The Remains of Hesiod the Ascræan, Including the Shield of Hercules / Translated into English rhyme and blank verse; with a dissertation on the life and æra, the poems and mythology of Hesiod, and c
Date: 2021-09-20T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Hesiod -- Translations into English; Heracles (Greek mythological character) -- Poetry

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Title: The Remains of Hesiod the Ascræan, Including the Shield of Hercules

Author: Hesiod

Translator: George Chapman

Sir Charles Abraham Elton

Release date: September 20, 2021 [eBook #66350]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Sonya Schermann and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE REMAINS OF HESIOD THE ASCRÆAN, INCLUDING THE SHIELD OF HERCULES ***

THE REMAINS OF HESIOD THE ASCRÆAN

THE REMAINS
OF
HESIOD THE ASCRÆAN
INCLUDING
The Shield of Hercules,
TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH RHYME AND BLANK VERSE;
WITH
A DISSERTATION
ON THE
LIFE AND ÆRA, THE POEMS AND MYTHOLOGY,
OF
HESIOD,
AND COPIOUS NOTES.

THE SECOND EDITION,
REVISED AND ENLARGED

BY
CHARLES ABRAHAM ELTON,
AUTHOR OF SPECIMENS OF THE CLASSIC POETS FROM HOMER TO TRYPHIODORUS.

Ὡ πρέσβυς καθαρῶν γευσάμενος λιβάδον.—ΑΛΚΑΙΟΣ.

LONDON:
PRINTED FOR BALDWIN, CRADOCK, AND JOY,
47 PATERNOSTER-ROW.
1815.

C. Baldwin, Printer,
New Bridge street, London.

PREFACE.

The remains of Hesiod are not alone interesting to the antiquary, as tracing a picture of the rude arts and manners of the ancient Greeks. His sublime philosophic allegories; his elevated views of a retributive Providence; and the romantic elegance, or daring grandeur, with which he has invested the legends of his mythology, offer more solid reasons than the accident of coeval existence for the traditional association of his name with that of Homer.

Hesiod has been translated in Latin hexameters by Nicolaus Valla, and by Bernardo Zamagna. A French translation by Jacques le Gras bears date 1586. The earliest essay on his poems by our own countrymen appears in the old racy version of “The Works and Days,” by George Chapman, the translator of Homer, published in 1618. It is so scarce that Warton in “The History of English Poetry” doubts its existence. Some specimens of a work equally curious from its rareness, and interesting as an example of our ancient poetry, are appended to this translation. Parnell has given a sprightly imitation of the Pandora, under the title of “Hesiod, or the Rise of Woman:” and Broome, the coadjutor of Pope in the Odyssey, has paraphrased the battle of the Titans and the Tartarus.[1] The translation by Thomas Cooke omits the splendid heroical fragment of “The Shield,” which I have restored to its legitimate connexion. It was first published in 1728; reprinted in 1740; and has been inserted in the collections of Anderson and Chalmers.

This translator obtained from his contemporaries the name of “Hesiod Cooke.” He was thought a good Grecian; and translated against Pope the episode of Thersites, in the Iliad, with some success; which procured him a place in the Dunciad:

Be thine, my stationer, this magic gift,

Cooke shall be Prior, and Concanen Swift:

and a passage in “The Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot” seems pointed more directly at the affront of the Thersites:

From these the world shall judge of men and books,

Not from the Burnets, Oldmixons, and Cookes.

Satire, however, is not evidence: and neither these distichs, nor the sour notes of Pope’s obsequious commentator, are sufficient to prove, that Cooke, any more than Theobald and many others, deserved, either as an author or a man, to be ranked with dunces. A biographical account of him, with extracts from his common-place books, was communicated by Sir Joseph Mawby to the Gentleman’s Magazine: vol. 61, 62. His edition of Andrew Marvell’s works procured him the patronage of the Earl of Pembroke: he was also a writer in the Craftsman. Johnson has told (Boswell’s Tour to the Hebrides, p. 25.) that “Cooke lived twenty years on a translation of Plautus: for which he was always taking subscriptions.” The Amphitryon was, however, actually published.

With respect to Hesiod, either Cooke’s knowledge of Greek was in reality superficial, or his indolence counteracted his abilities; for his blunders are inexcusably frequent and unaccountably gross: not in matters of mere verbal nicety, but in several important particulars: nor are these instances, which tend so perpetually to mislead the reader, compensated by the force or beauty of his style; which, notwithstanding some few unaffected and emphatical lines, is, in its general effect, tame and grovelling. These errors I had thought it necessary to point out in the notes to my first edition; as a justification of my own attempt to supply what I considered as still a desideratum in our literature. The criticisms are now rescinded; as their object has been misconstrued into a design of raising myself by depreciating my predecessor.

Some remarks of the different writers in the reviews appear to call for reply.

The Edinburgh Reviewer objects, as an instance of defective translation, to my version of αιδως ουκ’ αγαυη: which he says is improperly rendered “shame”: “whereas it rather means that diffidence and want of enterprise which unfits men from improving their fortune. In this sense it is opposed by Hesiod to θαρσος, an active and courageous spirit.”

But the Edinburgh Reviewer is certainly mistaken. If αιδως is to be taken in this limited sense, what can be the meaning of the line

Αιδως η τ’ ανδρας μεγα σινεται ηδ’ ονινησι.

Shame greatly hurts or greatly helps mankind?

the proper antithesis is the αιδως αγαθη, alluded to in a subsequent line,

Αιδω δε τ’ αναιδειη κατοπαζη.

And shamelessness expels the better shame.

The good shame, which deters men from mean actions, as the evil one depresses them from honest enterprise.

In my dissertation I had ventured to call in question the judgment of commentators in exalting their favourite author: and had doubted whether the meek forgiving temper of Hesiod towards his brother, whom he seldom honours with any better title than “fool,” was very happily chosen as a theme for admiration. On this the old Critical Reviewer exclaimed “as if that, and various other gentle expressions, for example blockhead, goose-cap, dunderhead, were not frequently terms of endearment:” and he added his suspicion that “like poor old Lear, I did not know the difference between a bitter fool and a sweet one.”

But, as the clown in Hamlet says, “’twill away from me to you.” The critic is bound to prove, 1st, that νηπις is ever used in this playful sense; which he has not attempted to do: 2dly, that it is so used with the aggravating prefix of ΜΕΓΑ νηπιε: 3dly, that it is so used by Hesiod.

Hector’s babe on the nurse’s bosom is described as νηπιος; and Patroclus weeping is compared by Achilles to κουρη νηπιη. These words may bear the senses of “poor innocent;” and of “fond girl;” the former is tender, the latter playful; but in both places the word is usually understood in its primitive sense of “infant.” Homer says of Andromache preparing a bath for Hector,

Νηπιη! ουδ’ ενοησεν ο μιν μαλα τηλε λοετων

Χερσιν Αχιλληος δαμασεν γλαυκωπις Αθηνη:

Il. xxii.

Fond one! she knew not that the blue-eyed maid

Had quell’d him, far from the refreshing bath,

Beneath Achilles’ hand.

But this is in commiseration: or would the critic apply to Andromache the epithet of goose-cap? After all, who in his senses would dream of singling out a word from an author’s context, and delving in other authors for a meaning? The question is, not how it is used by other authors, but how it is used by Hesiod. Till the Critic favours us with some proofs of Hesiod’s namby-pamby tenderness towards the brother who had cheated him of his patrimony, I beg to return both the quotation and the appellatives upon his hands.[2]

The London Reviewer censures my choice of blank-verse as a medium for the ancient hexameter, on the ground that the closing adonic is more fully represented by the rounding rhyme of the couplet: but it may be urged, that the flowing pause and continuous period of the Homeric verse are more consonant with our blank measure. In confining the latter to dramatic poetry, as partaking of the character of the Greek Iambics, he has overlooked the visible distinction of structure in our dramatic and heroic blank verse. With respect to the particular poem, I am disposed to concede that the general details of the Theogony might be improved by rhyme: but the more interesting passages are not to be sacrificed to those which cannot interest, be they versified how they may: and as the critic seems to admit that a poem whose action passes

“Beyond the flaming bounds of time and space”

may be fitly clothed with blank numbers, by this admission he gives up the argument as it affects the Theogony.

