The Remains of Hesiod the Ascræan, including the Shield of Hercules/The Works and Days

by Charles Abraham Elton

For other English-language translations of this work, see Works and Days.

The Works and Days.

THE WORKS AND DAYS.

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The Argument.

The poem comprehends the general œconomy of industry and morals. In the first division of the subject, the state of the world, past and present, is described; for the purpose of exemplifying the condition of human nature: which entails on man the necessity of exertion to preserve the goods of life; and leaves him no alternative but honest industry or unjust violence; of which the good and evil consequences are respectively illustrated. Two Strifes are said to have been sent into the world, the one promoting dissension, the other emulation. Perses is exhorted to abjure the former and embrace the latter; and an apposite allusion is made to the circumstance of his litigiously disputing the patrimonial estate, of which, through the corruption of the judges, he obtained the larger proportion. The judges are rebuked, and cheap contentment is apostrophized as the true secret of happiness. Such is stated to have been the original sense of mankind before the necessity of labour existed. The origin of labour is deduced from the resentment of Jupiter against Prometheus; which resentment led to the formation of Pandora: or Woman: who is described with her attributes, and is represented as bringing with her into the world a casket of diseases. The degeneracy of man is then traced through successive ages. The three first ages are severally distinguished as the golden, the silver, and the brazen. The fourth has no metallic distinction, but is described as the heroic age, and as embracing the æra of the Trojan war. The fifth is styled the iron age, and, according to the Poet, is that in which he lives. The general corruption of mankind in this age is detailed, and Modesty and Justice are represented taking their flight to heaven. A pointed allusion to the corrupt administration of the laws, in his own particular instance, is introduced in a fable, typical of oppression. Justice is described as invisibly following those who violate her decrees with avenging power, and as lamenting in their streets the wickedness of a corrupted people. The temporal blessings of an upright nation are contrasted with the temporal evils which a wicked nation draws down from an angry Providence. Holy Dæmons are represented as hovering about the earth, and keeping watch over the actions of men. Justice is again introduced, carrying her complaints to the feet of Jupiter, and obtaining that the crimes of rulers be visited on their people. A pathetic appeal is then made to these rulers in their judicial capacity, urging them to renounce injustice. After some further exhortations to virtue and industry, and a number of unconnected precepts, the Poet enters on the Georgical part of his subject: which contains the prognostics of the seasons of agricultural labour, and rules appertaining to wood-felling, carpentry, ploughing, sowing, reaping, threshing, vine-dressing, and the vintage. This division of the subject includes a description of winter and of a repast in summer. He then treats of navigation: and concludes with some desultory precepts of religion, moral decorum, and superstition: and lastly, with a specification of Days: which are divided into holy, auspicious, and inauspicious: mixed and intermediary: or such as are entitled to no remarkable observance.

WORKS.

 

