Chapter VII: Section IV: On the Mythology of Hesiod (3)

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.

[63] _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.

[64] _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_.

[65] _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.”

[66] _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.

[67] _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.

[68] _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.

[69] _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.

[70] _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.

[71] _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.

[72] _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.

[73] _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.

[74] _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.

[75] _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.”

[76] _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.

[77] _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.

[78]

_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.

[79] _’Tis time to sow._] In the original, begin _ploughing_; by which 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 that different authors vary in fixing the duration of their occultation from about thirty-one days to above forty.

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.

[80] _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.”

[81] _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.

[82] _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.

[83] _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.

[84] _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.

[85] _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.

[86]

_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.

[87] _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.

[88] _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.

[89] _Rich in his own conceit._] The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men who can render a reason. PROVERBS, xxvi. 16.

[90] _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.

[91] _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_.

[92] _And scare the birds away._] So Virgil, Georg. i. 156:

_Et sonitu terrebis aves._

Scare with a shout the birds.

[93] _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.

[94] _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.

[95] _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.

[96] _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.

[97] _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 followed, 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.”

[98] _Those 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.

[99] _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.

[100] _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.

[101] _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.

[102] _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.

[103] _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.

[104] _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.

[105] _And kid-skins ’gainst the rigid season sew._] This was a sort of rough cloak of skins common to the country people of Greece.

Stripp’d of my garberdine of skins, at once
I will from high leap down into the waves.

THEOCRITUS, _Idyl._ iii. 25.

Grævius quotes Varro as authority for a similar covering being worn among the Romans: by soldiers in camp, by mariners, and poor people.

[106] _A well-wrought-cap._] In very ancient times the cap answered no other purpose for the head than the sock, which was worn inside the shoe, did for the foot. The helmets were lined with it. Of this kind was that of the helmet which Ulysses, Odys. x. received from Merion:

Without it was secured
With boar’s-teeth ivory-white, inserted thick
On all sides, and with woollen head-piece lined.

COWPER.

Eustathius tells us, that in after-times they gave the same term, πιλος, to any covering for the head, and thus they ascribed to Ulysses a cap such as they then used. Thus as the club is the badge of Hercules, so is the cap of Ulysses: as appears from coins and other antiques. The ancient Greeks did not use any covering for the head: and it was from them that the Romans borrowed the custom of going bare-headed. They used caps only on journeys; in excessive heat or cold; or in rainy weather. These caps the Latins called _petasos_: they were a kind of broad-brimmed hat, like that which is observed in the figures of Mercury. Otherwise, when in the city, they merely wrapped their heads in the lappet of the gown. GRÆVIUS.

[107] _The wintry tropic._] The winter solstice, according to the table of Petavius, happened in Hesiod’s time on the 30th of December. The acronychal rising of Arcturus took place in the 14th degree of Pisces, which corresponds in the calendar with the 5th of March. LE CLERC.

The acronychal rising of a star is when it rises at the beginning of night: the acronychal setting is when it sets at the end of night. But there are two acronychal risings and settings: the one when the star rises exactly as the sun sets, and sets exactly as the sun rises. This is the _true_ acronychal rising and setting, but it is invisible by reason of the day-light. The other is the visible or _apparent_ acronychal rising and setting; which is, when the star is actually seen in the horizon.

[108] _The green artichoke._] Σκολυμος is not the thistle, as has been commonly supposed. Pliny says of it, lib. xxii. c. 22, “The scolymos is also received for food in the East. The stalk is never more than a cubit in height, with scaly leaves, and a black root of a sweet taste.” It is, therefore, the artichoke.

[109] _The loud cicada._] The interpreters translate ηχετα _canora_, and λιγυρην _dulcem_; and hence an idea is prevalent that Hesiod speaks of the cicada as having a sweet note; but of these epithets the first is properly _vocal_ or _sonorous_, and the second _shrill_ or _stridulous_. Anacreon calls the insect “wise in music,” but he seems to think the note musical from its cheerful association with summer:

Mortals honour thee with praise,
Prophet sweet of summer days.

Virgil applies to it the characteristics of _hoarse_ and _querulous_. Ecl. ii. Georgic. iii.