In disapproving of my illustration of Hesiod by the Bryantian scheme of mythology, the London Reviewer refers me for a refutation of this system to Professor Richardson’s preface to his Arabic Dictionary; where certain etymological combinations and derivations are contested, which Mr. Bryant produces as authorities in support of the adoration of the Sun or of Fire. Mr. Richardson, however, premises by acknowledging “the penetration and judgement of the author of the Analytic System in the refutation of vulgar errors, with the new and informing light in which he has placed a variety of ancient facts:” and however formidable the professor’s criticisms may be in this his peculiar province, it must be remarked that a great part of “The New System” rests on grounds independent of etymology; and is supported by a mass of curious evidence collected from the history, the rites, and monuments of ancient nations: nor can I look upon the judgment of that critic as infallible, who conceives the suspicious silence of the Persic historians sufficient to set aside the venerable testimony of Herodotus, and the proud memorials and patriotic traditions of the free people of Greece: and who resolves the invasion of Xerxes into the petty piratical inroad of a Persian Satrap. I conceive, also, with respect to the point in dispute, that the professor’s confutation of certain etymological positions is completely weakened in its intended general effect, by his scepticism as to the universality of a diluvian tradition. If we admit that the periodical overflowings of the Nile might have given rise to superstitious observances and processions in Ægypt; and even that the sudden inundations of the Euphrates and the Tigris might have caused the institution of similar memorials in Babylonia, how are we to account for Greece, and India, and America, each visited by a destructive inundation, and each perpetuating its remembrance by poetical legends or emblematical sculptures? Surely a most incredible supposition. Nor is this all; for we find an agreement not merely of a flood, but of persons preserved from a flood; and preserved in a remarkable manner; by inclosure in a vessel, or the hollow trunk of a tree. How is it possible to solve coincidences of so minute and specific a nature[3] by casual inundations, with Mr. Richardson, or, with Dr. Gillies, by the natural proneness of the human mind to the weaknesses and terrors of superstition?

As to my choice of the Analytic System for the purpose of illustrating Hesiod, I am not convinced by the argument either of the London or the Edinburgh Reviewer, that it is a system too extensive to serve for the illustration of a single author, or that my task was necessarily confined to literal explanation of the received mythology. In this single author are concentrated the several heathen legends and heroical fables, and the whole of that popular theology which the author of the New System professed to analyse. Tzetzes, in his scholia upon Hesiod, interpreted the theogonic traditions by the phenomena of nature and the operations of the elements: Le Clerc by the hidden sense which he traced from Phœnician primitives: and to these Cooke, in his notes, added the moral apologues of Lord Bacon. In departing, therefore, from the beaten track of the school-boy’s Pantheon, I have only exercised the same freedom which other commentators and translators have assumed before me.

Clifton,
October, 1815.

FOOTNOTES

[1] A blank-verse translation of the Battle of the Titans may be found in Bryant’s “Analysis:” and one of the descriptive part of “The Shield” in the “Exeter Essays.” Isaac Ritson translated the Theogony; but the work has remained in MS.

[2] The untimely death of the writer unfortunately precludes me from offering my particular acknowledgments to the translator of Aristotle’s Poetics, for the large and liberal praise which he has bestowed upon my work in the second number of The London Review: a journal established on the plan of a more manly system of criticism by the respectable essayist, whose translations from the Greek comedy first drew the public attention to the unjustly vilified Aristophanes.

[3] “Paintings representing the deluge of Tezpi are found among the different nations that inhabit Mexico. He saved himself conjointly with his wife, children, and several animals, on a raft. The painting represents him in the midst of the water lying in a bark. The mountain, the summit of which, crowned by a tree, rises above the waters, is the peak of Colhuacan, the Ararat of the Mexicans. The men born after the deluge were dumb: a dove, from the top of the tree distributes among them tongues. When the great Spirit ordered the waters to withdraw, Tezpi sent out a vulture. This bird did not return on account of the number of carcases, with which the earth, newly dried up, was strewn. He sent out other birds; one of which, the humming-bird, alone returned, holding in its beak a branch covered with leaves.—Ought we not to acknowledge the traces of a common origin, wherever cosmogonical ideas, and the first traditions of nations, offer striking analogies, even in the minutest circumstances? Does not the humming-bird of Tezpi remind us of Noah’s dove; that of Deucalion, and the birds, which, according to Berosus, Xisuthrus sent out from his ark, to see whether the waters were run off, and whether he might erect altars to the tutelary deities of Chaldæa?” Humboldt’s Researches, concerning the Institutions and Monuments of ancient America: translated by Helen Maria Williams.

DISSERTATION
ON
THE LIFE AND ÆRA
OF
HESIOD,
HIS POEMS, AND MYTHOLOGY.

SECTION I.
ON THE LIFE OF HESIOD.

It is remarked by Velleius Paterculus (Hist. lib. i.) that “Hesiod had avoided the negligence into which Homer fell, by attesting both his country and his parents: but that of his country he had made most reproachful mention; on account of the fine which she had imposed on him.” There are sufficient coincidences in the poems of Hesiod, now extant, to explain the grounds of this assertion of Paterculus; but the statement is loose and incorrect.

As to the mention of his country, if by country we are to suppose the place of his birth, it can only be understood by implication, and that not with certainty. Hesiod indeed relates that his father migrated from Cuma in Æolia, to Ascra, a Bœotian village at the foot of mount Helicon; but we are left to conjecture whether he himself was born at Cuma or at Ascra. His affirmation that he had never embarked in a ship but once, when he sailed across the Euripus to the Isle of Eubœa on occasion of a poetical contest, has been thought decisive of his having been born at Ascra; but the poet is speaking of his nautical experience: and even if he had originally come from Cuma, he would scarcely mention a voyage made in infancy. The observation respecting his parents tends to countenance the reading of Διου γενος; race of Dius; instead of διον γενος, race divine; but the name of one parent only is found. The reproachful mention of his country plainly alludes to his charge of corruption against the petty kings or nobles, who exercised the magistracy of Bœotia: and by the fine is meant the judicial award of the larger share of the patrimony to his brother.

There seems a great probability that Virgil, in his fourth eclogue, had Hesiod’s golden and heroic ages in view; and that he alludes to the passage of Justice leaving the earth, where he says

The virgin now returns: Saturnian times

Roll round again:

and to Hesiod himself in the verse,

The last age dawns, in verse Cumæan sung:[4]

and not, as is commonly thought, to the Sibyl of Campanian Cuma. Professor Heyne objects, that Hesiod makes no mention of the revolution of a better age: yet such an allusion is significantly conveyed in the following passage:

Oh would that Nature had denied me birth

Midst this fifth race, this iron age of earth;

That long before within the grave I lay,

Or long hereafter could behold the day!

That Virgil elsewhere calls Hesiod’s verse Ascræan is no argument against his supposing him of Cuma: there seems no reason why either epithet should not be used: for the poet was at least of Cumæan extraction. That Ascræus was Hesiod’s received surname among the ancients proves nothing as to his birth-place, nor is any thing proved as to Virgil’s opinion by his adoption of the title in compliance with common usage. Apollonius was surnamed Rhodius from his residence at Rhodes, yet his birth-place was Ægypt. After all, nothing is established, even if it could be certified that Virgil thought him of Cuma, beyond the single weight of Virgil’s individual opinion. Plutarch relates, from a more ancient and therefore a more competent authority, that of Ephorus, the Cumæan historian, that Dius was the youngest of three brothers, and emigrated through distress of debt to Ascra; where he married Pycimede, the mother of Hesiod.

If we allow the authenticity of the proem to the Theogony, Hesiod tended sheep in the vallies of Helicon; for it is not in the spirit of ancient poetry to feign this sort of circumstance; and no education could be conceived more natural for a bard who sang of husbandry. From the fiction of the Muses presenting him with a laurel-bough, we may infer also that he was not a minstrel or harper, but a rhapsodist; and sang or recited to the branch instead of the lyre. La Harpe, in his Lycée, ou Cours de Littérature, asserts that Hesiod was a priest of the temple of the Muses. I find the same account in Gale’s Court of the Gentiles; book iii. p. 7. vol. i. who quotes Carion’s Chronicle of Memorable Events. For this, however, I can find no ancient authority. On referring to Pausanias, he mentions, indeed, that the statue of Hesiod was placed in the temple of the Muses on Mount Helicon: and in the Works and Days Hesiod mentions having dedicated to the Muses of Helicon the tripod which he won in the Eubœan contest; and observes

Th’ inspiring Muses to my lips have giv’n

The love of song, and strains that breathe of heaven.

From the conjunction of this passage with the account of Pausanias, has probably arisen a confused supposition that Hesiod was actually a priest of the Heliconian temple. The circumstance, although destitute of express evidence, is however probable, from his acquaintance with theogonical traditions and his tone of religious instruction.

Guietus rejects the whole passage as supposititious, which respects the voyage to Eubœa, and the contest in poetry at the funeral games of Amphidamas. Proclus supposes Plutarch to have also rejected it: because he speaks of the contest as τα εωλα πραγματα: which some interpret trite or threadbare tales: others old wives’ stories. But if the latter sense be the correct one, Plutarch may have meant to intimate his disbelief only of Hesiod and Homer having contended; not altogether of a contest in which Hesiod took part. In fact it seems reasonable to infer the authenticity of the passage from this very tradition of Homer and Hesiod having disputed a prize in poetry.