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I.
Come, Muses! ye, that from Pieria raise
The song of glory, sing your father's praise.
By Jove's high will th' unknown and known of fame
Exist, the nameless and the fair of name.
'Tis He with ease the bowed feeble rears,^[1]
And casts the mighty from their highest spheres:
With ease of human grandeur shrouds the ray:
With ease on abject darkness pours the day:
Straightens the crooked: grinds to dust the proud;
Thunderer on high, whose dwelling is the cloud.
Now bend thine eyes from heaven: behold and hear:
Rule thou the laws in righteousness and fear:
While I to Perses' heart would fain convey
The truths of knowledge which inspire my lay.
Two Strifes on earth of soul divided rove:
The wise will this condemn and that approve:
Accursed the one spreads misery from afar,
And stirs up discord and pernicious war:
Men love not this: yet heaven-enforced maintain
The strife abhorr'd, but still abhorr'd in vain.
The other elder rose^[2] from darksome night:
The God high-throned, who dwells in ether's light,
Fix'd deep in earth, and centred midst mankind
This better strife, which fires the slothful mind.
The needy idler sees the rich, and hastes
Himself to guide the plough, and plant the wastes:
Ordering his household: thus the neighbour's eyes
Mark emulous the wealthy neighbour rise:
Beneficent this strife's incensing zeal:
The potters angry turn the forming wheel:
Smiths beat their anvils; almsmen zealous throng,^[3]
And minstrels kindle with the minstrel's song.
Oh Perses! thou within thy secret breast
Repose the maxims by my care imprest;
Nor ever let that evil-joying strife
Have power to wean thee from the toils of life;
The whilst thy prying eyes the forum draws,
Thine ears the process, and the din of laws.
Small care be his of wrangling and debate
For whose ungather'd food the garners wait;
Who wants within the summer's plenty stored,
Earth's kindly fruits, and Ceres' yearly hoard.
With these replenish'd, at the brawling bar
For others' wealth go instigate the war.
But this thou mays't no more: let justice guide,
Best boon of heaven, and future strife decide.
Not so we shared the patrimonial land^[4]
When greedy pillage fill'd thy grasping hand:
The bribe-devouring Judges lull'd by thee
The sentence gave and stamp'd the false decree:
Oh fools! who know not in their selfish soul
How far the half is better than the whole:
The good which asphodel and mallows yield,^[5]
The feast of herbs, the dainties of the field!
The food of man in deep concealment lies:^[6]
The angry gods have hid it from our eyes.
Else had one day bestow'd sufficient cheer,
And, though inactive, fed thee through the year.
Then might thy hand have laid the rudder by,^[7]
In blackening smoke for ever hung on high;
Then had the labouring ox foregone the soil,
And patient mules had found reprieve from toil.
But Jove conceal'd our food: incensed at heart,
Since mock'd by wise Prometheus'^[8] wily art.
Sore ills to man devised the heavenly Sire,
And hid the shining element of fire.
Prometheus then, benevolent of soul,
In hollow reed the spark recovering stole;
Cheering to man; and mock'd the god, whose gaze
Serene rejoices in the lightning's blaze.
"Oh son of Japhet!" with indignant heart,
Spake the Cloud-gatherer: "oh, unmatch'd in art!
Exultest thou in this the flame retrieved,
And dost thou triumph in the god deceived?
But thou, with the posterity of man,
Shalt rue the fraud whence mightier ills began:
I will send evil for thy stealthy fire,
An ill which all shall love,^[9] and all desire.
The Sire who rules the earth and sways the pole
Had said, and laughter fill'd his secret soul:
He bade famed Vulcan with the speed of thought
Mould plastic clay with tempering waters wrought:
Inform with voice of man the murmuring tongue;
The limbs with man's elastic vigour strung;
The aspect fair as goddesses above,
A virgin's likeness with the brows of love.
He bade Minerva teach the skill, that sheds
A thousand colours in the gliding threads:
Bade lovely Venus breathe around her face
The charm of air, the witchery of grace:
Infuse corroding pangs of keen desire,
And cares that trick the form with prank'd attire:
Bade Hermes last implant the craft refined
Of thievish manners and a shameless mind.
He gives command; th' inferior powers obey:
The crippled artist moulds the temper'd clay:
By Jove's design a maid's coy image rose:
The zone, the dress,^[10] Minerva's hands dispose:
Adored Persuasion, and the Graces young,
With chains of gold^[11] her shapely person hung:
Round her smooth brow the beauteous-tressed Hours^[12]
A garland twined of spring's purpureal flowers:
The whole, Minerva with adjusting art
Forms to her shape and fits to every part.
Last by the counsels of deep-thundering Jove,
The Argicide, his herald from above,^[13]
Adds thievish manners, adds insidious lies,
And prattled speech of sprightly railleries:
Then by the wise interpreter of heaven
The name Pandora to the maid was given:
Since all in heaven conferr'd their gifts to charm,
For man's inventive race, this beauteous harm.
When now the Sire had form'd this mischief fair,
He bade heaven's messenger convey through air
To Epimetheus' hands th' inextricable snare:
Nor he recall'd within his heedless thought
The warning lesson by Prometheus taught:
That he disclaim each present from the skies,
And straight restore, lest ill to man arise:
But he received; and conscious knew too late
Th' insidious gift, and felt the curse of fate.
On earth of yore the sons of men abode,
From evil free and labour's galling load:
Free from diseases that with racking rage
Precipitate the pale decline of age.
Now swift the days of manhood haste away,
And misery's pressure turns the temples gray.
The woman's hands an ample casket bear;
She lifts the lid; she scatters ills in air.
Within th' unbroken vase^[14] Hope sole remained,
Beneath the vessel's rim from flight detained:
The maid, by counsels of cloud-gathering Jove,
The coffer seal'd and dropp'd the lid above.
Issued the rest in quick dispersion hurl'd,
And woes innumerous roam'd the breathing world:
With ills the land is rife, with ills the sea,
Diseases haunt our frail humanity:
Through noon, through night on casual wing they glide,^[15]
Silent, a voice the Power all-wise denied.
Thus mayst thou not elude th' omniscient mind:
Now if thy thoughts be to my speech inclin'd,
I in brief phrase would other lore impart
Wisely and well: thou, grave it on thy heart.
When gods alike and mortals rose to birth,
A golden race th' immortals form'd on earth
Of many-languaged men: they lived of old
When Saturn reign'd in heaven, an age of gold.
Like gods they lived, with calm untroubled mind;
Free from the toils and anguish of our kind:
Nor e'er decrepid age mishaped their frame,
The hand's, the foot's proportions still the same.
$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$Strangers to ill, their lives in feasts flow'd by:
Wealthy in flocks;^[16] dear to the blest on high:
Dying they sank in sleep, nor seem'd to die.
Theirs was each good; the life-sustaining soil
Yielded its copious fruits, unbribed by toil:
They with abundant goods midst quiet lands
All willing shared the gatherings of their hands.
When earth's dark womb had closed this race around,
High Jove as dæmons raised them from the ground.^[17]
Earth-wandering spirits they their charge began,
The ministers of good, and guards of man.
Mantled with mist of darkling air they glide,
And compass earth, and pass on every side:
And mark with earnest vigilance of eyes
Where just deeds live, or crooked wrongs arise:
Their kingly state;^[18] and, delegate from heaven,
By their vicarious hands the wealth of fields^[19] is given.
The gods then form'd a second race of man,
Degenerate far; and silver years began.
Unlike the mortals of a golden kind:
Unlike in frame of limbs and mould of mind.
Yet still a hundred years^[20] beheld the boy
Beneath the mother's roof, her infant joy;
All tender and unform'd: but when the flower
Of manhood bloom'd, it wither'd in an hour.
Their frantic follies wrought them pain and woe:
Nor mutual outrage could their hands forego:
Nor would they serve the gods: nor altars raise
That in just cities shed their holy blaze.
Them angry Jove ingulf'd; who dared refuse
The gods their glory and their sacred dues:
Yet named the second-blest in earth they lie,
And second honours grace their memory.
The Sire of heaven and earth created then
A race, the third of many-languaged men.
Unlike the silver they: of brazen mould:
With ashen war-spears terrible and bold:
Their thoughts were bent on violence alone,
The deeds of battle and the dying groan.
Bloody their feasts, with wheaten food unblest:
Of adamant was each unyielding breast.
Huge, nerved with strength each hardy giant stands,
And mocks approach with unresisted hands:
Their mansions, implements, and armour shine
In brass; dark iron slept within the mine.
They by each other's hands inglorious fell,
In freezing darkness plunged, the house of hell:
Fierce though they were, their mortal course was run;
Death gloomy seized, and snatch'd them from the sun.
Them when th' abyss had cover'd from the skies,
Lo! the fourth age on nurturing earth arise:
Jove form'd the race a better, juster line;
A race of heroes and of stamp divine:
Lights of the age that rose before our own;
As demi-gods o'er earth's wide regions known.
Yet these dread battle hurried to their end:
Some where the seven-fold gates of Thebes ascend:
The Cadmian realm: where they with fatal might
Strove for the flocks of Œdipus in fight.
Some war in navies led to Troy's far shore;^[21]
O'er the great space of sea their course they bore;
For sake of Helen with the beauteous hair:
And death for Helen' sake o'erwhelm'd them there.
Them on earth's utmost verge the god assign'd
A life, a seat, distinct from human kind:
Beside the deepening whirlpools of the main,
In those blest isles^[22] where Saturn holds his reign,
Apart from heaven's immortals: calm they share
A rest unsullied by the clouds of care:
And yearly thrice with sweet luxuriance crown'd
Springs the ripe harvest from the teeming ground.
Oh would that Nature had denied me birth
Midst this fifth race; this iron age of earth:^[23]
That long before within the grave I lay,
Or long hereafter could behold the day!
Corrupt the race, with toils and griefs opprest,
Nor day nor night can yield a pause of rest.
Still do the gods a weight of care bestow,
Though still some good is mingled with the woe.
Jove on this race of many-languaged man,
Speeds the swift ruin which but slow began:
[50]For scarcely spring they to the light of day
Ere age untimely strews their temples gray.^[24]
No fathers in the sons their features trace:
The sons reflect no more the father's face:
The host with kindness greets his guest no more,
And friends and brethren love not as of yore.
Reckless of heaven's revenge, the sons behold
The hoary parents wax too swiftly old:
And impious point the keen dishonouring tongue
With hard reproofs and bitter mockeries hung:
Nor grateful in declining age repay
The nurturing fondness of their better day.
Now man's right hand is law:^[25] for spoil they wait,
And lay their mutual cities desolate:
Unhonour'd he, by whom his oath is fear'd,
Nor are the good beloved, the just revered.
With favour graced the evil-doer stands,
Nor curbs with shame nor equity his hands:
With crooked slanders wounds the virtuous man,
And stamps with perjury what hate began.
Lo! ill-rejoicing Envy, wing'd with lies,
Scattering calumnious rumours as she flies,
The steps of miserable men pursue
With haggard aspect, blasting to the view.
Till those fair forms in snowy raiment bright
Leave the broad earth^[26] and heaven-ward soar from sight:
Justice and Modesty from mortals driven,
Rise to th' immortal family of heaven:
Dread sorrows to forsaken man remain;
No cure of ills: no remedy of pain.
Now unto kings^[27] I frame the fabling song,
However wisdom unto kings belong.
A stooping hawk, crook-talon'd, from the vale
Bore in his pounce a neck-streak'd nightingale,^[28]
And snatch'd among the clouds: beneath the stroke
This piteous shriek'd, and that imperious spoke:
"Wretch! why these screams? a stronger holds thee now:
Where'er I shape my course a captive thou,
Maugre thy song, must company my way:
I rend my banquet or I loose my prey.
Senseless is he who dares with power contend:
"Defeat, rebuke, despair shall be his end."
The swift hawk spake, with wings spread wide in air;
But thou to justice cleave, and wrong forbear.
Wrong, if he yield to its abhorr'd controul,
Shall pierce like iron in the poor man's soul:
Wrong weighs the rich man's conscience to the dust,
When his foot stumbles on the way unjust:
Far diff'rent is the path; a path of light,
That guides the feet to equitable right.
The end of righteousness, enduring long,
Exceeds the short prosperity of wrong.
The fool by suffering his experience buys;^[29]
The penalty of folly makes him wise.
With crooked judgments, lo! the oath's dread God
Avenging runs, and tracks them where they trod:
Rough are the ways of Justice as the sea;
Dragg'd to and fro by men's corrupt decree:
Bribe-pamper'd men! whose hands perverting draw
The right aside, and warp the wrested law.
Though, while corruption on their sentence waits,
They thrust pale Justice from their haughty gates;
Invisible their steps the virgin treads,
And musters evils o'er their sinful heads.
She with the dark of air her form arrays
And walks in awful grief the city-ways:^[30]
Her wail is heard, her tear upbraiding falls
O'er their stain'd manners,^[31] their devoted walls.
But they who never from the right have stray'd,
Who as the citizen the stranger aid;
They and their cities flourish:^[32] genial Peace
Dwells in their borders, and their youth increase:
Nor Jove, whose radiant eyes behold afar,
Hangs forth in heaven the signs of grievous war.
Nor scathe nor famine on the righteous prey;
Feasts, strewn by earth, employ their easy day:
Rich are their mountain oaks: the topmost trees
With clustering acorns full, the trunks with hiving bees.
Burthen'd with fleece their panting flocks: the race
Of woman soft reflects the father's face:^[33]
Still flourish they, nor tempt with ships the main;
The fruits of earth are pour'd from every plain.
But o'er the wicked race, to whom belong
The thought of evil, and the deed of wrong,
Saturnian Jove of wide-beholding eyes
Bids the dark signs of retribution rise:
And oft the crimes of one destructive fall:
The crimes of one are visited on all.
The god sends down his angry plagues from high,
Famine and pestilence: in heaps they die.
He smites with barrenness the marriage-bed,
And generations moulder with the dead:
Again in vengeance of his wrath he falls
On their great hosts, and breaks their tottering walls:
Arrests their navies on the ocean's plain,
And whelms their strength with mountains of the main.
Ponder, oh judges! in your inmost thought
The retribution by his vengeance wrought.
Invisible, the gods are ever nigh,
Pass through the midst, and bend th' all-seeing eye:
The men who grind the poor, who wrest the right,
Awless of heaven's revenge, stand naked to their sight.
For thrice ten thousand holy demons rove
This breathing world,^[34] the delegates of Jove.
Guardians of man, their glance alike surveys
The upright judgments and th' unrighteous ways.^[35]
A virgin pure is Justice: and her birth,
August, from him who rules the heavens and earth:
A creature glorious to the gods on high,
Whose mansion is yon everlasting sky.
Driven by despiteful wrong she takes her seat
In lowly grief at Jove's eternal feet.
There of the soul unjust her plaints ascend:
So rue the nations when their kings offend:^[36]
When uttering wiles and brooding thoughts of ill,
They bend the laws and wrest them to their will.
Oh gorged with gold! ye kingly judges hear!
Make straight your paths: your crooked judgments fear:
That the foul record may no more be seen,
Erased, forgotten, as it ne'er had been!
He wounds himself that aims another's wound:
His evil counsels on himself rebound.
Jove at his awful pleasure looks from high
With all-discerning and all-knowing eye;
Nor hidden from its ken what injured right
Within the city-walls eludes the light.
Or oh! if evil wait the righteous deed,
If thus the wicked gain the righteous meed,
Then may not I, nor yet my son remain
In this our generation just in vain!
But sure my hope, not this doth Heaven approve,
Not this the work of thunder-darting Jove.
Deep let my words, oh Perses! graven be:
Hear Justice, and renounce th' oppressor's plea:
This law the wisdom of the god assign'd
To human race and to the bestial kind:
To birds of air and fishes of the wave,
And beasts of earth, devouring instinct gave
In them no justice lives: he bade be known
This better sense to reasoning man alone.
Who from the seat of judgment shall impart
The truths of knowledge utter'd from his heart;
On him the god of all-discerning eye
Pours down the treasures of felicity.^[37]
Who sins against the right, his wilful tongue
With perjuries of lying witness hung;
Lo! he is hurt beyond the hope of cure:
Dark is his race, nor shall his name endure.
Who fears his oath shall leave a name to shine
With brightening lustre through his latest line.
Most foolish Perses! let the truths I tell,
Which spring from knowledge, in thy bosom dwell:
Lo! wickednesses rife in troops appear;
Smooth is the track of vice,^[38] the mansion near:
On virtue's path delays and perils grow:
The gods have placed before the sweat that bathes the brow:^[39]
And ere the foot can reach her high abode,
Long, rugged, steep th' ascent, and rough the road.
The ridge once gain'd, the path so rude of late
Runs easy on, and level to the gate.
Far best is he whom conscious wisdom guides;
Who first and last the right and fit decides:
He too is good, that to the wiser friend^[40]
His docile reason can submissive bend:
But worthless he that reason's voice defies,
Nor wise himself, nor duteous to the wise.
But thou, oh Perses! what my words impart
Let mem'ry bind for ever on thy heart.
Oh son of Dios!^[41] labour evermore,
That hunger turn abhorrent from thy door;
That Ceres blest, with spiky garland crown'd,
Greet thee with love and bid thy barns abound.
Still on the sluggard hungry want attends,^[42]
The scorn of man, the hate of heaven impends:
While he, averse from labour, drags his days,
Yet greedy on the gain of others preys:
Even as the stingless drones devouring seize
With glutted sloth the harvest of the bees.
Love ev'ry seemly toil, that so the store
Of foodful seasons heap thy garner's floor.
From labour men returns of wealth behold;
Flocks in their fields and in their coffers gold:
From labour shalt thou with the love be blest
Of men and gods; the slothful they detest.
Not toil, but sloth shall ignominious be;
Toil, and the slothful man shall envy thee;
Shall view thy growing wealth with alter'd sense,
For glory, virtue walk with opulence.
Thou, like a god, since labour still is found
The better part, shalt live belov'd, renown'd;
If, as I counsel, thou thy witless mind,
Though weak and empty as the veering wind,
From others' coveted possessions turn'd,
To thrift compel, and food by labour earn'd.
Shame, which our aid or injury we find,^[43]
Shame to the needy clings of evil kind;
Shame to low indigence declining tends:
Bold zeal to wealth's proud pinnacle ascends.
But shun extorted riches;^[44] oh far best
The heaven-sent wealth without reproach possest.
Whoe'er shall mines of hoarded gold command,
By fraudful tongue or by rapacious hand;
As oft betides when lucre lights the flame,
And shamelessness expels the better shame;
Him shall the god cast down, in darkness hurl'd,
His name, his offspring wasted from the world:
The goods for which he pawn'd his soul decay,
The breath and shining bubble of a day.
Alike the man of sin is he confest,
Who spurns the suppliant^[45] and who wrongs the guest;
Who climbs, by lure of stolen embraces led,
With ill-timed act, a brother's marriage bed;
Who dares by crafty wickedness abuse
His trust, and robs the orphans of their dues;
Who, on the threshold of afflictive age,
His hoary parent stings with taunting rage:
On him shall Jove in anger look from high,
And deep requite the dark iniquity:
But wholly thou from these refrain thy mind,
Weak as it is, and wavering as the wind.
With thy best means perform the ritual part,
Outwardly pure and spotless at the heart,
And on thy altar let unblemish'd thighs
In fragrant savour to th' immortals rise.
Or thou in other sort may'st well dispense
Wine-offerings and the smoke of frankincense,
Ere on the nightly couch thy limbs be laid;
Or when the stars from sacred sun-rise fade.
So shall thy piety accepted move
Their heavenly natures to propitious love:
Ne'er shall thy heritage divided be,
But others part their heritage to thee.
Let friends oft bidden to thy feast repair;
Let not a foe the social moment share.
Chief to thy open board the neighbour call:
When, unforeseen, domestic troubles fall,
The neighbour runs ungirded; kinsmen wait,
And, lingering for their raiment, hasten late.
As the good neighbour is our prop and stay,
So is the bad a pit-fall in our way.
Thus blest or curs'd, we this or that obtain,
The first a blessing and the last a bane.
How should thine ox by chance untimely die?
The evil neighbour looks and passes by.
If aught thou borrowest,^[46] well the measure weigh;
The same good measure to thy friend repay,
Or more, if more thou canst, unask'd concede,
So shall he prompt supply thy future need.
Usurious gains avoid; usurious gain,
Equivalent to loss, will prove thy bane.
Who loves thee, love; him woo that friendly wooes:
Give to the giver, but to him refuse
That giveth not; their gifts the generous earn;
But none bestows where never is return.
^[47] Munificence is blest: by heaven accurst
Extortion, of death-dealing plagues the worst.
Who bounteous gives though large his bounty flow,
Shall feel his heart with inward rapture glow:
Th' extortioner of bold unblushing sin,
Though small the plunder, feels a thorn within.
If with a little thou a little blend
Continual, mighty shall the heap ascend.
Who bids his gather'd substance gradual grow
Shall see not livid hunger's face of woe.
No bosom-pang attends the home-laid store,
But rife with loss the food without thy door:
'Tis good to take from hoards, and pain to need
What is far from thee: give the precept heed.
When broach'd or at the lees, no care be thine
To save the cask, but spare the middle wine.^[48]
To him the friend that serves thee glad dispense
With bounteous hand the meed of recompense.
Not on a brother's plighted word rely,
But, as in laughter,^[49] set a witness by;
Mistrust destroys us and credulity.
Let no fair woman tempt thy sliding mind
With garment gather'd in a knot behind;^[50]
She prattling with gay speech^[51] inquires thy home;
But trust a woman, and a thief is come.
One only son his father's house may tend,
And e'en with one domestic hoards ascend:
Then mayst thou leave a second son behind:
For many sons from heaven shall wealth obtain;
The care is greater, greater is the gain.
Do thus: if riches be thy soul's desire,
By toils on toils to this thy hope aspire.

