Chapter VI: Section IV: On the Mythology of Hesiod (2)

When, Atlas-born, the Pleiad stars [78]arise
Before the sun above the dawning skies,
’Tis time to reap; and when they sink below
The morn-illumined west, [79]’tis time to sow.
Know too they set, immerged into the sun,
While forty days entire their circle run;
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.
[80]Plough naked still, 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.
[81]The idler never shall his garners fill,
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,
[82]Trees bud no more, but earthward cast around
Their withering foliage, then remember well
The timely labour, and thy timber fell.
Hew from the wood [83]a mortar of three feet;
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
[84]Of bending figure like the downward plough,
Bear it away: this durable remains
While the strong steers in ridges cleave the plains:
If with firm nails [85]thy artist join the whole,
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 [86]with bread
Of four-squared loaf 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 [87]the shrill crane’s migratory cry,
[88]Of ploughing-time the sign 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.”
[89]Rich in his own conceit, 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:
[90]These let thy timely care provide before,
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.
[91]Jove subterrene, 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, [92]and scare the birds away:
(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:
[93]Nor thou on others’ heaps a gazer be,
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.
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 [95]the brazier’s forge 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
[96]To gripe thy tumid foot 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,
[97]“Make now your nests,” for summer hours will fly.
Beware the January month: beware
Those hurtful days, that keenly piercing air
Which flays the herds; [98]those frosts 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.
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.
[99]Yet from bland Venus’ mystic rites aloof,
She safe abides beneath her mother’s roof:
The suppling waters of the bath she swims,
[100]With shining ointment sleeks her dainty limbs:
In her soft chamber pillow’d to repose,
While through the wintry nights the tempest blows.
[101]Now gnaws the boneless polypus his feet;
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.
[102]Like aged men 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:
[103]On a scant warp 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 [104]a strong-dying ox
Bind round thy feet; lined thick with woollen socks:
[105]And kid-skins ’gainst the rigid season sew
With sinew of the bull, and sheltering throw
Athwart thy shoulders when the rains impend;
And let [106]a well-wrought cap thy head defend,
And screen thine ears, while drenching showers descend.
Bleak is the morn, when blows the north from high;
Oft when the dawnlight paints the starry sky,
A misty cloud suspended hovers o’er
Heaven’s blessed earth with fertilizing store
Drain’d from the living streams: aloft in air
The whirling winds the buoyant vapour bear,
Resolved at eve in rain or gusty cold,
As by the north the troubled rack is roll’d.
Preventing this, the labour of the day
Accomplish’d, homeward bend thy hastening way:
Lest the dark cloud, with whelming rush deprest,
Drench thy cold limbs and soak thy dripping vest.
This winter-month with prudent caution fear:
Severe to flocks, nor less to men severe:
Feed thy keen husbandman with larger bread:
With half their provender thy steers be fed:
Them rest assists: the night’s protracted length
Recruits their vigour and supplies their strength.
This rule observe, while still the various earth
Gives every fruit and kindly seedling birth:
Still to the toil proportionate the cheer,
The day to night, and equalize the year.
When from [107]the wintry tropic of the sun
Full sixty days their finish’d round have run,
Lo! then the sacred deep Arcturus leave,
First whole-apparent on the verge of eve.
Through the grey dawn the swallow lifts her wing,
Morn-plaining bird, the harbinger of spring.
Anticipate the time: the care be thine
An earlier day to prune the shooting vine.
When the house-bearing snail is slowly found
To shun the Pleiad heats that scorch the ground,
And climb the plant’s tall stem, insist no more
To dress the vine, but give the vineyard o’er.
Whet the keen sickle, hasten every swain,
From shady booths, from morning sleep refrain;