In the pseudo-history entitled “The Contest of Homer and Hesiod,” is an inscription purporting to be that on the tripod which Hesiod won from Homer in Eubœa:

This Hesiod vow’d to Helicon’s blest nine,

Victor in Chalcis crown’d o’er Homer, bard divine.

Now that the passage in “The Works” was extant long before this piece was in existence, is susceptible of easy proof: but if we conceive with the credulity of Barnes, that the piece is a collection of scattered traditionary matter of genuine antiquity, that the passage was not constructed on the narration may be inferred from the former wanting the name of Homer. The nullity of purpose in such a forgery seems to have struck those, who in the indulgence of the same fanciful whim have substituted, as Proclus states, for the usual reading in the text of Hesiod,

Υμνω νικησαντα φερειν τριποδ’ ωτωεντα,

I bore a tripod ear’d, my prize, away:

Υμνω νικησαντ’ εν χαλκιδι θειον Ομηρον,

Victor in Chalcis crown’d o’er Homer, bard divine:

the identical verse in the pretended inscription. It is incredible that any person should take the trouble of foisting lines into Hesiod’s poem, for the barren object of inducing a belief that he had won a poetical prize from some unknown and nameless bard: unless we were to presume that the forger omitted the name through a refinement of artifice, that no suspicion may be excited by its too minute coincidence with the traditionary story: but it is a perfectly natural circumstance that the passage in Hesiod, describing a contest with some unknown bard, should have furnished the basis of a meeting between Hesiod and Homer: and the tradition is at once explained by the coincidence of this passage in “The Works,” and an invocation in the “Hymn to Venus;” where Homer exclaims on the eve of one of these bardic festivals,

Oh in this contest let me bear away

The palm of song: do thou prepare my lay!

The piece entitled “The Contest of Homer and Hesiod,” is entitled to no authority. It is not credible that a composition of this nature, consisting of enigmas with their solutions, and of lines of imperfect sense which are completed by the alternate verses of the answerer, should have been preserved by the oral tradition of ages like complete poems: and the foolish genealogies, whereby Homer and Hesiod are traced to Gods, Muses, and Rivers, and are made cousins, according to the favourite zeal of the Greeks for finding out a consanguinity in poets, diminish all the credit of the writer as a sober historian.

It appears probable that the whole piece was suggested by the hint of the contest in Plutarch: who quotes it in his “Banquet of Sages,” as an example of the ancient contests in poetry. He says Homer proposed this enigma:

Rehearse, O Muse! the things that ne’er have been,

Nor e’er shall in the future time be seen:

which Hesiod answered in a manner no less enigmatical:

When round Jove’s tomb the clashing cars shall roll

The trampling coursers straining for the goal

The same verses, with a few changes, are given in “The Contest;” only the question is assigned to Hesiod, and the answer to Homer; as Robinson conjectures, with perhaps too much refinement, for the secret purpose of depressing Hesiod under the mask of exalting him, by appointing Homer to the more arduous task of solving the questions proposed. With respect also to the award of Panœdes, the judge, which is thought to betray the same design by an imbecile or partial preference of the verses of Hesiod to those of Homer, the reason stated by Panœdes, that “it was just to bestow the prize on him who exhorted men to agriculture and peace, in preference to him who described only war and carnage” is equally noble and philosophical; and by no means merits to have given rise to the proverbial parody quoted by Barnes: Πανιδος ψηφος “the judgment of Pan:” instead of Πανοιδου ψηφος, “the judgment of Panœdes.”

The piece seems to be a mere exercise of ingenuity, without any particular design of raising one poet at the expence of the other: and as it contains internal evidence of having been composed after the time of Adrian, who is mentioned by name as “that most divine Emperor,” and Plutarch flourished under Trajan, there is reason to suppose that the narrative of Periander in the “Banquet of Wise Men,” afforded the first hint of the whole contest.

To the same zeal for making Hesiod and Homer competitors we owe another inscription, quoted by Eustathius, ad Il. A. p. 5.

In Delos first did I with Homer raise

The rhapsody of bards; and new the lays:

Phœbus Apollo did our numbers sing;

Latona’s son, the golden-sworded king.

But if the passage in “The Works” be authentic, the spuriousness of this inscriptive record detects itself; as Hesiod there confines his voyages to the crossing the Euripus.

Pausanias mentions the institution of a contest at the temple in Delphos, where a hymn was to be sung in honour of Apollo: and says that Hesiod was excluded from the number of the candidates because he had not learnt to sing to the harp. He adds, that Homer came thither also; and was incapacitated from trying his skill by the same deficiency: and, what is very strange, he gives as a reason why he could not have taken a part in the contest, even were he a harper, that he was blind.

From Plutarch, Pausanias, and the author of “The Contest,” we are enabled to cull some gossiping traditions of the latter life of Hesiod, which are scarcely worth the gleaning, except that, like the romancing Lives of Homer, they are proofs of the poet’s celebrity.

Hesiod, we are told, set out on a pilgrimage to the Delphic Oracle, for the purpose of hearing his fortune: and the old bard could scarcely get in at the gates of the temple, when the prophetess could refrain no longer: “afflata est numine quando jam propriore Dei:”

Blest is the man who treads this hallow’d ground,

With honours by th’ immortal Muses crown’d:

The bard whose glory beams divinely bright

Far as the morning sheds her ambient light:

But shun the shades of fam’d Nemean Jove;

Thy mortal end awaits thee in the grove.

But after all her sweet words, the priestess was but a jilting gypsey; and meant only to shuffle with the ambiguity of her trade. The old gentleman carefully turning aside from the Peloponnesian Nemea, fell into the trap of a temple of the Nemean Jupiter at Ænoe, a town of Locris. He was here entertained by one Ganyctor; together with a Milesian, his fellow-traveller, and a youth called Troilus. During the night this Milesian violated the daughter of their host, by name Ctemene: and the grey hairs of Hesiod, who we are told was an old man twice over,[5] and whose name grew into a proverb for longevity, could not save him from being suspected of the deed by the young lady’s brothers, Ctemenus and Antiphus: they without much ceremony murdered him in the fields, and “to leave no botches in the work,” killed the poor boy into the bargain. The Milesian, we are to suppose, escaped under the cloud of his miraculous security, free from gashes and from question. The body of Hesiod was thrown into the sea; and a dolphin,[6] or a whole shoal of them, according to another account, conveyed it to a part of the coast, where the festival of Neptune was celebrating: and the murderers, having confessed, were drowned in the waves. Plutarch (de solertiâ animalium) states that the corpse of Hesiod was discovered through the sagacity of his dog.

The body of a murdered poet, however, was not to rest quiet without effecting some further extraordinary prodigies. The inhabitants of Orchomenos, in Bœotia, having consulted the oracle on occasion of a pestilence, were answered that, as their only remedy, they must seek the bones of Hesiod; and that a crow would direct them. The messengers accordingly found a crow sitting on a rock; in the cavity of which they discovered the poet’s remains; transported them to their own country, and erected a tomb with this epitaph:

The fallow vales of Ascra gave him birth:

His bones are cover’d by the Mingan earth:

Supreme in Hellas Hesiod’s glories rise,

Whom men discern by wisdom’s touchstone wise.

Among the Greek Inscriptions is an epitaph on Hesiod with the name of Alcæus, which has the air of being a genuine ancient production, from its breathing the beautiful classic simplicity of the old Grecian school:

Nymphs in their founts midst Locris’ woodland gloom

Laved Hesiod’s corse and piled his grassy tomb:

The shepherds there the yellow honey shed,

And milk of goats was sprinkled o’er his head:

With voice so sweetly breathed that sage would sing,

Who sip’d pure drops from every Muse’s spring.

Some mention Ctemene, or Clymene, on whose account Hesiod is said to have been murdered, as the name of his wife: others call her Archiepe; and he is supposed to have had by her a son named Stesichorus. In “The Works” is this passage:

Then may not I, nor yet my son remain

In this our generation just in vain:

which, unless it be only a figure of speech, confirms the fact of his having a son.

Pausanias describes a brazen statue of Hesiod in the forum of the city Thespia, in Bœotia; another in the temple of Jupiter Olympicus, at Olympia in Elis; and a third in the temple of the Muses, on Mount Helicon, in a sitting posture, with a harp resting on his knees; a circumstance which he rather formally criticises, on the ground that Hesiod recited with the laurel-branch.

A brazen statue of Hesiod stood also in the baths of Zeuxippus, which formed a part of old Byzantium, and retained the same title, an epithet of Jupiter, under the Christian Emperors of Constantinople. (See Gibbon’s Roman Empire, ii. 17; Dallaway’s Constantinople, p. 110.) Constantine adorned the baths with statues, and for these Christodorus wrote inscriptions. That on the statue of Hesiod is quoted by Fulvius Ursinus, from the Greek Epigrams:

Midst mountain nymphs in brass th’ Ascræan stood,

Uttering the heaven-breathed song in his infuriate mood.