II.
When, Atlas-born, the Pleiad stars arise
Before the sun^[52] above the dawning skies,
'Tis time to reap; and when they sink below
The morn-illumined west, 'tis time to sow.^[53]
Know too they set, immerged into the sun,
While forty days entire their circle run;

^[54]

^[55] And with the lapse of the revolving year,
When sharpen'd is the sickle, re-appear.
Law of the fields, and known to every swain
Who turns the fallow soil beside the main;
Or who, remote from billowy ocean's gales,
Tills the rich glebe of inland-winding vales.
Plough naked still,^[56] and naked sow the soil,
And naked reap; if kindly to thy toil
Thou hope to gather all that Ceres yields,
And view thy crops in season crown the fields;
Lest thou to strangers' gates penurious rove,
And every needy effort fruitless prove:
E'en as to me thou cam'st; but hope no more
That I shall give or lend thee of my store.
Oh foolish Perses! be the labours thine
Which the good gods to earthly man assign;
Lest with thy spouse, thy babes, thou vagrant ply,
And sorrowing crave those alms which all deny.
Twice may thy plaints benignant favour gain,
And haply thrice may not be pour'd in vain;
If still persisting plead thy wearying prayer,
Thy words are nought, thy eloquence is air.
Did exhortation move, the thought should be,
From debt releasement, days from hunger free.
A house, a woman, and a steer provide,
Thy slave to tend the cows, but not thy bride.
Within let all fit implements abound,
Lest with refused entreaty wandering round,
Thy wants still press, the season glide away,
And thou with scanted labour mourn the day.
Thy task defer not till the morn arise,
Or the third sun th' unfinish'd work surprise.
The idler never shall his garners fill,^[57]
Nor he that still defers and lingers still.
Lo! diligence can prosper every toil;
The loiterer strives with loss and execrates the soil.
When rests the keen strength of th' o'erpowering sun
From heat that made the pores in rivers run;
When rushes in fresh rains autumnal Jove,
And man's unburthen'd limbs now lightlier move;
For now the star of day with transient light
Rolls o'er our heads and joys in longer night;
When from the worm the forest boles are sound,
Trees bud no more,^[58] but earthward cast around
Their withering foliage, then remember well
The timely labour, and thy timber fell.
Hew from the wood a mortar of three feet;^[59]
Three cubits may the pestle's length complete:
Seven feet the fittest axle-tree extends;
If eight the log, the eighth a mallet lends.
Cleave many curved blocks thy wheel to round,
And let three spans its outmost orbit bound;
Whereon slow-rolling thy suspended wain,
Ten spans in breadth, may traverse firm the plain.
If hill or field supply a holm-oak bough
Of bending figure^[60] like the downward plough,
Bear it away: this durable remains
While the strong steers in ridges cleave the plains:
If with firm nails thy artist join the whole,^[61]
Affix the share-beam, and adapt the pole.
Two ploughs provide, on household works intent,
This art-compacted, that of native bent:
A prudent fore-thought: one may crashing fail,
The other, instant yoked, shall prompt avail.
Of elm or bay the draught-pole firm endures,
The plough-tail holm, the share-beam oak secures.
Two males procure: be nine their sum of years:
Then hale and strong for toil the sturdy steers:
Nor shall they headstrong-struggling spurn the soil,
And snap the plough and mar th' unfinish'd toil.
In forty's prime thy ploughman: one with bread
Of four-squared loaf^[62] in double portions fed.
He steadily shall cut the furrow true,
Nor towards his fellows glance a rambling view:
Still on his task intent: a stripling throws
Heedless the seed, and in one furrow strows
The lavish handful twice: while wistful stray
His longing thoughts to comrades far away.
Mark yearly when among the clouds on high
Thou hear'st the shrill crane's migratory cry,^[63]
Of ploughing-time the sign^[64] and wintry rains:
Care gnaws his heart who destitute remains
Of the fit yoke: for then the season falls
To feed thy horned steers within their stalls.
Easy to speak the word, "beseech thee friend!
Thy waggon and thy yoke of oxen lend:"
Easy the prompt refusal; "nay, but I
Have need of oxen, and their work is nigh."
Rich in his own conceit,^[65] he then too late
May think to rear the waggon's timber'd weight:
Fool! nor yet knows the complicated frame
A hundred season'd blocks may fitly claim:
These let thy timely care provide before,^[66]
And pile beneath thy roof the ready store.
Improve the season: to the plough apply
Both thou and thine; and toil in wet and dry:
Haste to the field with break of glimmering morn,
That so thy grounds may wave with thickening corn.
In spring upturn the glebe: and break again
With summer tilth the iterated plain,
It shall not mock thy hopes: be last thy toil,
Raised in light ridge, to sow the fallow'd soil:
The fallow'd soil bids execration fly,
And brightens with content the infant's eye.
Jove subterrene,^[67] chaste Ceres claim thy vow,
When grasping first the handle of the plough,
O'er thy broad oxen's backs thy quickening hand
With lifted stroke lets fall the goading wand;
Whilst yoked and harness'd by the fastening thong,
They slowly drag the draught-pole's length along.
So shall the sacred gifts of earth appear,
And ripe luxuriance clothe the plenteous ear.
A boy should tread thy steps: with rake o'erlay
The buried seed, and scare the birds away:^[68]
(Good is the apt œconomy of things
While evil management its mischief brings:)
Thus, if aërial Jove thy cares befriend,
And crown thy tillage with a prosperous end,
Shall the rich ear in fulness of its grain
Nod on the stalk and bend it to the plain.
So shalt thou sweep the spider's films away,
That round thy hollow bins lie hid from day:
I ween, rejoicing in the foodful stores
Obtain'd at length, and laid within thy doors:
For plenteousness shall glad thee through the year
Till the white blossoms of the spring appear:
Nor thou on others' heaps a gazer be,^[69]
But others owe their borrow'd store to thee.
If, ill-advised, thou turn the genial plains
His wintry tropic when the sun attains;
Thou, then, may'st reap, and idle sit between:
Mocking thy gripe the meagre stalks are seen:
Whilst, little joyful, gather'st thou in bands
The corn whose chaffy dust bestrews thy hands.
In one scant basket shall thy harvest lie,
[94]And few shall pass thee, then, with honouring eye.^[70]
Now thus, now otherwise is Jove's design;
To men inscrutable the ways divine:
But if thou late upturn the furrow'd field,
One happy chance a remedy may yield.
O'er the wide earth when men the cuckoo hear
From spreading oak-leaves first delight their ear,
Three days and nights let heaven in ceaseless rains
Deep as thy ox's hoof o'erflow the plains;
So shall an equal crop thy time repair
With his who earlier launch'd the shining share.
Lay all to heart: nor let the blossom'd hours
Of spring escape thee; nor the timely showers.
Pass by the brazier's forge^[71] where loiterers meet,
Nor saunter in the portico's throng'd heat;
When in the wintry season rigid cold
Invades the limbs and binds them in its hold.
Lo! then th' industrious man with thriving store
Improves his household management the more:
And this do thou: lest intricate distress
Of winter seize, and needy cares oppress:
Lest, famine-smitten, thou, at length, be seen
To gripe thy tumid foot^[72] with hand from hunger lean.
Pampering his empty hopes, yet needing food,
On ill designs behold the idler brood:
Sit in the crowded portico and feed
On that ill hope, while starving with his need.
Thou in mid-summer to thy labourers cry,
"Make now your nests,"^[73] for summer hours will fly.
Beware the January month: beware
Those hurtful days, that keenly piercing air
Which flays the herds; those frosts^[74] that bitter sheathe
The nipping air and glaze the ground beneath.
From Thracia, nurse of steeds, comes rushing forth,
O'er the broad sea, the whirlwind of the north,
And moves it with his breath: then howl the shores
Of earth, and long and loud the forest roars.
$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$He lays the oaks of lofty foliage low,
Tears the thick pine-trees from the mountains brow
And strews the vallies with their overthrow.
He stoops to earth; shrill swells the storm around,
And all the vast wood rolls a deeper roar of sound.
The beasts their cowering tails with trembling fold,
And shrink and shudder at the gusty cold.
Thick is the hairy coat, the shaggy skin,
But that all-chilling breath shall pierce within.
Not his rough hide can then the ox avail:
The long-hair'd goat defenceless feels the gale:
Yet vain the north-wind's rushing strength to wound
The flock, with thickening fleeces fenced around.
He bows the old man, crook'd beneath the storm;
But spares the smooth-skin'd virgin's tender form.
Yet from bland Venus' mystic rites aloof,^[75]
She safe abides beneath her mother's roof:
The suppling waters of the bath she swims,
With shining ointment^[76] sleeks her dainty limbs:
In her soft chamber pillow'd to repose,
While through the wintry nights the tempest blows.
Now gnaws the boneless polypus his feet;^[77]
Starved midst bleak rocks, his desolate retreat:
For now no more the sun with gleaming ray
Through seas transparent lights him to his prey.
O'er the swarth Æthiop rolls his bright career,
And slowly gilds the Grecian hemisphere.
And now the horned and unhorned kind
Whose lair is in the wood, sore-famish'd grind
Their sounding jaws, and froz'n and quaking fly
Where oaks the mountain dells imbranch on high:
They seek to couch in thickets of the glen,
Or lurk deep-shelter'd in the rocky den.
Like aged men^[78] who, prop'd on crutches, tread
Tottering with broken strength and stooping head,
So move the beasts of earth; and creeping low
Shun the white flakes and dread the drifting snow.
I warn thee, now, around thy body cast,
A thick defence, and covering from the blast:
Let the soft cloak its woolly warmth bestow:
The under-tunic to thy ankle flow:
On a scant warp^[79] a woof abundant weave;
Thus warmly wov'n the mantling cloak receive:
Nor shall thy limbs beneath its ample fold
With bristling hairs start shivering to the cold.
Shoes from the hide of a strong-dying ox^[80]
Bind round thy feet; lined thick with woollen socks:
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Or limpid rivers flowing to the main.
Do thus: and still with all thy dint of mind
Avoid that evil rumour of mankind;
Easy the burthen at the first to bear,
And light when lifted as impassive air;
But scarce can human strength the load convey,
Or shake th' intolerable weight away.
Swift rumour hastes nor ever wholly dies,
But borne on nations' tongues a very goddess flies.