“Of this genus the most common European species is the _cicada plebeia_ of Linnæus. This is the insect so often commemorated by the ancient poets; and generally confounded by the major part of translators with the grasshopper. It is a native of the warmer parts of Europe, and particularly of Italy and Greece: appearing in the latter months of summer, and continuing its shrill chirping during the greatest part of the day: generally sitting among the leaves of trees. Notwithstanding the romantic attestations in honour of the cicada, it is certain that modern ears are offended rather than pleased with its voice; which is so very strong and stridulous, that it fatigues by its incessant repetition; and a single cicada, hung up in a cage, has been found to drown the voice of a whole company. The male cicada alone exerts this powerful note, the female being entirely mute. That a sound so piercing should proceed from so small a body may well excite our astonishment; and the curious apparatus, by which it is produced, has justly claimed the attention of the most celebrated investigators. Reaumur and Roësel, in particular, have endeavoured to ascertain the nature of the mechanism by which the noise is produced; and have found that it proceeds from a pair of concave membranes, seated on each side of the first joints of the abdomen: the large concavities of the abdomen, immediately under the two broad _lamellæ_ in the male insect, are also faced by a thin, pellucid, iridescent membrane, serving to increase and reverberate the sound; and a strong muscular apparatus is exerted for the purpose of moving the necessary organs.” SHAW, GENERAL ZOOLOGY, vol. vi.

The same naturalist specifies several large and elegant insects in this division of the genus cicada. One with the body of a polished black colour, marked with scarlet rings: another of a green hue, with transparent wings, veined also with green; and a third of a fine black varied beneath with yellow streaks, and the wings black towards the base.

[110] _Then the plump goat._] This is imitated by Virgil, Georg. i. 341:

For then the hills with pleasing shades are crown’d,
And sleeps are sweeter on the silken ground:
With milder beams the sun serenely shines,
Fat are the lambs and luscious are the wines.

DRYDEN.

[111] _But weak of man the heat-enfeebled reins._] Aristotle is of the same opinion. The curious reader may consult the Dictionnaire de BAYLE, iv. 222. Note A.

[112] _Byblian wine._] This was so called from a region of Thrace: it was a thin wine, and not intoxicating. See Athenæus, i. 31. It is mentioned by Theocritus, Idyl. xiv. 15:

I open’d them a flask of Byblian wine
Well-odour’d: with the flavour of four years.

[113] _Orion’s beamy strength._] In the table of Petavius the bright star of the foot of Orion makes its heliacal rise in the 18th degree of Cancer: that is, on the 12th of July. LE CLERC.

[114] _On gusty ground._] So Varro, de Re Rusticâ, lib. i. c. 51. “The threshing-floor should be in a field, on higher ground, where the wind might blow over it.” See also Columella, lib. xi. c. 20.

[115]

_Thy hireling swain_
_From forth thy house dismiss._]

Θητα αοικον ποιεισθαι is rendered by Grævius _comparare sibi servum domo carentem_: and Schrevelius explains the passage to mean that “you should seek out a servant who, having no house of his own to look after, could direct his whole attention to your concerns.” So when the harvest is over, and the corn laid up in the granaries, he is to look out for a labourer! Was there ever a direction so unmeaning as this? I translate the words, (_meo periculo_) “_servum operarium è domo dimitte_.”

[116] _Keep, too, a sharp-tooth’d dog._] Virgil has a more poetical passage on the same subject, Georg. iii. 404:

Nor last forget thy faithful dogs: but feed
With fattening whey the mastiff’s generous breed
And Spartan race, who for the fold’s relief
Will prosecute with cries the nightly thief,
Repulse the prowling wolf, and hold at bay
The mountain robbers rushing to the prey.

DRYDEN.

[117]

_On Arcturus looks from high_
_The rosy-finger’d morn._]

By this is understood the heliacal rising of Arcturus, which happened in the time of Hesiod about the 21st of September. LE CLERC.

[118]

_On morning’s brink_
_The Pleiads, Hyads, and Orion sink._]

This is the morning, or cosmical, setting of the Pleiads; which, according to Petavius, happened some time in November. LE CLERC.

[119] _Then varying winds._] Virgil cautions the navigator against the appearances of the sun, Georg. i. 455:

If dusky spots are varied on his brow
And streak’d with red a troubled colour show:
That sullen mixture shall at once declare
Winds, rain, and storms, and elemental war:
What desperate madman then would venture o’er
The frith, or haul his cables from the shore?

DRYDEN.

[120] _Black ocean._] Οινοπι ποντω, wine-coloured. This evidently means black: as the Greek poets apply the epithet black to wine. Hesiod has αιθοπα οινοι, black coloured wine. The sense of this latter epithet is deduced from the blackness caused by burning: as αιθω is _to burn_.

[121] _In summer irksome._] This inconvenience arose from the site of the place: as the scholiasts Proclus and Tzetzes relate: for by the neighbourhood of so high a mountain as Helicon, the breezes, which might have alleviated the summer heat, were intercepted: and in winter, the rays of the sun were excluded from the village; which was also exposed to torrents from the melting of the snow. ROBINSON.