The collections of antiquities by Fulvius Ursinus, Gronovius, and Bellorius exhibit a gem, a busto and a basso-relievo, together with a truncated herma; which the ingenious artist who designed the frontispiece to this edition has united with one of the heads. The bust in the Pembroke collection differs from all these. In fact the sculptures, whether of Hesiod or Homer, are only interesting as antiquities of art; for the likenesses assigned to eminent poets by the Grecian artists were mostly imaginary:[7] and must evidently have been so in such ancient instances as these.

Greece, at an early period, seems to have possessed a spirit of just legislation, which formed in the very bosom of polytheism a certain code of practical religion: and from the semi-barbarous age of Orpheus, down to the times of a Solon, a Plato, and a Pindar, Providence continued to raise up moral instructors of mankind, in the persons of bards, or legislators, or philosophers, who by their conceptions of a righteous governor of the universe, and their maxims of social duty and natural piety, counteracted the degrading influence of superstition on the manners of the people: and sowed the germs of that domestic and public virtue which so long upheld in power and prosperity the sister communities of Greece. The same spirit pervades the writings of Hesiod.

It is evident even in the times that have passed since the gospel light was shed abroad among the nations, that a perverted system of theology may perfectly consist with a pure practical religion: that scholastic subtleties, unscriptural traditions, and uncharitable dogmas, may constitute the creed, while the religion of primitive Christianity influences the heart. So, in estimating the character of Hesiod, we must separate those superstitions which belong to a traditionary mythology, from that system of opinions which respected the guidance of human life; the accountableness of nations and individuals to a heavenly judge; and the principles of public equity and popular justice which he derived from the national institutions. If we examine his poems in this view of their tendency and spirit, we shall find abundant cause for admiration and respect of a man, who, born and nurtured upon the lap of heathen superstition, could shadow out the maxims of truth in such beautiful allegories, and recommend the practice of virtue in such powerful and affecting appeals to the conscience and the reason.

They, however, who can feel the infinite superiority of Christianity over every system of philosophic morals, will naturally expect that the morality of Hesiod should come short of that point of purity, which he, who reads our nature, proposed through the revealer of his will as a standard for the emulation of his creatures. But in the zeal of commenting upon an adopted author, we find that every thing equivocal has been strained to some unobjectionable sense; we are presented with Christian graces for heathen virtues; and Hesiod is not permitted to be absurd even in his superstitions; which are thought to involve some refined emblematical meaning; some lesson of ethical wisdom or of economical prudence.

The similitude of patriarch and prophet, with whom he is compared by Robinson, is not a very exaggerated comparison, in so far as respects the simplicity of an ancient husbandman, laying down rules for the general œconomy of life; or the graver functions of a philosopher, denouncing the visitations of divine justice on nations and their legislators, greedy of the gains of corruption. But the learned editor is unfortunate in selecting for his praise the meek and placable disposition of Hesiod as completing the patriarchal character. The indignation which Hesiod felt at the injuries done him by a brother, and the venality of his judges, might reasonably excuse the bitterness of rebuke: but he should not be held up as a model of equanimity and forbearance. To this graceless brother he seldom ever addresses himself in any gentler terms than μεγα νηπιε, greatly foolish: and I question whether Perses, if he could rise from the dead, would confess himself very grateful for the tenderness of this reprehension.

The adverse decision in the law-suit with his brother must be confessed to be the hinge on which the alleged corruptness of his times perpetually turns: yet as he does not conceal the personal interest which he has in the question, his frankness wins our confidence; and simplicity and candour are so plainly marked in his grave and artless style, that we are insensibly led to form an exception in his favour as to the judgment of the character from the writer; to believe his praises of frugality and temperance sincere; and to coincide with Paterculus, in the opinion that he was a man of a contented and philosophical mind, “fond of the leisure and tranquillity” of rustic life.

His countrymen, as Addison expresses it, must have regarded him “as the oracle of the neighbourhood.” Plutarch adverts to his medical knowledge, in the person of Cleodemus the physician; and when we consider that he possessed sufficient astronomy for the purposes of agriculture, and that he carried his zeal for science even into nautical details, of which, notwithstanding, he confesses his inexperience, we shall acknowledge him to have been a man of extraordinary attainments for the times in which he lived.

FOOTNOTES

[4] It has been a favourite theory of learned men, that Virgil had access to Sibylline prophecies, which foretold the birth of a Saviour. How came the Sibyls, any more than the Pythonesses of Delphos, to be ranked on a sudden with the really inspired prophets? or is it credible that they should have had either the curiosity, or the power, to inspect the Jewish Scriptures? The “Sibylline Verses” were confessedly interpolated, if not fabricated, by the pious fraud of Monks. The imitations from Isaiah seem no less chimerical. Every description of a golden age among the poets may be wrested into a similar parallel. Nor is it to be conceived that Virgil would have produced so dry a copy of so luxuriant an original. This argument does not affect the extraordinary coincidence of the time of the appearance of this eclogue, with the epoch of the Messiah’s birth; which is exceedingly curious.

[5] See the epigram; which, for want of an owner, is ascribed by Tzetzes to Pindar:

Hail Hesiod! wisest man! who twice the bloom

Of youth hast prov’d, and twice approach’d the tomb.

[6] The Greeks were extremely fanciful about dolphins. Several stories of persons preserved from drowning by dolphins, and romantic tales of their fondness for children, and their love of music, are related by Plutarch in his “Banquet of Diocles.”

[7] See “Specimens of ancient Sculpture,” by the society of Dilettanti.

SECTION II.
ON THE ÆRA OF HESIOD.

The question of the æra when Hesiod flourished, and whether he were the elder or the junior of Homer, or his contemporary, has given rise to such endless disputes, that Pausanias declines giving any opinion on the subject. Some of the moderns have attempted to ascertain the point from internal evidence: 1st, by the character of style: 2dly, by philological criticism: 3dly, by astronomical calculation.

In the first instance they are unfortunately by no means agreed. Justus Lipsius asserts that a greater simplicity and more of the rudeness of antiquity are apparent in Hesiod: Salmasius insists that Hesiod is more smooth and finished, and less imbued with antiquity than Homer.

As to the argument of Heinsius respecting τεκμαιρομαι being used by Homer in the sense of to effect or bring to pass, and by Hesiod in that of to appoint, contrive, or will; and as to the former being the more ancient acceptation; the proof totally fails: inasmuch as Homer has repeatedly used the word in the latter sense: and with regard to the use of θεμιστας by Homer for law, when Hesiod uses νομους, which is asserted not to have been known in Homer’s age, the objection is vague; unless we suppose that Homer’s poems[8] contained every word in the language. The argument of the celebrated Dr. Samuel Clarke, in favour of their being of a different age, and of Hesiod being the junior, turns on the word καλος; which in Homer is invariably made long in the first syllable; whereas Hesiod makes it either long or short at pleasure: and on the word οπωρινος; of which the penult is long in Homer, and short in Hesiod. But should the argument affect their being coeval, it does not appear why Hesiod might not be the elder: for who will be bold enough to decide as to the most ancient quantity? nor could we possibly determine the question, unless we were in possession of other poets, contemporary with Homer, who should be found to conform exactly with the Homeric prosody: in which case the disagreement of Hesiod might favour a presumption of his belonging, at least, to a different age. The criticism seems, however, in all respects unworthy of so acute a reasoner as Dr. Clarke: for surely the difference of country alone might induce a difference of prosodial usage, no less than a dissimilarity of dialect. But the most decisive answer to all such minute criticisms appears to be, that all the evidence afforded us on historical authority respecting the discovery, collection, and arrangement of the poems ascribed to Homer, justifies the presumption that their dialect, diction, and prosody have undergone[9] such modifications and changes, as to baffle all chronological reasoning drawn from the present state of the poems.

Scaliger and Vossius have thought that the æra of Hesiod could be ascertained within seventy years, more or less, by astronomical calculation, from the following passage of The Works and Days.

When sixty days have circled, since the sun
Turn’d from his wintry tropic, then the star
Arcturus, leaving ocean’s sacred flood,
First whole-apparent makes his evening rise.