 

---

---

 

DAYS.

Thy household teach a decent heed to pay,
And well observe each Jove-appointed day.
$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$The thirtieth of the moon^[81] inspect with care
Thy servants' tasks and all their rations share;
What time the people to the courts repair.
These days obey the all-wise Jove's behest:
The first new moon, the fourth, the seventh is blest:
Phœbus, on this, from mild Latona born,
The golden-sworded god, beheld the morn.
The eighth, nor less the ninth, with favouring skies,
Speeds of th' increasing month each rustic enterprise;
And on th' eleventh let thy flocks be shorn,
And on the twelfth be reap'd thy laughing corn:
Both days are good: yet is the twelfth confest
More fortunate, with fairer omen blest.
^[82] On this the air-suspended spider treads
In the full noon his fine and self-spun threads;
And the wise emmet, tracking dark the plain,
Heaps provident the store of gather’d grain.
On this let careful woman’s nimble hand
Throw first the shuttle and the web expand.
On the thirteenth forbear to sow the grain;
But then the plant shall not be set in vain.
The sixteenth profitless to plants is deem’d
Auspicious to the birth of men esteem’d;
But to the virgin shall unprosperous prove,
Then born to light or join’d in wedded love.
So to the birth of girls with adverse ray
The sixth appears, an unpropitious day:
But then the swain may fence his wattled fold,
And cut his kids and rams; male births shall then be bold.
This day is fond of biting gibes and lies,
And jocund tales and whisper’d sorceries.
Cut on the eighth the goat and lowing steer
And hardy mule; and when the noon shines clear,
Seek on the twenty-ninth to sow thy race,
For wise shall be the fruit of thy embrace.
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^[83], 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.
On the smooth threshing-floor, the seventeenth morn,
Observant throw the sheaves of sacred corn:
For chamber furniture the timber hew,
And blocks for ships with shaping axe subdue.
The fourth upon the stocks thy vessel lay,
Soon with light keel to skim the watery way.
The nineteenth mark among the better days
When past the fervour of the noon-tide blaze.
Harmless the ninth: 'tis good to plant the earth,
And fortunate each male and female birth.
Few know the twenty-ninth, nor heed the rules
To broach their casks, and yoke their steers and mules,
And fleet-hoof'd steeds; and on dark ocean's way
Launch the oar'd galley; few will trust the day.
Pierce on the fourth thy cask; the fourteenth prize
As holy; and when morning paints the skies
The twenty-fourth is best; (few this have known;)
But worst of days when noon has fainter grown.
These are the days of which the careful heed
Each human enterprise will favouring speed:
Others there are, which intermediate fall,
Mark'd with no auspice and unomen'd all:
And these will some, and those will others praise,
But few are versed in mysteries of days.
In this a step-mother's stern hate we prove,
In that the mildness of a mother's love.
Oh fortunate the man! oh blest is he,
Who skill'd in these fulfils his ministry:
He to whose note the auguries are given,
No rite transgress'd, and void of blame to heav'n.

that different authors vary in fixing the duration of their occultation from about thirty-one days to above forty.

1. The bowed feeble rears.] This proem was wanting in the leaden-sheeted copy, seen by Pausanias in Bœotia. The affinity with scriptural language is remarkable. “The Lord maketh poor and maketh rich: he bringeth low and lifteth up. He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dung-hill to set him among princes.” Samuel v. 1, ch. 2. “God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another. The Lord upholdeth all that fall, and raiseth up them that be bowed down. The Lord lifteth up the meek: he casteth the wicked down to the ground.” Psalms 75, 145, 147. I was originally led to suspect that this introduction had been ingrafted on the poem by one of the Alexandrian Jews; who were addicted to this kind of imposture; but it is probably more ancient than the establishment of the Jewish colony at Alexandria, under the Ptolemies. There is nothing conclusive to be drawn from coincidences of this sort between ancient writings. The first principles of morality, implanted in the human heart by its author, have in all ages been the same: and Socrates and Confucius might be found to agree, surely without any suspicion of imitation. Many passages of Hesiod may be paralleled with verses in the Psalms and Proverbs: and in the proem under consideration, there seem no grounds for the conjecture of plagiarism from views of the vicissitudes of human condition, and the ordinations of a ruling providence which are continually passing before our eyes, and which must have struck the reasoning and serious part of mankind in all ages. Horace has a similar passage: b. i. od. 34.
   The God by sudden turns of fate
   Can change the lowest with the loftiest state:
   Eclipse of glory the diminish'd ray,
   And lift obscurity to day.
   
   
   Le Clerc conjectures this exordium to be the addition of one of the rhapsodists: of whom Pindar says, Nem. Od. 2.
   Th' Homeric bards, who wont to frame
   A motley-woven verse,
   Ere they the song rehearse,
   Begin from Jove, and prelude with his name.
   
   
2. The other elder rose.] Night is meant to be the mother of both the Strifes. Guietus remarks that ευφρονη is a term for night: from ευφρονεω, to be wise. She was the mother of wise designs, because favourable to meditation: the mother of good, therefore, as well as of evil. The good Strife is made the elder, because the evil one arose in the later and degenerate ages of mankind.
3. Almsmen zealous throng,] The proximity of the beggar to the bard might in a modern writer convey a satirical innuendo, of which Hesiod cannot be suspected. The bard, as is evident from Homer’s Odyssey, enjoyed a sort of conventional hospitality, bestowed with reverence and affection. It should seem, however, from this passage that the asker of alms was not regarded in the light of a common mendicant with us. It was a popular superstition that the gods often assumed similar characters for the purpose of trying the benevolence of men. A noble incentive to charity, which indicates the hospitable character of a semi-barbarous age.
4. The patrimonial land.] The manner of inheritance in ancient Greece was that of gavelkind: the sons dividing the patrimony in equal portions. When there were children by a concubine, they also received a certain proportion. This is illustrated by a passage in the 14th book of the Odyssey:
   An humbler mate,
   His purchased concubine, gave birth to me:
   . . . . . .His illustrious sons among themselves
   Portion'd his goods by lot: to me indeed
   They gave a dwelling, and but little more.
   Cowper.
   
   
5. The good which asphodel and mallows yield.] A similar sentiment occurs in the Proverbs: “Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.” Ch. 15. v. 17.
   Plutarch in the “Banquet of the Seven Sages,” observes, that “the herb mallows is good for food, as is the sweet stalk of the asphodel or daffodil.” These plants were often used by metonymy for a frugal table. Homer (Odyssey 24.) places the shades of the blessed in meadows of asphodel, because they were supposed to be restored to the state of primitive innocence, when men were contented with the simple and spontaneous aliment of the ground. Perhaps the Greeks had this allusion in their custom of planting the asphodel in the cemeteries, and also burying it with the bodies of the dead. It appears from Pliny, b. xxii. c. 22. that Hesiod had treated of the asphodel in some other work: as he is said to have spoken of it as a native of the woods.
6. The food of man in deep concealment lies.] The meaning of this passage resembles that of the passage in Virgil's first Georgic:
   The sire of gods and men with hard decrees
   Forbade our plenty to be bought with ease.
   Dryden.
   