[122] _Decline a slender bark._] Αινειν, _commend_. This passage is quoted by Plutarch in illustration of words used in a different sense from what they seem to import. _Praise_ means _refuse_. The same idiom occurs in Virgil’s second Georgic:

Commend the large excess
Of spacious vineyards: cultivate the less.

DRYDEN.

[123] _O’er the sea’s broad way._] From the following extracts it will not appear extraordinary that this prodigious voyage of Hesiod should have afforded him but little opportunity of acquiring a practical knowledge of navigation. On an inspection of the map we must, however, concede that the passage from Aulis direct to Chalcis is somewhat wider than the part of the strait crossed by a draw-bridge.

“Elle (Chalcis) est située dans un endroit où à la faveur de deux promontoires qui s’avançent de part et d’autre, les côtes de l’île touchent presque à celles de Bèotie.

“Ce leger intervalle, qu’on appelle Euripe, est en partie comblé par une digue. A chacune de ses extrémités est une tour pour le défendre, et un pont-lever pour laisser passer un vaisseau.” BARTHELEMY, VOYAGES D’ANACHARSIS, tom. ii. p. 82.

[124] _Where first their tuneful inspiration flow’d._] That is, on mount Helicon. Both Le Clerc and Robinson unaccountably refer the term ενθα, where, to Chalcis: and regard this passage as contradictory to that in the proem to the Theogony: whereas the one confirms the other.

[125]

_When from the summer-tropic fifty days_
_Have roll’d._]

If no verses be wanting here, Hesiod truly needs not boast of his skill in nautical affairs. For what can be more absurd than to confine all navigation within fifty days, and those beginning from the summer-solstice; especially as the summer solstice fell on the 3d of July? I should suppose that there was a deficiency of two verses to this effect:

Before the summer-tropic fifty days
Thy keel may safely plough the azure ways.

The similarity of the lines may have caused the copyist’s omission of the two former. I am aware that the art of navigation was in that age imperfect: but if sea-faring men had learnt from experience that navigation was safe fifty days _after_ the summer solstice, they could have learnt from the same teacher that it was equally safe fifty days _before_ it: namely, in the months of May and June. LE CLERC.

[126] _Men, too, may sail in spring._] What the poet says here of a spring voyage, I understand of that which may be made in the month of April: which is not much less liable to gales and storms than even the winter months. Certainly it was in April that the fig-tree began to be in leaf. LE CLERC.

[127] _And wed the fifth of her expanded bloom._] She begins to bloom in her twelfth year. Let her wed in the fifth year of her puberty; that is, in her sixteenth. GUIETUS.

Robinson, not considering the difference of climate, supposes that the fourteenth year is the first of her puberty, and that she is directed to wed in her nineteenth.

[128] _Shall send a fire thy vigorous bones within._] A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband, but she that maketh ashamed is as rottenness in his bones. PROVERBS, xii. 4.

[129] _Nor lie with idle tongue._] Devise not a lie against thy brother, neither do the like to thy friend. ECCLESIASTICUS, vii. 12.

[130] _Chastise his sin._] Far more liberal is the counsel of the son of Sirach:

Admonish a friend: it may be, he hath not done it; and if he have done it, that he may do it no more.

Admonish thy friend: it may be he hath not said it; and if he have, that he speak it not again.

Admonish a friend, for many times it is a slander; and believe not every tale.

There is one that slippeth in his speech, but not from his heart: and who is he, that hath not offended with his tongue?

ECCLESIASTICUS, xix.

Cicero says elegantly, “Care is to be taken lest friendships convert themselves even into grievous enmities: whence arise bickerings, backbitings, contumelies: these are yet to be borne, if they be bearable: and this compliment should be paid to the ancient friendship, that the person in fault should be he that inflicts the injury, not he that suffers it.” DE AMICITIA, c. 21.

The author of the Pythagorean “golden verses” has a line which deserves indeed to be written in letters of gold:

Hate not thy tried friend for a slender fault.

This is probably one of the maxims of Hesiod which induced La Harpe to observe, “Cette morale n’est pas toujours la meilleure du monde.” LYCÉE, tom. i. Hésiode.

[131] _Rebuke not want._] Whoso mocketh the poor reproacheth his Maker. PROVERBS, xvii. 5.

[132] _Lo! the best treasure is a frugal tongue._] In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin: but he that refraineth his lips is wise. The tongue of the just is as choice silver. PROVERBS, x. 19, 20.