It is singular that so great a philosopher as Dr. Priestley should also have argued for the certainty of the same method of chronology in this instance of Hesiod. (Lectures on History, Lect. xii. p. 99.) But neither the accuracy nor the precise nature of the astronomical observation here commemorated can possibly be ascertained. It is uncertain whether the single star Arcturus may not be placed for the whole constellation of Boötes; of which there are examples in Columella, and other writers. It is wholly uncertain whether this rising was observed in Hesiod’s own country, or even in Hesiod’s own time; a knowledge of both which particulars is essential to our making a just calculation. We shall scarcely ascribe to Hesiod a more scientific accuracy than to subsequent astronomers; yet we find that even their observations of the solstices and of the risings and settings of the stars, are ambiguous, and most probably fallacious. Hesiod makes the achronycal rising of Arcturus sixty days after the winter solstice: many other writers, and particularly Pliny, say the same. Now setting the difference between Hesiod and Pliny at 800 years, this will make a difference of eleven days in the time of the phænomenon. Both therefore cannot have written from actual observation, and probably neither did. The ancients copied from each other without scruple; because they knew not till the time of Hipparchus, that the times of rising &c. varied by the course of ages. They seem besides to have copied from writers of various latitudes: unconscious that this also made a difference. We shall not then be disposed to rely on this, or similar passages of Hesiod, for any secure data of chronology.

In the absence of internal evidence we are therefore referred to the opinions of antiquity. There is a remark of Gibbon in that part of his Posthumous Writings entitled “Extraits raisonnés de mes Lectures,” which lays down an excellent rule of judgment in matters of chronology. He very justly observes, that the differences of chronologers may be reconciled by the consideration that they reckoned from different æras of the person’s life. The fixing the date from different periods, as from the birth or death, the production of a work,[10] or any other remarkable event of a person’s life, might easily make the difference of a century. “So that we may establish it as a rule of criticism, that where these diversities do not exceed the natural term of human life we ought to think of reconciling, and not of opposing them. There are, indeed, many writers, with respect to Homer, whom it is impossible to conciliate; since they take in so enormous a period as 416 years, from the return of the Heraclidæ A. C. 1104 to the twenty-third Olympiad A. C. 688. But besides that they are of inferior note, the great difference among them leaves the authority of each to stand singly by itself.”

This reasoning very much diminishes whatever force might be derived from the authority of names, to the computations of those writers who contend that Hesiod is a century younger than Homer. These are the Latin writers; whose concurrence is however so exact as to induce a belief of their having merely copied from each other. Thus Velleius Paterculus, who wrote his history 30 years after Christ, says that Homer flourished 950 years before his time; that is, before Christ 920; and Pliny about the year 78 computed that Homer lived 1000 years before him; before Christ 920. Paterculus follows Cicero in placing Hesiod 120 years after Homer: Pliny, Porphyry, and Solinus, concur in the order of their ages, and in the interval between them: varying only from ten to twenty or thirty years. But on the plan laid down by Gibbon, this chronology might be reconciled with that of Ephorus, and Varro: who, according to Aulus Gellius, made Hesiod and Homer contemporaries: as did Plutarch and Philostratus.

This opinion is supported by the ancient authority of Herodotus; and by that of the Chronicler of the Parian Marbles. The authenticity of these marbles has, indeed, been impugned by a learned dissertation of Mr. Robertson, printed in 1788. To this an answer was published in 1789, by Mr. Hewlett: and Mr. Gough has defended the genuineness of the Chronicle in a Memoir of the Archæologia, vol. ix. Gibbon observes, “I respect that monument as a useful, as an uncorrupt monument of antiquity: but why should I prefer its authority to that of Herodotus? it is more modern: (B. C. 264:) its author is uncertain: we know not from what source he drew his chronology.”[11] The Parian Marble, however, if not a modern forgery, may be allowed to stand on the same footing with other Greek tablets of chronology.

Herodotus was born B. C. 484. He affirms Hesiod and Homer to have preceded his own time by four hundred years: thus making them contemporaries; and fixing their æra at B. C. 884.

The Chronicler of the Marbles fixes the æra of Hesiod at 944 years B. C.: and that of Homer at 907; by which Hesiod is placed 37 years before Homer; a difference, however, too trifling to affect the chronological evidence in favour of their contemporary existence.

FOOTNOTES

[8] Robinson, Dissertatio de Hesiodo.

[9] “If we consider the chronology of Homer’s life to be sufficiently established, one would be tempted to believe that his rhapsodies, as they were called, have not only been arranged and digested in a subsequent period, as has been asserted on good authority, but have even undergone something similar to the refaccimento by Berni of Boyardo’s Orlando.” Essays annexed to Professor Millar’s History of the English Government.

[10] It is strange, however, that a critic like Gibbon should have allowed himself to talk of a definite time when “Homer wrote his Iliad;” in an age when alphabetic characters were not in use; when poets composed only rhapsodies, or such portions as could be recited at one time; which were preserved by oral tradition through the recitations of succeeding bards.

[11] The first specimen of a regular tablet of chronology is said to have been given by Demetrius Phalereus in his Αρχοντων Αναγραφη, about the middle of the fourth century B. C. The historian Timæus, who flourished in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, first arranged his narrative in the order of Olympiads; which began B. C. 776. His contemporary Sosibius, gave a work entitled Χρονων Αναγραφη: Apollodorus wrote the Συνταξις Χρονικη: and on such chronologers rests the credit of all later compilers, as well as of the Arundelian Marbles. Dr. Gillies.

We are informed by Dr. Clarke, in his “Travels,” that these marbles were not found in Paros, but in the Isle of Zia.

SECTION III.
ON THE POEMS OF HESIOD.[12]

Pausanias informs us that “the Bœotians, who dwell round Helicon, have a tradition among them that Hesiod wrote nothing besides the poem of ‘Works:’ and from this they take away the introduction, and say that the poem properly begins with The Strifes. They showed me a leaden tablet near the fountain, which was almost entirely eaten away with age, and on which were engraven the Works and Days of Hesiod.”

It is difficult to account for the manifest mutilation and corruption of this venerable poet’s compositions, since it appears that they were extant in a complete, or at least, a more perfect form, so late as the age of Vespasian. Pliny, book xiv. complaining of the agricultural ignorance of his age, observes that even the names of several trees enumerated by Hesiod had grown out of knowledge: and in book xv. he adverts to Hesiod’s opinion of the unprofitableness of the olive. From some verses in the Astronomicon of Manilius, an Augustan writer, it would seem that he had treated of ingrafting, and of the soils adapted to corn and vines.

He sings how corn in plains, how vines in hills

Delight, how both with vast increase the olive fills:

How foreign grafts th’ adulterous stock receives,

Bears stranger fruit and wonders at her leaves.

Creech.

and it is remarkable that the line in Virgil translated by Dryden,

And old Ascrean verse through Roman cities sing,

occurs in that book of the Georgics which is dedicated to planting, ingrafting, and the dressing of vines. In the “Works,” as they now appear, we find no mention of any trees but such as are fit for the fabrication of the plough: and it is plain that the countrymen of Pliny could be in no danger of forgetting the names of the oak, the elm, or the bay-tree. Of the olive, and of ingrafting, there is no mention whatever, and but a cursory notice on the vine: nor is there any comparison of the soils respectively adapted to the growth of vines and of corn.

The poem in some editions has been divided into two books; under the general title of “Works and Days,” but with a subdivision entitled Days only: by which arrangement it is made virtually to consist of three books. In Loesner’s edition the distinction of the second book is done away: but the subdivision of Days is retained. From either mode of disposition this incoherency results: that Works and Days no longer appear to be the general title, but applicable only to the former part of the poem, in which there is no mention of Days at all. The ancient copies, as Heinsius has shown, had no division into parts. If any minor distinction be deemed admissible for the more convenient arrangement of the subject, the disposition of Henry Stephens is obviously the most rational: whereby the poem is divided into two parts: the first entitled “Works” only, and the second “Days.”

Cooke explains the “Works” of Hesiod to mean the labours of agriculture, and the “Days” the proper seasons for the Works; but erroneously. The term Works is to be taken with greater latitude, as including not only labours, but actions; and as referring equally to the moral, as to the industrious œconomy of human life. It is evident also that the term “Days” does not respect the seasons of labour specified in the course of the poem, but the days of superstitious observance at the end of it: and of these many have no reference whatever to the works of husbandry.

The Theogony has all the appearance of being a patchwork of fragments; consisting of some genuine Hesiodéan passages;[13] pieced together with verses of other poets, and probably of a different age. The mythology is occasionally inconsistent with itself: thus the god Chrysaor is re-introduced among the demi-gods; and the Fates are born over again from different parents: an incongruity which Robinson attempts to obviate by an ingenious, but over-refined construction.

The proem bears the internal marks of comparatively modern refinement. It has not the simple outline of Hesiod. The whole passage has the air of one of those introductions which the rhapsodists were accustomed to prefix to their recitations: it is conceived in a more florid taste than the usual composition of Hesiod, but expressed with considerable elegance of fancy.

These arguments are not affected by the individual opinions of Romans and Greeks, themselves modern with respect to Hesiod. Ovid in his “Art of Love” alludes to this proem:

The sister Muses did I ne’er behold,

While, Ascra! midst thy vales, I fed my fold.