   
7. Have laid the rudder by.] It seems the vice of commentators to refine with needless subtleties on plain passages. Le Clerc explains this to mean that "in one day's fishing you might have caught such an abundance of fish, as to allow of the rudder being laid by for a long interval." The common sense of the passage, however, is that, were the former state of existence renewed, the rudder, which it was customary after a voyage to hang up in the smoke, might remain there for ever. You needed not have crossed the sea for merchandise. The custom of suspending the helms of ships in chimneys, to preserve them from decay, is adverted to again among the nautical precepts.

   The well-framed rudder in the smoke suspend.

   Virgil recommends the same process with respect to the timber hewn for the plough: Georg. 1.
   Hung where the chimney's curling fumes arise,
   The searching smoke the harden'd timber dries.
   
   
8. Mock'd by wise Prometheus.] The original deception which provoked the wrath of Jupiter was the sacrifice of bones mentioned in the Theogony.
   It would appear extraordinary that the crime of Prometheus, who was a god, should be visited on man. This injustice betrays the real character of Prometheus; that he was a deified mortal. If Prometheus, the maker of man according to Ovid, and his divine benefactor according to Hesiod, be in reality Noah, as many circumstances concur to prove, the concealment of fire by Jupiter might be a type of the darkness and dreariness of nature during the interval of the deluge; and the recovery of the flame might signify the renovation of light and fertility and the restitution of the arts of life.
9. An ill which all shall love.] In the scholia of Olympiodorus on Plato, Pandora is allegorized into the irrational soul or sensuality: as opposed to intellect. By Heinsius she is supposed to be Fortune. But there never was less occasion for straining after philosophical mysteries. Hesiod asserts in plain terms, that Pandora is the mother of woman; he tells us she brought with her a casket of diseases; and that through her the state of man became a state of labour, and his longevity was abridged. It is an ancient Asiatic legend; and Pandora is plainly the Eve of Mosaic history. How this primitive tradition came to be connected with that of the deluge is easily explained. “Time with the ancients,” observes Mr. Bryant, “commenced at the deluge; all their traditions and genealogies terminated here. The birth of mankind went with them no higher than this epocha.” We see here a confusion of events, of periods, and of characters. The fall of man to a condition of labour, disease, and death is made subsequent to the flood; because the great father of the post-diluvian world was regarded as the original father of mankind.
10. The zone, the dress.] This office is probably assigned to Pallas, as the inventress and patroness of weaving and embroidery, and works in wool.
11. With chains of gold.] Ορμους, rendered by the interpreter monilia, are not merely necklaces, but chains for any part of the person: as the arms and ankles. Ornaments of gold, and particularly chains, belong to the costume of very high antiquity.
    "Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul: who clothed you in scarlet with other delights: who put on ornaments of gold upon your apparel. Samuel b. ii. ch. 1. v. 24.
    "And she took sandals upon her feet, and put about her her bracelets, and her chains, and her rings, and her ear-rings, and all her ornaments, and decked herself bravely, to allure the eyes of all men that should see her." Judith ch. x. v. 4.
12. The beauteous-tressed Hours.] The Hours, according to Homer, made the toilette of Venus:
    The smooth strong gust of Zephyr wafted her
    Through billows of the many-waving sea
    In the soft foam: the Hours, whose locks are bound
    With gold, received her blithely, and enrobed
    With heavenly vestments: her immortal head
    They wreathed with golden fillet, beautiful,
    And aptly framed: her perforated ears
    They hung with jewels of the mountain-brass
    And precious gold: her tender neck, and breast
    Of dazzling white, they deck’d with chains of gold,
    Such as the Hours wear braided with their locks.
    Hymn to Venus.
    
    
13. His herald from above.] The first edition had “winged herald;” but the wings of Mercury are the additions of later mythologists. Homer, in the Odyssey, speaks only of
    The sandals fair,
    Golden, and undecay’d, that waft him o’er
    The sea, and o’er th’ immeasurable earth
    With the swift-breathing wind:
    
    
    there is no mention of the sandals being winged. They seem to have possessed a supernatural power of velocity, like the seven-leagued boots, or the shoes of swiftness, in the Tales of the Giants.
14. Th’ unbroken vase] αρρηκτοισι δομοισι. Seleucus, an ancient critic, quoted by Proclus, proposed πιυοισι: as if the casket in which Hope dwelt, might not literally be called her house. Heinsius supposes an allusion to the chamber of a virgin. After this, who would expect that δομοισι means nothing more than a chest?
    Ελουσα κεδρινῳν δομῶν
    Εσθῆτα, κοσμον τ’.Euripides. Alcestis. 158.
    
    

    ———taking from her cedar coffers
    Vestures and jewels.
    
    
15. On casual wing they glide.] Perhaps Milton had Hesiod in his eye, in the speech of Satan to Sin: Par. Lost, b. ii. line 840.
    Thou and Death
    Shall dwell at ease, and up and down unseen
    Wing silently the buxom air.
    
    
16. Wealthy in flocks.] Grævius has misled all the editors by arguing that μῆλα are, in this place, fruits of any trees; as arbutes, figs, nuts; and not flocks: but his arguments respecting the food of primitive mankind are drawn from the conceptions of modern poets; such as Lucretius and Ovid. The traditionary age described by Hesiod was a shepherd age. Flocks are the most ancient symbol of prosperity, and are often synonymous with riches and dominion.
17. High Jove as dæmons raised them from the ground.] In the account of this age we have a just history of the rise of idolatry; when deified men had first divine honours paid to them; and we may be assured of the family in which it began; as what was termed Crusean, the golden race, should have been expressed Cusean; for it relates to the age of Chus, and the denomination of his sons. This substitution was the cause of the other divisions being introduced; that each age might be distinguished in succession by one of baser metal. Had there been no mistake about a golden age, we should never have been treated with one of silver; much less with the subsequent of brass and iron. The original history relates to the patriarchic age, when the time of man’s life was not yet abridged to its present standard, and when the love of rule and acts of violence first displayed themselves on the earth. The Amonians, wherever they settled, carried these traditions along with them, which were thus added to the history of the country; so that the scene of action was changed. A colony who styled themselves Saturnians came to Italy, and greatly benefited the natives. But the ancients, who generally speak collectively in the singular, and instead of Herculeans introduce Hercules; instead of Cadmians, Cadmus; suppose a single person, Saturn, to have betaken himself to this country. Virgil mentions the story in this light, and speaks of Saturn’s settling there; and of the rude state of the nation upon his arrival; where he introduced an age of gold. Æn. viii. 314. The account is confused; yet we may discern in it a true history of the first ages, as may be observed likewise in Hesiod. Both the poets, however the scene may be varied, allude to the happy times immediately after the deluge; when the great patriarch had full power over his descendants, and equity prevailed without written law.—Bryant.
18. Their kingly state.] The administration of forensic justice is implied in the words γερας βασιληιον, regal office.
19. The wealth of fields.] Heinsius quotes Hesychius to show that πλοῦτος does not always mean riches, properly so called; but the riches of the soil: and says that it is here applied to the good dæmons as presiding over the productions of the seasons. Bacchus, in the Lenæan rites, was invoked by the epithet πλουτοδοτης, wealth-bestower; in allusion to the vineyard. It seems intimated here, that the Spirits reward the deeds of the just by abundant harvests; the common belief of the Greeks, as appears both from Hesiod and Homer.
20. A hundred years.] Heinsius explains this passage to mean, that "although this age was indeed deteriorated from the former, this much of good remained; that the boys were not early exposed to the contagion of vice, but long participated the chaste and retired education of their sisters in the seclusion of the female apartments." Grævius, on the contrary, insists that Hesiod notes it as a mark of depravation, that the youth were educated in sloth and effeminacy, and grew up, as it were, on the lap of their mothers. These two opinions are about equally to the purpose. ["The poet manifestly alludes to the longevity of persons in the patriarchic age: for they did not, it seems, die at three-score and ten, but took more time even in advancing towards puberty. He speaks, however, of their being cut off in their prime; and whatever portion of life nature might have allotted to them, they were abridged of it by their own folly and injustice."]—Bryant.
21. To Troy’s far shore.] Dr. Clarke in his travels in Greece, Egypt, and the Holy-land, has noticed that the existence of Troy, and the facts relative to the Trojan war, are supported by a variety of evidence independent of Homer: as has been abundantly shown in the course of the controversy between Mr. Bryant and his able antagonist, Mr. Morritt. This passage of Hesiod seems to me decisive testimony. If Hesiod be older than Homer, as is computed by the chronicler of the Parian Marbles, it is self-evident that the Trojan war is not of Homeric invention: and if they were contemporary, or even if Hesiod, according to the vulgar chronology, were really junior by a century, it is not at all probable that he should have copied the fiction of another bard, while tracing the primitive history of mankind. He manifestly used the ancient traditions of his nation, of which the war of Troy was one.
22. In those blest isles.] Pindar also alludes to these in his second Olympic Ode:
    They take the way which Jove did long ordain
    To Saturn's ancient tower beside the deep:
      Where gales, that softly breathe,
    Fresh-springing from the bosom of the main
     Through the islands of the blessed blow.
    
    
    As the life of these beatified heroes was a renewal of that in the golden age, it is figured by the reign of Saturn or Cronus: the father of post-diluvian time. The era in which, after the waste of the deluge, the vine was planted and corn again sown, was represented by tradition as a time of wonderful abundance and fruitfulness. Hence apparently the fable of the Elysian fields: which some have supposed to originate from the reports of voyagers, who had visited distant fertile regions. Saturn is usually placed in Tartarus: but Tartarus meant the west: from the association of darkness with sunset: and the Blessed Islands were the Fortunate Isles on the Western Coast of Afric.
    "These heroes, whose equity is so much spoken of, upon a nearer inquiry are found to be continually engaged in wars and murders; and like the specimens exhibited of the former ages, are finally cut off by each other’s hands in acts of robbery and violence: some for stealing sheep, others for carrying away the wives of their friends and neighbours. Such was the end of these laudable banditti: of whom Jupiter, we are told, had so high an opinion, that after they had plundered and butchered one another, he sent them to the island of the Blest to partake of perpetual felicity."—Bryant.
23. This iron age of earth.] Les écrivains de tous les tems ont regardé leur siècle comme le pire de tous: il n'y a que Voltaire qui ait dit du sien,

    O le bon tems que ce siècle de fer!

    Encore était-ce dans un accès de gaieté: car ailleurs il appelle le dixhuitième siècle, l'égout des siècles. C'est un de ces sujets sur lesquels on dit ce qu'on veut: selon qu'il plait d'envisager tel ou tel côté des objêts.—La Harpe, Lycée, tome prémier.