Now, in the fervour of the harvest-day,
When the strong sun dissolves the frame away:
Now haste a-field: now bind thy sheafy corn,
And earn thy food by rising with the morn.
Lo! the third portion of thy labour’s cares
The early morn anticipating shares:
In early morn the labour swiftly wastes:
In early morn the speeded journey hastes;
The time when many a traveller tracks the plain,
And the yoked oxen bend them to the wain.
When [108]the green artichoke ascending flowers,
When, in the sultry season’s toilsome hours,
Perch’d on a branch, beneath his veiling wings
[109]The loud cicada shrill and frequent sings:
[110]Then the plump goat a savoury food bestows,
The poignant wine in mellowest flavour flows:
Wanton the blood then bounds in woman’s veins,
[111]But weak of man the heat-enfeebled reins:
Full on his brain descends the solar flame
Unnerves the languid knees, and all the frame
Exhaustive dries away: oh then be thine
To sit in shade of rocks; with [112]Byblian wine,
And goat’s milk, stinted from the kid, to slake
Thy thirst, and eat the shepherd’s creamy cake;
The flesh of new-dropt kids and youngling cows,
That, never teeming, cropp’d the forest browse.
With dainty food so saturate thy soul,
And drink the wine dark-mantling in the bowl:
While in the cool and breezy gloom reclined
Thy face is turn’d to catch the breathing wind;
And feel the freshening brook, whose living stream
Glides at thy foot with clear and sparkling gleam:
Three parts its waters in thy cup should flow,
The fourth with brimming wine may mingled glow.
When first [113]Orion’s beamy strength is born,
Let then thy labourers thresh the sacred corn:
Smooth be the level floor, [114]on gusty ground,
Where winnowing gales may sweep in eddies round.
Hoard in thy ample bins the meted grain:
And now, as I advise, [115]thy hireling swain
From forth thy house dismiss, when all the store
Of kindly food is laid within thy door:
And to thy service let a female come;
But childless, for a child were burthensome.
[116]Keep, too, a sharp-tooth’d dog, nor thrifty spare
To feed his fierceness high with generous fare:
Lest the day-slumbering thief thy nightly door
Wakeful besiege, and pilfer from thy store.
For ox and mule the yearly fodder lay
Within thy loft; the heapy straw and hay:
This care dispatch’d, refresh the bending knees
Of thy tired hinds, and give thy unyoked oxen ease.
When Sirius and Orion the mid-sky
Ascend, and [117]on Arcturus looks from high
The rosy-finger’d morn, the vintage calls:
Then bear the gather’d grapes within thy walls.
Ten days and nights exposed the clusters lay
Bask’d in the lustre of each mellowing day:
Let five their circling round successive run,
Whilst lie thy frails o’ershaded from the sun:
The sixth in vats the gifts of Bacchus press;
Of Bacchus gladdening earth with store of pleasantness.
But when beneath the skies [118]on morning’s brink
The Pleiads, Hyads, and Orion sink;
Know then the ploughing and the seed-time near:
Thus well-disposed shall glide thy rustic year.
But if thy breast with nautical desire
The perilous deep’s uncertain gains inspire,
When chased by strong Orion down the heaven
Sink the seven stars in gloomy ocean driven;
[119]Then varying winds in gustful eddies roar:
Then to [120]black ocean trust thy ships no more:
But heedful care to this my caution yield,
And, as I bid thee, labour safe the field.
Hale on firm land the ship: with stones made fast
Against the staggering force of humid-blowing blast:
Draw from its keel the peg, lest rotting rain
Suck’d in the hollow of the hold remain:
Within thy house the tackling order’d be.
And furl thy vessel’s wings that skimm’d the sea:
The well-framed rudder in the smoke suspend,
And calm and navigable seas attend.
Then launch the rapid bark: fit cargo load,
And freighted rich repass the liquid road.
Oh witness Perses! thus for honest gain,
Thus did our mutual father plough the main.
Erst, from Æolian Cuma’s distant shore,
Hither in sable ship his course he bore;
Through the wide seas his venturous way he took;
No rich revenues; prosperous ease forsook:
His wandering course from poverty began,
The visitation sent from heaven to man:
Ascra’s sad hamlet he his dwelling chose
Where nigh impending Helicon arose:
[121]In summer irksome and in winter drear,
Nor ever genial through the joyless year.
Each labour, Perses! let the seasons guide:
But o’er thy navigation chief preside:
[122]Decline a slender bark: intrust thy freight
To the strong vessel of a larger rate:
The larger cargo doubles every gain,
Let but the winds their adverse blasts restrain.
If thy rash thoughts on merchandise be placed,