Plutarch in the ninth book of his Symposiacs, quotes two of the verses in illustration of the propriety of epithets: Pausanias appeals to the presentation of the branch as evidence that Hesiod did not sing to the lyre; and Lucian in his dialogue “on the illiterate book-collector” observes, “how can you have known these things without having learnt them? how or whence? unless at any time you have received a branch from the Muses like that shepherd. They, indeed, did not disdain to appear to the shepherd, though a rough hairy man, with a sun-burnt complexion; but they would never have deigned to come near you:” and in the “Dialogue with Hesiod” he banters him as promising to sing of futurity; and affecting the Chalcas or Phineas, when there is nothing of prophecy in his whole poem. An indirect argument for the spuriousness of the verses.

It must have been an impression of this proem which led Gibbon in his “Notes on the editions of the Classics” (Miscellaneous Works, vol. v.) to observe, “in the Theogony I can discern a more recent hand:” for many details in the poem have all the internal evidence of antiquity. Perhaps the catalogue of names, which Robinson superfluously defends on the score of their metrical harmony, and compares with Homer’s catalogue of ships, of which the merit is geographical and historical, may furnish a strong presumptive argument of antiquity. They would appear to have been composed at a period when alphabetic writing was unknown, and the memory of names and things depended on the technical help of oral tradition.

Pausanias says, speaking of the Theogony, “There are some who consider Hesiod as the author of this poem.” That some theogony was composed by Hesiod is evidenced by the passage in Herodotus; who, speaking of Hesiod and Homer, affirms, “these are they who framed a Theogony for the Greeks:” and the fable of Pandora in the Theogony, that we now possess, bears characteristical marks of having come from the same hand as that in the Works and Days.

Of the Shield of Hercules it is asserted by Cooke, that “there is great reason to believe this poem was not in existence in the time of Augustus:” but he merely advances, in proof of this assertion, that “Manilius, who was an author of the Augustan age, takes notice of no other than the Theogony, and the Works and Days:” yet this, if indeed anything decisive could be concluded from the omission, would only prove that he did not believe the piece authentic. He further remarks that critics should not suppose it to have formed a part of another poem, unless they could show when, where, or by whom the title had been changed. This is surely to demand a very unreasonable as well as unnecessary kind of proof. The distinct title affords, in fact, no evidence for the completeness of the poem; as we learn from Ælian, that portions of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey were known by such separate titles as, “the Funeral Games of Patroclus,” the “Grot of Calypso;” and sung as detached pieces. The argument of Cooke that it cannot be an imitation of the Shield of Achilles, because the description of the mere Shield occupies but a small part of the piece, is equivalent to contending that Virgil could not have imitated the simile of Diana in the first book of the Æneid from the Odyssey, because the rest of the book bears no resemblance to any thing in Homer. A slight presumption of the Shield being from the hand of Hesiod may be founded on a quotation of Polybius, from one of Hesiod’s lost works: the historian speaks of the Macedonians as being “such as Hesiod describes the Æacidæ; rejoicing in war rather than in the banquet:” book v. ch. i. In the Shield, Iölaus says of himself and Hercules, that battles “are better to them than a feast.” The expression, however, may have been proverbial, and used by more poets than one.

The poem is ascribed to Hesiod by Athenæus: but Aristophanes the grammarian rejected it as spurious, and Longinus speaks doubtingly of Hesiod being the author. Tanaquil Faber confidently asserts “that they who think the Shield not of Hesiod, have but a very superficial acquaintance with Grecian poetry:” and on the other side Joseph Scaliger speaks of the author, whoever he may be, of the Shield; which the critical world by a preposterous judgment have attributed to the poet of Ascra. It is not by a reference to authorities that the question must be decided, but by an examination of the interior structure of the poem, and the evidence of style.

The objections to a great part of the poem consist in its unlikeness to the style of Hesiod, and its resemblance to that of Homer.

Robinson insists in reply that it is very usual for the same author to show a diversity of style; which is at least an admission that Hesiod is here different from himself. But to his question “whether we demand the same fervour and force in the Georgics of Virgil as in the Æneid?” it may be asked in return whether a certain similarity of style be not clearly distinguishable in these poems, however distinct their nature? there is, indeed, a difference, but not absolutely a discordance.

The whole laboured argument which he has bestowed on the necessary dissimilarity of didactic and heroical composition is plainly foreign to the question. Who would dream of urging as an objection to its authenticity, that the style of “The Shield” is unlike the georgical style of Hesiod? the objection is, that it is unlike his epic style: and Robinson has brought the question to a fair issue by his remark that the Battle of the Gods abounds no less than the Shield with the ornaments of poetry.

It is not sufficient that these passages respectively display ornament; we must examine whether they display a similar style of ornament. Now the descriptive part of the Shield is in a gorgeous taste; unlike the bold and simple majesty of the Theogony. There is a visible effort to surprise by something marvellous and uncommon; which often verges on conceit and extravagance. For sublime images we are presented with gigantic and distorted figures, and with hideous conceptions of disgusting horror. There is indeed a considerable degree of genius even in these faulty passages: but whoever perceives a resemblance in the imagery of the Shield to that of the Titanic War, may equally trace an affinity between Virgil and Ariosto.

These reasonings affect that part of the poem chiefly, which is occupied with the mere description of the Shield; but a single circumstance will show that the passages which represent the action of the poem are both foreign to Hesiod’s manner, and are in the manner of Homer. I allude to the employment of similes and to the character of those similes.

Homer is fond of comparisons; and of such, particularly, as are drawn from animated nature. The Shield of Hercules also abounds with similes, and they are precisely of this sort. But the frequent use of similitudes is so far from being characteristic of Hesiod, that in the whole Battle of the Giants but one occurs; and only one in the Combat of Jupiter and Typhæus; and in both we look in vain for any comparison drawn from lions, or boars, or vultures.

Robinson appears, indeed, conscious of a more crowded and diversified imagery in the Shield than we usually meet with in Hesiod’s poetry; for he is driven to the miserable alternative of supposing that Hesiod may have produced the Shield in his youth, and his other works in his old age. Longinus in the same manner accounts for the comparative quiet simplicity of the Odyssey. The supposition in either case is founded on the erroneous principle, that a poem is beautiful in proportion to the noise and fury of its action, or the accumulation of its ornament. The notion of the genius necessarily declining with the decline of youthful vigour is completely unphilosophical; and is contradicted by repeated experience of the human faculties. It was in his old age that Dryden wrote his “Fables.”

As to that portion of the poem which is properly the Shield, and from which the whole piece takes its title, it is self-evident that this must have been borrowed from the description in the Iliad, or the description in the Iliad from this. I do not allude merely to a whole series of verses being literally the same in each; but to long passages of description, bearing so close a resemblance as to preclude the idea of accidental coincidence; such as the bridal procession, the siege, the harvest, and the vintage.

Robinson admits the imitation; but thinks the partisans of Homer cannot easily show that Homer was not the copyist. It were, however, easy to decide from internal evidence which is the copy.

Where two poems are found so nearly resembling each other as to convey at once the impression of plagiarism, the scale of originality must doubtless preponderate in favour of that which is the more simple in style and invention. Where a poem abounds with florid figures and irregular flights of imagination, it is inconceivable that a copy of that poem should exhibit a chaste simplicity of fancy: but it is highly natural that an imitator should think to transcend his original by the aid of meretricious ornament; that he should mistake bombast for sublimity, and attempt to dazzle and astonish. Of this sort of elaborate refinement a single instance will serve in illustration.

Both poets encircle their bucklers with the ocean. Robinson gives the preference to the author of The Shield of Hercules; alleging that his description is decorated with the utmost beauty of imagery; while that of The Shield of Achilles is naked of embellishment. To the unornamented style of the passage in Homer I appeal, as demonstrating the superiority of his judgment, and as thereby establishing beyond dispute the fact of his originality.

In one condensed verse he pours around the verge of the buckler “the great strength of the ocean stream.” An image of roundness and completeness is here at once presented to the eye, and fills the mind. But the author of the Shield of Hercules, evidently striving to excel Homer, says that “high-soaring swans there clamoured aloud, and many floated on the surface of the billows, and near them fishes were leaping tumultuously.” Who does not perceive that the full image of the rounding ocean is broken and rendered indistinct by this multiplicity of images? The description is, indeed, picturesque; at nunc non erat his locus.

Yet that Hesiod was the plagiarist will scarcely be contended, until the assertion already advanced respecting the epic simplicity of his style shall have been set aside.

But the former part of the piece has all the internal marks of having been composed by an author of totally dissimilar genius. It has the stamp of the ancient simplicity upon it. A few passages are magnificent; but still in a noble and pure taste. Here then I discern the hand of Hesiod. But the presumption rests on surer grounds than characteristics of style.