24. For scarcely spring they to the light of day,
    Ere age untimely strews their temples gray.] Dr. Martyn, in a note on Virgil's 4th Eclogue, has fallen into the error of the old interpreters; when he quotes Hesiod as describing the iron age "which was to end when the men of that time grew old and gray." Postquam facti circa tempora cani fuerint: but the proper interpretation is, quum vix nati canescant: as Grævius has corrected it. The same critic is unquestionably right in his opinion, that the future tenses of this passage in the original are to be understood as indefinite present: μεμψονται, incusabunt: i.e. incusare solent: use to revile. Mark, iii. 27. και τοτε την οικιᾶν αυτου διαρπασει: " and then he will spoil his house:” that is, he is accustomed to spoil. The imperfect time has also frequently the same acceptation: as in the same evangelist: ch. xiv. 12. το πασχα εθυον, they killed the passover: they are used to kill it.
25. Now man's right hand is law.] Imitated by Milton in the vision of Adam:
    So violence
    Proceeded, and oppression, and sword-law
    Through all the plain.
    
    
26. Leave the broad earth.] Virgil alludes to this passage, Georg. ii. 473.
    From hence Astræa took her flight, and here
    The prints of her departing steps appear.—Dryden.
    
    
    As also Juvenal: Sat. vi. line 19.
    I well believe in Saturn’s ancient reign
    This Chastity might long on earth remain:—
    By slow degrees her steps Astræa sped
    To heaven above, and both the sisters fled.
    
    
27. Now unto kings.] Βασιλευς, which we render king, was properly, in the early times of Greece, a magistrate. The kings against whom Hesiod inveighs, are therefore simply a kind of nobles, who exercised the judicial office in Bœotia; like the twelve of Phœacia mentioned in the Odyssey. See Mitford's History of Greece, vol. i. ch. 3.
28. A neck-streak'd nightingale.] Ποικιλοδειρον, with variegated throat. This has not been thought appropriate to the nightingale. Tzetzes and Moschopolus interpreted the term by ποικιλοφωνον, with varied voice; a very forced construction; yet it is adopted by Loesner, who renders it by canoram. Ruhnken proposes the emendation of ποικιλογηρυν, which is synonymous. Others have doubted whether αηδων, which is literally singer, might not apply to some other bird, as the thrush, which is defined by Linnæus, "back brown, neck spotted with white." But the name singer might have been applied to the nightingale by way of eminence. In fact I see no difficulty. Linnæus, indeed, describes the nightingale, "bill brown, head and back pale mouse-colour, with olive spots," and says nothing of the throat. Simonides, however, speaks of χλοραυχενες αειδονες, green-necked nightingales, which might justify Hesiod's epithet. Bewick in the "British Birds" thus describes the luscinia: "the whole upper part of the body of a rusty brown tinged with olive; under parts pale ash-colour; almost white at the throat." A more ancient ornithologist has a description still more nearly approximating to the term of Hesiod; and it seems evident that there is more than one species of nightingale.

    "Luscinia, philomela, αηδων.

    "The nightingale is about the bigness of a goldfinch. The colour on the upper part, i. e. the head and back, is a pale fulvous (lion, or deep gold colour) with a certain mixture of green, like that of a red-wing. Its tail is of a deeper fulvous or red, like a red-start's. From its red colour it took the name of rossignuolo, in Italian: (rossignol, French). The belly is white. The parts under the wings, breast, and throat, are of a darker colour, with a tincture of green." Willoughby's Ornithology, fol. 1678.

29. The fool by suffering his experience buys.] Παυων δε τε νηπιος εγνω. This seems to have been a national proverb. Homer has a similar apophthegm: Il. 17. 33.
    μηδ’ αντιος ισταθ’ εμειο
    Πριν τι κακον παθεειν· ρεχθεν δε τε νηπιος εγνω.
    Confront me not, lest some sore evil rise:
    The fool must rue the act that makes him wise.
    
    
    Plato uses the same proverbial sentiment:
    Ευλαβηθῆναι και μη, κατα την παροιμιαν, ωσπερ νηπιον παθονται γνωναι.
    Beware lest, after the proverb, you get knowledge like the fool, by suffering.
30. Walks in awful grief the city-ways.] Something similar is the prosopopæia of Wisdom in the Proverbs of Solomon, ch. viii. She standeth on the top of high places, by the way, and the places of the paths.
    She crieth at the gates: at the entry of the city: at the coming in of the doors.
31. O'er their stain'd manners.] Grævius observes that the interpreters render ηθεα λαῶν, "most foolishly" by the manners of the people: because ηθεα signifies also habitations. But as it is not pretended that ηθεα does not equally signify manners, "the extreme folly" of the interpreters has, I confess, escaped my penetration. Is it so very forced an image that Justice should weep over the manners of a depraved people?
32. They and their cities flourish.] This passage resembles one in the nineteenth book of the Odyssey: but not so closely as to justify the charge of plagiarism which Dr. Clarke prefers against Hesiod, and which might be retorted upon Homer. These were sentiments common to the popular religion.
    Like the praise of some great king
    Who o'er a numerous people and renown'd,
    Presiding like a deity, maintains
    Justice and truth. Their harvests overswell
    The sower's hopes: their trees o'erladen scarce
    Their fruit sustain: no sickness thins the folds:
    The finny swarms of ocean crowd the shores,
    And all are rich and happy for his sake. Cowper.
    
    
33. Reflects the father’s face.] Montesquieu remarks: “The people mentioned by Pomponius Mela (the Garamantes) had no other way of discovering the father but by resemblance. Pater est quem nuptiæ demonstrant.” But this uncertain criterion was considered as infallible generally by the ancients.
    She whom no conjugal affections bind,
    Still on a stranger bends her fickle mind:
    But easy to discern the spurious race,
    None in the child the father’s features trace.
    Theocritus—Encomium of Ptolemy.
    
    

    Oh may a young Torquatus bending
    From his mother’s breast to thee,
    His tiny infant hands extending,
    Laugh with half-open’d lips in childish ecstasy:
    May he reflect the father in his face:
    Known for a Mallius to the glancing eye
    Of strangers unaware, who trace
    In the boy’s forehead of paternal grace
    A mother’s shining chastity.
    Catullus—Epithalamium on Julia and Mallius.
    
    
34. ————————Holy demons rove
    This breathing world.————————] Milton is thought to have copied Hesiod in this passage:
    Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
    Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.
    
    
    But the coincidence seems merely incidental, as the parallel wants completeness. There is nothing of angelic guardianship or judicial inspection in the spirits of Milton: he says only,
    All these with ceaseless praise his works behold
    Both day and night. How often from the steep
    Of echoing hill, or thicket, have we heard
    Celestial voices to the midnight air,
    Sole, or responsive to each other's note,
    Singing their great Creator?Par. Lost, iv.
    
    
35. ————————Their glance alike surveys
    The upright judgments and th' unrighteous ways.] The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. Proverbs, xv. 3.
36. So rue the nations when their kings offend.] Theobald, in a note on Cooke’s translation, proposes to change δημος, the people, into τημος, then: and renders αποτιση in the sense of punish, instead of rue: thus the meaning would be, “that he might then, at that instant, punish the sins of the judges.” Never was an interference with the text so little called for. The meaning which Theobald is so scrupulous to admit is exactly conformable with that of a preceding passage:
    And oft the crimes of one destructive fall;
    The crimes of one are visited on all.
    
    
    It is idle to inquire where is the justice of this kind of retribution? since it is evident from all the history of mankind that such is the course of nature.
    By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted: but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked. Proverbs, xi. 11.
    The king by judgment establisheth the land; but he that receiveth gifts overthroweth it. Ch. xxix. 4.
    In Simpson’s notes on Beaumont and Fletcher, this passage is compared with the following in Philaster:
    In whose name
    We’ll waken all the Gods, and conjure up
    The rods of vengeance, the abused people:
    
    
    and it is proposed to understand it in the sense of Fletcher, “that the people might be raised up to punish the crimes of their prince.” There is taste and spirit in this interpretation, which cannot be said for the amendment of Theobald: but the common acceptation seems to me the right one, for the reasons already stated.
37. Pours down the treasures of felicity.] In the house of the righteous is much treasure: but in the revenues of the wicked there is trouble. Proverbs, xv. 6.
    The Lord will not suffer the soul of the righteous to famish: but he casteth away the substance of the wicked. Ch. x. 3.
    The memory of the just is blessed: but the name of the wicked shall rot. Ch. x. 7.
    A false witness shall not be unpunished: and he that speaketh lies shall perish. Ch. xix. 9.
    The righteous shall never be removed: but the wicked shall not inhabit the earth. Ch. x. 30.
    The inheritance of sinners’ children shall perish: and their posterity shall have a perpetual reproach. Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach, xli. 6.
    Their fruit shalt thou destroy from the earth, and their seed from among the children of men. Psalms, xxi. 10.
38. Smooth is the track of vice.] The way of sinners is made plain with stones: but at the end thereof is the pit of hell. Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach, xxi. 10.
    Both Plato and Xenophon who quote this line of Hesiod, read λειη, smooth, instead of ολιγη, short. Krebsius prefers the reading, as a short road and dwells near make a vapid tautology: and smooth forms a good antithesis to rough.
39. The sweat that bathes the brow.] Spenser has imitated this parable in his description of Honour:
    In woods, in waves, in wars she wonts to dwell,
     And will be found with peril and with pain:
    Ne can the man that moulds in idle cell
     Unto her happy mansion attain.
    Before her gate high God did sweat ordain,
     And wakeful watches ever to abide:
    But easy is the way and passage plain
     To Pleasure's palace: it may soon be spied,
    And day and night her doors to all stand open wide.
    
    
    This allegory of Hesiod seems the basis of the apologue of Hercules, Virtue and Vice, which Xenophon in his "Memorabilia," 2, 21, quotes by memory from Prodicus's "History of Hercules."
40. To the wiser friend.] The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth to counsel is wise. Proverbs, xii. 15.
    A scorner loveth not one that reproveth him: neither will he go unto the wise. Ch. xv. 12.
41. Oh son of Dios.] Διον γενος: Tzetzes had written in the margin Διου γενος, and this is in all probability the true reading; not that there is any thing extraordinary in the application of the term divine, as the Greeks used it in a wide latitude, and on frequent occasions. Homer applies it to the swineherd of Ulysses. It was a term of courtesy or respect; and Hesiod may have intended to compliment, not Perses, but their father. We have, however, the testimony of Ephorus, as recorded by Plutarch, that Dius was the father of Hesiod; and a copyist might easily have mistaken a υ for a ν. The author of the "Contest of Homer and Hesiod" seems to have read Διου γενος, as he makes Homer address his competitor,
    Ησιοδ' εκγονη Διου—
    Oh Hesiod! Dius' son!
    
