-fourth no grief should prey
Within thy breast, for holy either day.
Fourth of the moon lead home thy blooming bride,
And be the fittest auguries descried.
Beware the fifth[1], with horror fraught and wo:
’Tis said the furies walk their round below
Avenging the dread oath; whose awful birth
From discord rose, to scourge the perjured earth.
To men, to gentle maids the fourteenth day:
Tame too thy sheep on this auspicious morn,
And steers of flexile hoof and wreathed horn,
And labour-patient mules; and mild command
Thy sharp-tooth’d dog with smoothly flattering hand.
The fourth and twenty-fourth no grief should prey
Within thy breast, for holy either day.
Fourth of the moon lead home thy blooming bride,
And be the fittest auguries descried.
Beware the fifth[1], with horror fraught and wo:
’Tis said the furies walk their round below
Avenging the dread oath; whose awful birth
From discord rose, to scourge the perjured earth.
- ↑ Beware the fifth.] Virgil copies this, as well as some other of these superstitions, Georg. i. 275:For various works behold the moon declare
Some days more fortunate: the fifth beware:
Pale Orcus and the Furies then sprang forth—
•••••••••••••••
Next to the tenth the seventh to luck inclines
For taming oxen and for planting vines:
Then best her woof the prudent housewife weaves:
Better for flight the ninth; averse to thieves.
Warton.