In the concluding verses of the Theogony, the poet invokes the Muses to sing the praises of women; and among the lost works of Hesiod, whose titles are dispersed in ancient authors, are enumerated the four Catalogues of Women or Heroines; and the Herogony, or Generation of Heroes descended from them; which are thought to have been five connected parts of the same poem. That this was the work of Hesiod we have the testimony of Pausanias; who alludes to the tale of Aurora and Cephalus, and that of Iphigenia, as treated by Hesiod in his Catalogue of Women. The fourth Catalogue had acquired a secondary title of Ηοιαι μεγαλαι; the great Eoiæ: fantastically framed out of the words η οιη, or such as, which introduced the stories of the successive heroines. From the use of this title a strange idea got abroad that Eoa was the name of a young woman of Ascra, the mistress of Hesiod.

Bœotian Hesiod, vers’d in various lore,

Forsook the mansion where he dwelt before:

The Heliconian village sought, and woo’d

The maid of Ascra in her scornful mood:

There did the suffering bard his lays proclaim,

The strain beginning with Eoa’s name.

Hermisianax of Colophon, in Athenæus, book xiii.[14]

Among the minor fragments of Hesiod are preserved three passages, each beginning with the words η οιη, introductory of a female description. They are naturally considered as remnants of the Fourth Catalogue. Now the piece entitled “The Shield of Hercules” also opens with these identical words, introductory of the story of Alcmena.

Fabricius decides that these introductory words will not permit us to doubt that “The Shield of Hercules” formed part of the Fourth Catalogue; but the inference does not necessarily extend beyond the first portion of the piece. Robinson justly argues on the incongruity of the poet’s digressing from the tale of Alcmena, to tell a story of Hercules; and he therefore conjectures that this piece is a fragment of the Heroical Genealogies; but aware that the concurrence of the exordium with the above-mentioned fragments, points the attention to the Fourth Catalogue, he cuts the Gordian knot by changing η οιη, or such as, into η οιη, she alone.

Guietus suggests the reading of ηοιη, rising with the dawn; for the purpose of rendering the piece complete in itself: but the very basis of the argument in favour of the authenticity of the poem as a work of Hesiod, is the striking coincidence of the introductory lines with the fragments of the Fourth Catalogue. This may be set aside by the ingenious expedient of altering the text; but if the text be suffered to remain, the presumption, so far as it extends, is irresistible. I do conceive that Robinson, when his judgment consented to this alteration of the reading, yielded a very important advantage to those who dispute the genuineness of the poem, as the production of Hesiod; that by the abandonment of these remarkably coincident words the difficulty of proving the poem to be a fragment is increased two-fold; and that with the fact of its being a fragment is closely linked the fact of its authenticity.

From what has been said, it will perhaps be thought extraordinary that the idea of a cento of dispersed fragments, pieced together and interpolated with Homeric imitations, never suggested itself to those critics who have bestowed such elaborate scrutiny on the composition of the poem.

In the scholium of the Aldine edition of Hesiod, it is stated, “The beginning of the Shield as far as the 250th verse is said to form a part of the Fourth Catalogue.” Here is at once an admission of the patchwork texture of the piece; and we may be allowed to conjecture that the scholiast may possibly be mistaken as to the exact number of lines. This portion, in fact, comprehends the meeting of Hercules with Cygnus, and his arming for battle; which follows, with a strange and startling abruptness, immediately on his birth; and seems to have little connexion with the praises of a heroine, in a poem devoted exclusively to celebrated women.

I should, therefore, be inclined to consider the first fifty-six lines only as belonging to the Fourth Catalogue. This introductory part, ending with the birth of Hercules, is awkwardly coupled with his warlike adventure in the grove of Apollo by the line

Who also slew Cygnus, the magnanimous son of Mars.

This line is perceptibly the link of connexion between the two fragments, and betrays the hand of the interpolator. The succeeding passage, as far as verse 153, I conjecture to have formed a part of the Herogony. It seems probable that Hesiod’s description of the sculpture on the Shield of Hercules was limited to the dragon in the centre, and the figure of Discord hovering above it; and was meant to end with the effects produced by the sight of this shield on the hero’s enemies. This short description appears to have suggested the experiment of ingrafting upon it a florid parody of the Shield of Achilles; and that here precisely we may fix the commencement of the spurious additions is probable from the verses

Οστεα δε σφι, περι ρινοῖο σαπεισης,

Σειριου αζαλεοιο, κελαινῇ πυθεται αιῃ.

Through the flesh that wastes away

Beneath the parching sun, their whitening bones

Start forth, and moulder in the sable dust:

being instantly followed by a passage from the Achillean Shield: Εν δε προιωξις, &c.

Pursuit was there, and fiercely rallying Flight.

I suppose, therefore, the description of the putrefying corses of the foes of Hercules to have joined the 320th verse; where he is made to grasp the shield and ascend the chariot. Several of the subsequent passages, as, in particular, the description of the Cicada, appear to me genuine; but they are visibly patched with Homeric similes, which are in general mere plagiarisms; and are not at all in unison with the style of the rest of the poem; nor with the characteristic manner of Hesiod. This mixture of authenticity and imposture will explain the contradictory decisions of learned men; who, in examining this curious question, have looked only at one side.

It does not appear that Hesiod was the most ancient author either of a theogony or a rural poem; although Herodotus speaks of him as the first who framed a theogonic system for the Greeks, and Pliny cites him as the earliest didactic poet on agriculture. But tradition has preserved the fame of theogonies by Orpheus and Musæus: and Tzetzes mentions two poems of Orpheus, the one entitled Works, the other Diaries; the archetypes, probably, of The Works and Days.

Quintilian observes that “Hesiod rarely rises, and a great part of him is occupied in names; yet he is distinguished by useful sentences conveying precepts, and a commendable sweetness of words and construction; and the palm is given him in that middle kind of writing.”

This is niggardly praise; and is somewhat similar to that which the same critic awards to Apollonius Rhodius;[15] whose picturesque style and impassioned sentiment are honoured with the diluted commendation of “an equable mediocrity.” Who that read the above character would suppose that Hesiod was at all superior to the gnomic or sententious poets; such as Theognis or Phocylides? that he had ever composed his Combat of Giants, or his Ages of Gold and of Iron?

If the battle of the Titans be Hesiod’s genuine composition, and if the Shield, as there is reason to believe, contain authentic extracts from his Heroical Genealogies, we shall decide that Hesiod, as compared with Homer, is less rapid; less fervent in action; less teeming with allusions and comparisons; but grand, energetic, occasionally vehement and daring; but more commonly proceeding with a slow and stately march. In the mental or moral sublime I consider Hesiod as superior to Homer. The personification of Prayers in the latter is almost the only allegory that can be compared with the awful prosopopeia of Justice, weeping her wrongs at the feet of the Eternal: while Justice and Modesty, described as virgins in white raiment, ascending out of the sight of men into heaven, and the Holy Dæmons, after having animated the bodies of just men, hovering round the earth, and keeping watch over human actions, are equalled by no conceptions in the Iliad or Odyssey.

Addison, with that squeamish artificial taste which distinguishes the age of Anne, as compared with that of Elizabeth, underrates, as might have been expected, the vigorous simplicity of Hesiod. But the strong though simple sketches of the old Ascræan bard are often more striking than the finished paintings of the Mantuan. Critics admire the pastoral board of Virgil’s Corycian husbandman; but there is a far greater charm in the summer-repast of Hesiod: so picturesque in its scenery; so patriarchal in its manners. The winter tempest is a bolder copy of nature than any thing in the Latin Georgics; more fresh in colouring; more circumstantiated in detail. The rising of the north-wind, moving the ocean, rooting the pines and oaks from the tops of the mountains, and strewing them along the valleys, and after a pause, suddenly roaring in its strength through the depths of the forests; the exquisite circumstances of life intermingled with the effects of the storm on inanimate nature; the beasts quaking and grinding their teeth with cold and famine; shuddering at the snowflakes, and shrinking into dens and thickets; the old man bent double with the blast;[16] the delicate contrast of the young virgin, sheltered in a soft chamber under her mother’s roof, and bathing previously to her nightly rest, compose a picture wild, romantic, and interesting in an uncommon degree.

As a legendary mythologist the elegant tale of Pandora, and the Island of the Blessed Spirits, are far beyond any thing of Ovid, and can only be compared with Homer: and as a poetical moralist, the strongest proof of his merit is, that innumerable sentences of Hesiod, as is well remarked by Voltaire in his “Dictionnaire Philosophique” have grown into proverbial axioms. Cicero observes in one of his Epistles; “Let our dear Lepta learn Hesiod, and have by heart ‘the gods have placed before virtue the sweat of the brow.’” His plain and downright rules of decency,[17] his superstitious saws, and his lumber of names, belong to the manners of a semi-barbarous village and the learning of a dark age: his genius and his wisdom are his own. From that which remains, mutilated as it obviously is, we may form a judgment of what he would appear to us, if the whole of his numerous works, complete and unadulterated by foreign mixture, were submitted to our observation. Ex pede Herculem.