    
    The reading is recommended by the Abbé Sevin in the "Histoire de l'Académie des Inscriptions," and by Villoison; and is adopted by Brunck in his "Gnomici Poetæ Græci." The herma of Hesiod exhibited by Bellorio in his "Veterûm Poetarûm Imagines" has the inscription, Ησιοδου Διου Ασκραιος, Ascræan Hesiod the son of Dios.
42. Still on the sluggard hungry want attends.] He that gathereth in summer is a wise son; but he that sleepeth in harvest is a son that causeth shame. Proverbs, x. 5.
    He that tilleth his land shall have plenty of bread: but he that followeth after vain persons shall have poverty enough. Ch. xxviii. 19.
    Hate not laborious work; neither husbandry: which the Most High has ordained. Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach, vii. 15.
    He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich. Proverbs, x. 4.
    The desire of the slothful killeth him; for his hands refuse to labour: he coveteth greedily all the day long: but the righteous giveth and spareth not. Ch. xxi. 25.
43. Shame, which our aid or injury we find.] The verse
    No shame is his,
    Shame, of mankind the injury or aid, occurs in the Iliad, 24; and in the Odyssey, 17, we meet with

    An evil shame the needy beggar holds:

    but Le Clerc should have known better than to follow Plutarch in the supposition of the lines being inserted from Homer by some other hand. It is one of the proverbial and traditionary sayings which frequently occur in their writings, and which belong rather to the language than to the poet.
    The admirable Jewish scribe, in that ancient book of the Apocrypha entitled Ecclesiasticus, uses the same proverb:
    Observe the opportunity and beware of evil; and be not ashamed when it concerneth thy soul.
    For there is a shame that bringeth sin; and there is a shame which is glory and grace. Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach, iv. 20, 21.

44. But shun extorted riches.] He that hasteth to be rich, hath an evil eye, and considereth not that poverty shall come upon him. Proverbs, xxviii. 22.
    He that by usury and unjust gain increaseth his substance, he shall gather it for him that will pity the poor. Ch. xxviii. 8.
45. Who spurns the suppliant.] The ninth book of the Odyssey exhibits a beautiful passage illustrative of the high reverence in which the Grecians held the duties of hospitality.
    Illustrious lord! respect the gods, and us
    Thy suitors: suppliants are the care of Jove
    The hospitable: he their wrongs resents,
    And where the stranger sojourns there is he.Cowper.
    
    
46. If aught thou borrowest.] Lend to thy neighbour in time of his need, and pay thou thy neighbour again in due season.
    Keep thy word and deal faithfully with him, and thou shalt always find the thing that is necessary for thee. Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach.
47. Who loves thee, love.] Far different is the spirit of the Gospel. “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy: but I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you, that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. Matthew, v. 43.
    If ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them. And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest; for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Luke, vi. 32.
48. Spare the middle wine.] Hesiod says that we should use the middle of the cask more sparingly, that we might enjoy the best wine the longer. It was the ancient opinion that wine was best in the middle, oil at the top, and honey at the bottom. Grævius.
    This opinion of Hesiod is discussed by Plutarch in his Symposiacs, iii. 7, and by Macrobius in his Saturnalia, vii. 12.
49. As in laughter.] Και τε κασιγνητω γελασας επι μαρτυρα θεσθαι. The interpreters say,

    Etiam cum fratre ludens, testem adhibeto.

    But I should place the comma after fratre, and join ludens with testem adhibeto. "Even in a compact with your brother, have a witness: you may do it laughingly, or as if in jest."}}

50. With garment gather'd in a knot behind.] πυγοστολος, adorning the hinder parts, seems to refer to some meretricious distinction of dress. Solon compelled women of loose character to appear in public in flowered robes. Solomon in that beautiful chapter of the Proverbs has a similar allusion. "There met him a woman with the attire of a harlot, and subtle of heart." Ch. vii. 10.
51. Prattling with gay speech.] With her much fair speech she caused him to yield: with the flattering of her lips she forced him. Proverbs, vii. 21.
52. ——————————Arise
    Before the sun.——————] In the words of Hesiod there is made mention of one rising of the Pleiads, which is heliacal, and of a double setting: the time of the rising may be referred to the 11th of May. The first setting, which indicated ploughing-time, was cosmical; when, as the sun rises, the Pleiads sink below the opposite horizon, which, in the time of Hesiod, happened about the beginning of November. The second setting is somewhat obscurely designated in the line

    They in his lustre forty days lie hid;

    and is the heliacal setting, which happened the third of April, and after which the Pleiads were immerged in the sun's splendour forty days. Hesiod, however, speaks as if he confounded the two settings, for no one would suppose but that the first-mentioned setting was that after which the Pleiads are said to be hidden previous to the harvest. But his words are to be explained with more indulgence, since he could not be ignorant of the time that intervened between the season of ploughing and that of harvest. Le Clerc.

53. 'Tis time to sow.] In the original, begin ploughing; by which
54. is meant the last ploughing, when they turned up the soil to receive the seed. Thus Virgil, Georg. 1:
    First let the morning Pleiades go down:
    From the sun's rays emerge the Gnossian crown,
    Ere to th' unwilling earth thou trust the seed.Warton.
    
    
    Heyne observes, "they sink below the region of the West, at the same time that the sun emerges from the East;" the cosmical setting described by Hesiod. The receding of the bright star of the crown of Ariadne, which Virgil mentions, is its receding from the sun; that is, its heliacal rising.
    The heliacal rising is a star's emersion out of the sun's rays; that is, a star rises heliacally when, having been in conjunction with the sun, the sun passes it and recedes from it. The star then emerges out of the sun's rays so far that it becomes again visible, after having been for some time lost in the superiority of day-light. The time of day in which the star rises heliacally is at the dawn of day; it is then seen for a few minutes near the horizon, just out of the reach of the morning light; and it rises in a double sense from the horizon and from the sun's rays. Afterwards, as the sun's distance increases, it is seen more and more every morning.
    The heliacal rising and setting is then, properly, an apparition and occultation. With respect to the Pleiads, it appears
55. In a note by Holdsworth on Warton's Georgics, it is observed that the heliacal setting of these stars is pointed out by the word abscondantur. But this is a contradiction; for Eoæ absconduntur is the same as occidunt matutinæ, set in the morning; but the time of day in which a star sets heliacally is in the evening, just after sun-set, when it is seen only for a few minutes in the west near the horizon, on the edge of the sun's splendour, into which in a few days more it sinks.
56. Plough naked still.] Virgil copies this direction, Georg. i:
    Plough naked swain! and naked sow the land,
    For lazy winter numbs the labouring hand.Dryden.
    
    Servius explains the meaning to be, that he should plough and sow “in fair weather, when it was so hot as to make clothing superfluous.” This seems to be very idle advice, and fixes on Virgil the imputation of a truism. An equally superfluous counsel is ascribed by Robinson and Grævius to Hesiod. We are correctly told that both γυμνος and nudus applied to men who had laid aside their upper garment, whether the pallia or toga, the Grecian cloak or the Roman gown; and thus is explained the passage in Matthew, xxiv. 18: “Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes:” but as no husbandman, whether Greek or Italian, unless insane, would dream of following the plough in a trailing cloak, Hesiod may safely be acquitted of so unnecessary a piece of advice. In the hot climates of Greece and Italy, it was probably the custom for active husbandmen to bare the upper part of their bodies. Virgil does not say “Plough in fine weather and not in winter;” but “Plough with your best diligence, for winter will soon be here:” equivalent to Hesiod’s “Summer will not last for ever.”
57. The idler never shall his garners fill.] He that tilleth his land shall have plenty of bread: but he that followeth after vain persons shall have poverty enough. Proverbs, xxviii. 19.
58. Trees bud no more.] The sap of the trees, which causes them to germinate, is then at rest. Trees when moist with sap are subject to worms, and the timber in consequence would be liable to putrefaction. Vitruvius also recommends that timber be felled in the autumn.
59. A mortar of three feet.] The purposes to which ancient marbles are applied by the Turks may serve to explain the use of the mortar, which Hesiod mentions as part of the apparatus of the husbandman. “Capitals, when of large dimensions, are turned upside down, and being hollowed out are placed in the middle of the street, and used publicly for bruising wheat and rice, as in a mortar.” Dallaway’s Constantinople.
60. Of bending figure.] So also Virgil, Georg. i. 169:
    Young elms, with early force, in copses bow,
    Fit for the figure of the crooked plough.
    Dryden.
    
    
    Dr. Martyn, in his comparison of Virgil’s plough with that of Hesiod, has fallen into the mistake of the old interpreters who render γοην dentale, the share-beam: whereas γυην is burim, the plough-tail, to which the share-beam joins.
61. Thy artist join the whole.] In the original “the servant of Minerva,” that is, the carpenter. Minerva presided over all crafts, and was the patroness of works in iron and wood.
62. ————————————with bread
    Of four-squared loaf.————————]The loaf here mentioned is similar to the quadra of the Romans: so denominated from its being marked four-square by incisions at equal distances. See Athenæus, iii. 29.
    By “a quadruple loaf containing eight portions,” Hesiod, perhaps, means a loaf double the usual size; similar, probably, to that mentioned by Theocritus, Idyl. xxiv. 135:
    A huge Doric loaf:
    Which he that digs the ground and sets the plant
    Might eat and well be fill’d.
    
    
63. The shrill crane's migratory cry.] The cranes generally leave Europe for a more southern climate about the latter end of autumn; and return in the beginning of summer. Their cry is the loudest among birds; and although they soar to such a height as to be invisible, it is distinctly heard. It is often a prognostic of rain: as from the immense altitude of their ascent they are peculiarly susceptible of the motions and changes of the atmosphere: but Tzetzes is mistaken in supposing that the migratory cry of the crane denotes only its sensibility of cold. These migrations are performed in the night-time, and in numerous bodies; and the clangous scream, alluded to by Hesiod, is of use to govern their course. By this cry they are kept together; are directed to descend upon the corn-fields, the favourite scene of their depredations, and to betake themselves again to flight in case of alarm. Though they soar above the reach of sight they can, themselves, clearly distinguish every thing upon the earth beneath them. See "Goldsmith's Animated Nature." Virgil notices the crane's instinct as to rain, Georg. i. 375:
    The wary crane foresees it first, and sails
    Above the storm, and leaves the lowly vales.
    Dryden.
    