Lest debts ensnare or joyless hunger waste,
Learn now the courses of the roaring sea,
Though ships and voyages are strange to me.
Ne’er [123]o’er the sea’s broad way my course I bore
Save once from Aulis to th’ Eubœan shore:
From Aulis, where the Greeks in days of yore,
The winds awaiting, kept the harbouring shore:
From sacred Greece a mighty army there
Lay bound for Troy, wide famed for women fair.
I pass’d to Chalcis, where around the grave
Of king Amphidamus, in combat brave,
His valiant sons had solemn games decreed,
And heralds loud proclaim’d full many a meed:
There, let me boast, that victor in the lay
I bore a tripod ear’d, my prize, away:
This to the maids of Helicon I vow’d
[124]Where first their tuneful inspiration flow’d.
Thus far in ships does my experience rise;
Yet bold I speak the wisdom of the skies;
Th’ inspiring Muses to my lips have given
The lore of song, and strains that breathe of heaven.
[125]When from the summer-tropic fifty days
Have roll’d, when summer’s time of toil decays:
Then is the season fair to spread the sail:
Nor then thy ship shall founder in the gale
And seas o’erwhelm the crew: unless the Power,
Who shakes the shores with waves, have will’d their mortal hour:
Or he th’ immortals’ king require their breath,
Whose hands the issues hold of life and death
For good and evil men: but now the seas
Are dangerless, and clear the calmy breeze.
Then trust the winds, and let thy vessel sweep
With all her freight the level of the deep.
But rapidly retrace thy homeward way
Nor till the season of new wine delay:
Late autumn’s torrent showers: bleak winter’s sweep:
The south-blast ruffling strong the tossing deep:
When air comes rushing in autumnal rain,
And curls with many a ridge the troubled main.
[126]Men, too, may sail in spring: when first the crow
Imprinting with light steps the sands below,
As many thinly-scatter’d leaves are seen
To clothe the fig-tree’s top with tender green.
This vernal voyage practicable seems,
And pervious are the boundless ocean-streams:
I praise it not: for thou with anxious mind
Must hasty snatch th’ occasion of the wind.
The drear event may baffle all thy care;
Yet thus, even thus, will human folly dare.
Of wretched mortals lo! the soul is gain:
But death is dreadful midst the whelming main.
These counsels lay to heart; and, warn’d by me,
Trust not thy whole precarious wealth to sea,
Tost in the hollow keel: a portion send;
Thy larger substance let the shore defend.
Wretched the losses of the ocean fall,
When on a fragile plank embark’d thy all:
And wretched when thy sheaves o’erload the wain,
And the crash’d axle spoils the scatter’d grain.
The golden mean of conduct should confine
Our every aim; be moderation thine.
Take to thy house a woman for thy bride
When in the ripeness of thy manhood’s pride:
Thrice ten thy sum of years; the nuptial prime;
Nor fall far short, nor far exceed the time.
Four years the ripening virgin should consume,
[127]And wed the fifth of her expanded bloom.
A virgin choose: and mould her manners chaste:
Chief be some neighbouring maid by thee embraced:
Look circumspect and long: lest thou be found
The merry mock of all the dwellers round.
No better lot has Providence assign’d
Than a fair woman with a virtuous mind:
Nor can a worse befall, then when thy fate
Allots a worthless, feast-contriving mate:
She, with no torch of mere material flame,
Shall burn to tinder thy care-wasted frame:
[128]Shall send a fire thy vigorous bones within,
And age unripe in bloom of years begin.
Th’ unsleeping vengeance heed of heaven on high.—
None as a friend should with a brother vie:
But if like him thou hold another dear,
Let no offences on thy side appear:
[129]Nor lie with idle tongue: if he begin
Offence of word and deed, [130]chastise his sin
Once for each act and word; but if he grieve,
And make atonement, straight his love receive:
Wretched! his friends who changes to and fro!
Let not thy face thy mind’s deep secrets show.
Be not the host of many nor of none:
The good revile not, and the wicked shun.
[131]Rebuke not want, that wastes the spirit dry;
It is the gift of blessed gods on high.
[132]Lo! the best treasure is a frugal tongue:
The lips of moderate speech with grace are hung:
The evil-speaker shall perpetual fear
Return of evil ringing in his ear.
[133]When many guests combine in common fare
Be not morose nor grudge thy liberal share:
When all contributing the feast unite,
Great is the pleasure and the cost is light.
When the libation of the morn demands
The sable wine, forbear with unwash’d hands
To lift the cup: with ear averted Jove