[133] _When many guests combine._] There were two sorts of entertainments among the ancient Grecians: the first was provided at the expense of one man, the second was at the common charge of all present: at the latter some of the guests occasionally contributed more than their exact proportion. These were generally most frequented, and are recommended by the wise men of those times as most apt to promote friendship and good neighbourhood. They were for the most part managed with more order and decency, because the guests who ate of their own collation were usually more sparing than when they were feasted at another man’s expense; as we are informed by Eustathius. So different was their behaviour at the public feasts from that at private entertainments, that Minerva, in Homer, having seen the intemperance and unseemly actions of Penelope’s courtiers, concludes their entertainment was not provided at the common charge.

Behold I here
A banquet, or a nuptial feast? for these
Meet not by contribution to regale;
With such brutality and din they hold
Their riotous banquet.

COWPER, _Odyss._ l.

POTTER, _Archæologia Græca_.

[134] _The feast of gods._] A sacrifice was followed by a general banquet, and the tables were spread in the temple itself. The gods were supposed invisibly to be present. Thus we are to explain their visit to the Æthiopians in Homer, Il. i:

For to the banks of the Oceanus
Where Æthiopia holds a feast to Jove
He journied yesterday; with whom the gods
Went also.

COWPER.

[135] _Ne’er to thy five-branch’d hand apply the blade._] This precept is somewhat obscurely expressed, like the symbols of Pythagoras: that things of no value might appear to involve a mysterious importance. Hesiod seems to intimate that we should not choose the precise time of the feast for washing the hands and paring the nails, but sit down to table with hands ready washed. No person, indeed, even at a private entertainment, would have thought of cutting his nails at table, if he did not wish the parings to fly into the dishes, which I conceive could not have been more agreeable to the Greeks than to ourselves. LE CLERC.

[136] _Upon the goblet’s edge._] Robinson supposes a sentiment of hospitality; that the flaggon is not to stand still. Others suppose οινοχοη to be a bowl used only in libation, and which it was indecent to prostitute to common use. But for this there seems not the least authority.

“All the allegorical glosses invented by the latter Greeks to varnish over the doting superstitions of their ancestors are utterly destitute of verisimilitude. Even in our day traces of the old superstitions remain in many places. There are people, for instance, who think it a bad omen if the loaf be inverted, so that the flat part is uppermost; if the knives be laid across, or the salt spilt on the table. It would be just as easy to find a mystical sense in these, as in the idle fancies of Hesiod.” LE CLERC.

[137] _Unhallow’d vessels._] There is here an allusion to the ancient custom of purifying new vessels and consecrating them to a happy use; or, as we say, blessing them. GUIETUS.

Le Clerc imagines a prohibition against seizing the flesh from the tripods before a sacrifice, which he illustrates by the offence of the sons of Eli, 1 Sam. ii. 13; but what has the bathing to do with this?

[138] _On moveless stones._] By ακινητα, immoveable things, he appears to mean the ground or stones, which are cold and hard; or by sitting on immoveable things we may understand habits of sloth. GUIETUS.

Proclus interprets the word to mean sepulchres, which it was unlawful to move: but on the same grounds it may be interpreted land-marks. One should rather understand by it any sort of stones; Hesiod preferring that a boy should be placed on wooden slabs that might be moved about. But the being placed on a stone could not be more hurtful to him on the twelfth day or month than at any other period of his childhood. This was a mere superstition; and we may as well seek to interpret the dreams of a man who is light-headed. LE CLERC.

[139] _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 τρια δεκημερα, 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.

[140] _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.

[141] _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.

The Theogony.

THE THEOGONY.

The Argument.

The proem is a rhapsody in honour of the Muses. It opens with a description of their solemn dances on mount Helicon, and of the hymns which they sing during their nightly visitation of earth. The poet then relates their appearance to himself, and his consequent inspiration; describes their employments in heaven; their birth and dignity; their influence on kings or magistrates, minstrels and bards; and finishes with invoking their assistance and proposing his subject. The COSMOGONY, or origin of nature, then commences, and blends into the THEOGONY, or generation of gods, which is continued through the whole poem, and concludes with the race of demi-gods, or those born from the loves of goddesses and mortals. The following legendary traditions are interwoven episodically with the main subject. I. The imprisonment of his children by URANUS or HEAVEN in a subterranean cave; and the consequent conspiracy of EARTH and CRONUS, or SATURN. II. The concealment of the infant JUPITER. III. The impiety and punishment of Prometheus. IV. The creation of PANDORA, or WOMAN. V. The war of the GODS and TITANS. VI. The combat of JUPITER with the giant TYPHÆUS.

THE THEOGONY.