    
64. Of ploughing-time the sign.] Of the first ploughing Hesiod says, ειαρι πολειν: turn the soil in spring; of the second, θερεος νεωμενη, ploughed again in summer; the summer tilth: of the third αροτον: by which he invariably means the seed-ploughing, when they both ploughed up and sowed the ground. Salmasius in Solinum, 509.

    Robinson quotes a passage of Aristophanes: Birds, 711:

    "Sow when the screaming crane migrates to Afric."

    The ploughing first mentioned by Hesiod is, then, actually the last. It appears that he recommends ground to be twi-fallowed: or prepared twice by ploughing before the seed-ploughing. Virgil directs it to be tri-fallowed, Georg. i. 47:
    Deep in the furrows press the shining share:
    Those lands at last repay the peasant's care,
    Which twice the sun and twice the frosts sustain,
    And burst his barns surcharged with ponderous grain.
    Warton.
    
    
    Fallowing, or ploughing the soil while at rest from yielding a crop, prepares it for the growth of seed by pulverizing it, exposing it to the influences of the atmosphere, and destroying the weeds: and is of essential use in recovering land that had been impoverished and exhausted by a succession of the same crops. The practice of fallows seems, however, to be now in a great degree superseded by that of an interchange of other crops in rotation; and the succession of green or leguminous plants alternately with the white crops or grain: the frequent hoeings, in this mode of tillage, cleaning the soil no less effectually than fallowings.
65. Rich in his own conceit.] The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men who can render a reason. Proverbs, xxvi. 16.
66. These let thy timely care provide before.] See Virgil, Georg. i. 167:
    The sharpen'd share and heavy-timber'd plough:
    And Ceres' ponderous waggon rolling slow:
    And Celeus' harrows, hurdles, sleds to trail
    O'er the press'd grain, and Bacchus' flying sail:
    These long before provide.Warton.
    
    
67. Jove subterrene.] Guietus supposes that the husband of Proserpine is invoked from the consanguinity between Pluto, Proserpine, and Ceres. But this is not the only reason. Grævius properly remarks, that the earth, and all under the earth, were subject to Pluto, as the air was to Jupiter: Pluto, therefore, was supposed the giver of those treasures which the earth produces: whether of metals or grain. He was in fact the same with Plutus: and both names are formed from the Greek word πλουτος, wealth.
68. And scare the birds away.] So Virgil, Georg. i. 156:
    Et sonitu terrebis aves.
    
    

    Scare with a shout the birds.
    
    
69. Nor thou on others' heaps a gazer be.] Virgil, Georg. i. 158:
    On others' crops you may with envy look,
    And shake for food the long-abandon'd oak.
    Dryden.
    
    
70. And few shall pass thee then with honouring eye.] The Psalmist alludes to a blessing given by the passers-by at harvest: while comparing the wicked to grass withering on the house-top: "Wherewith the mower filleth not his hand, nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom: neither do they which go by say, "The blessing of the Lord be upon you." Psalm cxxix. 7, 8.
71. The brazier's forge.] Θακος was properly a seat or bench: and λεσχη, conversation, chit-chat—but they came to be applied to the places where loungers sat and talked: hence the former meant a shop, and the latter a portico, piazza, or public exchange, whither idlers of all kinds resorted. It should seem from Homer that beggars took up their night's lodging in such places: Odyssey xvii. Melantho, taking Ulysses for a mendicant, says to him,
    Thou wilt not seek for rest some brazier's forge,
    Or portico.
    
    
72. To gripe thy tumid foot.] Aristotle remarks that, in famished persons, the upper parts of the body are dried up, and the lower extremities become tumid. Scaliger.
73. Make now your nests.] Grævius finds out that καλιαι may mean huts and barns, as well as nests: and in the true spirit of a verbal commentator, explodes the old interpretation of "facite nidos" and substitutes "exstruite casas:" in which he is fol- lowed, like the leader of the flock, by all the modern editors. These viri doctissimi are for ever stumbling on school-boy absurdities in their labour to be critical and sagacious: "they strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel." Are the labourers to set about building huts and barns in the middle of harvest? Who does not see that "make nests," as old Chapman properly renders it, is a mere proverbial figure? "Make hay while the sun shines."
74. Those icy frosts.] Hesiod is said, in this description, to have imitated Orpheus: as if two poets could not describe the appearances and effects of winter, without copying from each other.
    Many and frequent from the clouds of heaven
    The frosts rush down, on beeches and all trees,
    Mountains and rocks and men: and every face
    Is touch'd with sadness. They sore-nipping smite
    The beasts among the hills: nor any man
    Can leave his dwelling: quell'd in every limb
    By galling cold: in all his limbs congeal'd.
    
    
75. Yet from bland Venus' mystic rites aloof.] Hesiod introduces the privacy and retiredness of a virgin's apartment in the house of her mother, as conveying the idea of more complete shelter.
76. With shining ointment.] Ointment always accompanied the bath. Thus Homer describes the bathing of Nausicaa and her maids in the sixth book of the Odyssey:
    And laving next and smoothing o'er with oil
    Their limbs, all seated on the river bank
    They took repast.
    
    
    And afterwards of Ulysses:
    At his side they spread
    Mantle and vest; and next the limpid oil
    Presenting to him in a golden cruse,
    Exhorted him to bathe.Cowper.
    
    
77. Now gnaws the boneless polypus his feet.] Athenæus, book vii. explodes the notion of the polypus gnawing its own feet, and states that its feet are so injured by the congers or sea-eels. Pliny accounts for the mutilation in rather a marvellous manner. “They are ravenously fond of oysters: these, at the touch, close their shell, and cutting off the claws of the polypus take their food from their plunderer. The polypi, therefore, lie in wait for them when they are open; and placing a little stone, so as not to touch the body of the oyster, and so as not to be ejected by the muscular motion of the shell, assail them in security and extract the flesh. The oyster contracts itself, but to no purpose, having been thus wedged open.” Lib. ix. c. 30.
    The same story has been told, with greater probability, of the monkey. “The name of polypi has been peculiarly ascribed to these animals by the ancients, because of the number of feelers or feet of which they are all possessed, and with which they have a slow progressive motion: but the moderns have given the name of polypus to a reptile that lives in fresh water, by no means so large or observable. These are found at the bottom of wet ditches, or attached to the under-surface of the broad-leaved plants that grow and swim on the waters. The same difference holds between these and the sea-water polypi, as between all the productions of the land and the ocean. The marine vegetables and animals grow to a monstrous size. The eel, the pike, or the bream of fresh waters is but small: in the sea they grow to an enormous magnitude. It is so between the polypi of both elements. Those of the sea are found from two feet in length to three or four: and Pliny has even described one, the arms of which were no less than thirty feet long. The polypus contracts itself more or less in proportion as it is touched, or as the water is agitated in which they are seen. Warmth animates them, and cold benumbs them: but it requires a degree of cold approaching congelation, before they are reduced to perfect inactivity. The arms, when the animal is not disturbed, and the season is not unfavourable, are thrown about in various directions in order to seize and entangle its prey. Sometimes three or four of the arms are thus employed; while the rest are contracted, like the horns of a snail, within the animal’s body. It seems capable of giving what length it pleases to these arms: it contracts and extends them at pleasure; and stretches them only in proportion to the remoteness of the object it would seize. Some of these animals so strongly resemble a flowering vegetable in their forms, that they have been mistaken for such by many naturalists. Mr. Hughes, the author of the Natural History of Barbadoes, has described a species of this animal, but has mistaken its nature, and called it a sensitive flowering plant. He observed it to take refuge in the holes of rocks, and, when undisturbed, to spread forth a number of ramifications, each terminated by a flowery petal, which shrunk at the approach of the hand, and withdrew into the hole from which it had before been seen to issue. This plant, however, was no other than an animal of the polypus kind: which is not only to be found in Barbadoes, but also on many parts of the coast of Cornwall, and along the shores of the Continent." Goldsmith, Animated Nature, vol. vi.
    The Polypus is mentioned by Homer, Odys. v.:
    As when the polypus enforced forsakes
    His rough recess, in his contracted claws
    He gripes the pebbles still to which he clung:
    So he within his lacerated grasp
    The crumbled stone retain'd, when from his hold
    The huge wave forced him, and he sank again.
    Cowper
    
    
    .
78. Like aged men.] In the original, τριποδι βροτᾶ, a three-footed mortal: that is, a man with a crutch: a metaphor suggested, probably, by the ænigma of the Sphinx.
    "What is that, which is two-footed, three-footed, and four-footed, yet one and the same? Œdipus declared that the thing propounded to him was man: for that a man, while an infant, went on four: when grown up, on two; and when old, on three: as using a staff through feebleness." Diodorus, Bibl. 4.
79. On a scant warp.] The nap is formed by the threads of the woof: Hesiod therefore directs the woof to be thick and strong, that the nap may the better exclude wet.
80. A strong-dying ox.] This expression is borrowed from Chapman. Thus we find in Homer, “a thong from a slaughtered ox.” This is illustrated by Plutarch in his Symposiacs, 2. by the fact that the skins of slaughtered beasts are tougher, less flaccid, and less liable to be broken than those of animals which have died of age or distemper. The ancients, says Grævius, made their shoes of the raw hide.
    Πιλοι, in Latin udones, were woollen socks; worn, when abroad, inside the shoes; or as substitutes for shoes, in the manner of slippers, when within doors and in the bed-chamber. Le Clerc
    .
81. The thirtieth of the moon.] That is, the last day of each month; for the most ancient Greeks, as well as the Orientals, employed lunar months of thirty days. Le Clerc.
    The Greek month was divided into GREEK HERE, three decades of days. The first was called μηνος αρχομενου or ισταμενου; the second, μηνος μησουντος; and the third, μηνος φθινοντος, παυομενου, or ληγοντος: the beginning month, the middle month, the declining or ending month. The words were put in the genitive case because some day was placed before them. Thus the middle-first or first of the second decade was the eleventh of the whole month; and the first of the end, or of the last decade, was the twenty-first: the twenty-ninth was called εικας μεγαλη, the great twentieth. The French Republican calendar was formed on the Greek model.
82. What time the people to the courts repair.] The forenoon was distinguished by the time of the court of judicature sitting, as in this passage of Hesiod; the afternoon by the time of its breaking up, as in the following of Homer:
    At what hour the judge,
    After decision made of numerous strifes
    Between young candidates for honour, leaves
    The forum, for refreshment’s sake at home.
    Cowper, Odyss. xii.
    
    
83. 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.