Shall spurn thy prayer, and every god above.
Forbear to let your water flow away
Turn’d upright tow’rds the sun’s all-seeing ray:
E’en when his splendour sets, till morn has glow’d
Take heed; nor sprinkle, as you walk, the road,
Nor the road-side; nor bare affront the sight;
For there are gods who watch and guard the night.
The holy man discreet sits decently,
And to some sheep-fold’s fenced wall draws nigh.
From rites of love unclean the hearth forbear,
Nor sit beside ungirt, for household gods are there.
Leave not the funeral feast to sow thy race;
From the gods’ banquet seek thy bride’s embrace.
Whene’er thy feet the river-ford essay,
Whose flowing current winds its limpid way,
Thy hands amidst the pleasant waters lave,
And lowly gazing on the beauteous wave
Appease the river-god: if thou perverse
Pass with unsprinkled hands, a heavy curse
Shall rest upon thee from th’ observant skies,
And after-woes retributive arise.
When in the fane [134]the feast of gods is laid,
[135]Ne’er to thy five-branch’d hand apply the blade
Of sable iron; from the fresh forbear
The dry excrescence at the board to pare.
Ne’er let thy hand the wine-filled flaggon rest
[136]Upon the goblet’s edge; th’ unwary guest
May from thy fault his own disaster drink,
For evil omens lurk around the brink.
Ne’er in the midst th’ unfinished house forego,
Lest there perch’d lonely croak the garrulous crow.
Ne’er from [137]unhallow’d vessels hasty feed,
Nor lave therein; for thou mayst rue the deed.
Set not a twelve-day or a twelve-month boy
[138]On moveless stones; they shall his strength destroy.
Ne’er in the female baths thy limbs immerse;
In its own time the guilt shall bring the curse.
Ne’er let the mystic sacrifices move
Deriding scorn; but dread indignant Jove.
Ne’er with unseemly deeds the fountains stain,
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.
[139]The thirtieth of the moon inspect with care
Thy servants’ tasks and all their rations share;
[140]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.
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.
[141]Beware the fifth, 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.

FOOTNOTES

[27] _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.

[28] _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.

[29] _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.

[30] _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.

[31] _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.

[32] _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.

[33] _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.

[34] _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.

[35] _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.

[36] _The zone, the dress._] This office is probably assigned to Pallas, as the inventress and patroness of weaving and embroidery, and works in wool.

[37] _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.

[38] _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.

[39] _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.

[40] _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.

[41] _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.

[42] _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.

[43] _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.

[44] _Their kingly state._] The administration of forensic justice is implied in the words γερας βασιληιον, regal office.

[45] _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.

[46] _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.

[47] _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.

[48] _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.

[49] _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 premier.

[50]

_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.

[51] _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.

[52] _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.

[53] _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.

[54] _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.

[55] _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.

[56] _Walks in awful grief the city-ways._] Something similar is the prosopopœia 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.

[57] _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?

[58] _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.

[59] _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._

[60]

_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.

[61]

_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.

[62] _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.