FOOTNOTES

[12] The following are enumerated as the lost poems of Hesiod.

The Catalogue of Women or Heroines, in five parts, of which the fifth appears to have been entitled “The Herogony.” Suidas.

The Melampodia; from the sooth-sayer Melampus; a poem on divination. Pausanias, Athenæus.

The great Astronomy or Stellar Book. Pliny.

Descent of Theseus into Hades. Pausanias.

Admonitions of Chiron to Achilles. Pausanias, Aristophanes.

Soothsayings and Explications of Signs. Pausanias.

Divine Speeches. Maximus Tyrius.

Great Actions. Athenæus.

Of the Dactyli of Cretan Ida; discoverers of iron. Suidas, Pliny.

Epithalamium of Peleus and Thetis. Tzetzes.

Ægimius. Athenæus. Apocryphal.

Elegy on Batrachus, a beloved youth. Suidas.

Circuit of the Earth. Strabo.

The Marriage of Ceyx. Athenæus, Plutarch.

On Herbs. Pliny.

On Medicine. Plutarch.

Fabricius (Bibliotheca Græca) supposes the two latter subjects to be alluded to as incidental topics in other works of Hesiod. But the passages quoted by him from Pliny and Plutarch seem to justify the opinion that they meant to advert to distinct poems. There is nothing in the works extant which favours the former idea. Mallows and asphodel are the only herbs mentioned: and that merely as synonymous with a frugal meal: like the cichorea levesque malvæ of Horace: nor is there anything medical; for the passages respecting bathing, children, &c. are mere superstitions, unconnected with health. Athenæus (book iii.) quotes some verses as ascribed to Hesiod respecting the fishes fit for salting; but says they seem to be rather the verses of a cook than of a poet; and adds that cities are mentioned in them which were posterior to Hesiod’s time. Lilius Gyraldus states that the fables of Æsop have been assigned to Hesiod. Plutarch, indeed, observes that Æsop might himself have profited by Hesiod’s apologue of the Hawk and the Nightingale; and Quintilian mentions Hesiod, and not Æsop, as the earliest fabulist; which passages may have been strained to bear the above meaning. As to the Greek fables, extant under the name of Æsop, they are proved to be spurious. See Bentley’s Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris, Themistocles, &c. and the fables of Æsop.

[13] Manilius, describing the subjects of Hesiod, has a line

Atque iterum patrio nascentem corpore Bacchum,

excellently rendered by Creech, a translator now too fastidiously undervalued,

And twice-born Bacchus burst the Thunderer’s thigh:

but this tale, which Ovid and Nonnus have related, is not found in the present theogony.

[14] In the same poem, which is a love-elegy to his mistress Leontium on the sufferings of lovers, Homer is made to visit Ithaca, “sighing like furnace” for the chaste Penelope.

[15] The Quarterly Reviewer, in his critique on my “Specimens of the Classic Poets,” conceives it strange that I should prefer the Medea of Apollonius to Virgil’s Dido; and talks of critical heresies. The deliberation of Medea on her purposed suicide, and her interview with Jason in the temple of Hecate, place the matter beyond all question; except with those who may be frightened by the word heresy into a surrender of their judgments to vulgar prejudice and traditional error.

[16] This fine natural image is ridiculously parodied by Addison, “The old men, too, are bitterly pinched by the weather.” Essay on Virgil’s Georgics.

[17] These were excluded from the first edition of my translation, but are now reinstated, as curiously illustrative of manners.

SECTION IV.
ON THE MYTHOLOGY OF HESIOD.

Diogenes Laertius mentions that Pythagoras feigned to have seen the soul of Hesiod in the infernal regions, bound to a brazen pillar, and howling in torture for his false representations of the Deities: and that of Homer environed with serpents for the same reason. Plato, in a similar feeling, excluded both these poets from his ideal republic. It seems strange that the philosophers should have failed to perceive that Hesiod and Homer repeated merely the popular legends of their age; as is abundantly evident from the style and manner of narration and allusion throughout their poems.

The following passage of Herodotus has been construed to mean that they were the absolute inventors of the Grecian theology; “Whence each of the Gods came; whether all have continually existed, or what figures they severally had, was known but lately; or, if I may so speak, only yesterday; for I am of opinion that Hesiod and Homer were older than myself by four hundred years, and not more; these are they who framed a theogony for the Greeks, and gave titles to the gods; distinguishing their honours and functions, and describing their forms.”

Against such an hypothesis several reasons obviously present themselves: 1st, A plurality of gods could scarcely be the production of a single age, much less of one or two individuals: 2dly, It is not likely that Greece, which was visited by Ægyptian and Phœnician colonists at an æra long antecedent to the age of Homer, should have been destitute of a religious system: 3dly, It is not credible that a whole nation, at the suggestion of one or two bards, should have abandoned this received system in order to adopt a whole hierarchy of divinities, of whom they had never before heard.

But the doubt of Herodotus, “whether they have continually existed,” shows that he merely considered Hesiod and Homer in the light of collectors and illustrators of the ancient religion of their country; and Wesseling accordingly interprets ποιησαντες as referring to arrangement and description, not invention. This stupid inference could in fact never have been drawn, had Herodotus been compared with himself: as in a preceding passage he says, “Nearly all the names of the gods have come into Greece from Ægypt; for I have ascertained it to be a fact that they are of barbaric extraction.”

Herodotus, however, seems to have been in error, even as to this position of Hesiod and Homer having first digested the mythology of Greece into a system: and as he could not be ignorant that theogonies were ascribed to poets reputed their elders, such as Musæus and Orpheus, he was reduced to the alternative of making these poets their juniors. “Those poets,” he observes, “who were said to be before them, were in my opinion after them.”

But Cicero (in Bruto, cap. xviii.) sensibly argues, “nor can it be doubted that there were poets before Homer; which may be inferred from the songs described by him as sung in the banquets of the Phæacians and the suitors.” Fabricius makes a comment, that “it cannot be proved from this, that Greek poems, before Homer, were committed to writing, and so handed down to posterity.” As if the poems of Homer himself had been transmitted in any other manner than by oral tradition![18]

The pre-existence of religious rites seems, indeed, to involve that of poetical cosmogonies and mythological hymns. Before the invention of letters there was no other traditionary record, or vehicle of popular instruction, or organ of religious homage and supplication, than verse: the conclusion follows that there were both poets anterior to the age of Homer,[19] and that these poets were also mythologists.

Pausanias mentions Olen of Lycia; who, he says, composed very ancient hymns; and who in his hymn to Lucina, makes her the mother of Love: and he names Pamphus and Orpheus, as succeeding Olen, and as also composing hymns to the mythological Love.

The doubt entertained by Aristotle and Cicero of the personal existence of Orpheus, neither affects the antiquity of the name, nor of that system of theology which bears the title of Orphic. The relics now extant under that name have, indeed, been suspected as the forgeries of Onomacritus, the sooth-sayer, who produced the hymns to the people of Athens: but Gesner is of opinion that he only altered the dialect of genuine Orphic remains, on which he ingrafted his own additions. The fragments which have come down to us appear certainly from internal evidence to contain a theology more ancient than that of Hesiod and Homer; for the nearer it approaches in any of its parts to the religious system of the Ægyptians, the stronger is the presumptive testimony of its antiquity.

[20]The Ægyptians held that the world was produced from Chaos, or Water. They worshipped the Sun, as Osiris, Hammon, and Horus; the Moon, as Isis; the Cabiri or Planets, as symbols of invisible divinities. They had two systems of worship; the one exoteric or popular, the other esoteric or mystical. The adoration of the celestial bodies was literal with the people, and emblematical with the priesthood. They supposed emanations from divinity to be resident in the parts of nature; and thus that the sun, moon, and stars, and the other bodies of the universe, were animated with a divine spirit or virtue; or retained portions of a divine essence from good demons or genii, who dwelt in them: these dæmons had been inclosed in the bodies of virtuous men; and having left them, passed into the stars and planets, which were consequently worshipped as gods. Hence probably the legend of Hesiod, who supposes the spirits of men in the golden age to become holy dæmons; though these dæmons are not sent to the stars, but hover round the earth and keep watch over the actions of humankind.

Jablonski, in his Pantheon Ægyptiorum, considers this stellar theology as resolvable into an astronomical and Niliacal idolatry. The terrestrial Osiris is the Nile: the celestial Osiris the Sun, in his zodiacal progress through the signs that preside over the seasons. Amon, Jupiter, designates the Sun in the constellation of Aries. In the vernal equinox he is Hercules, in the summer solstice Horus or Apollo, in the winter solstice Harpocrates. Serapis was the Nile in its period of fertilization, or the autumnal Sun of the lower hemisphere. Isis was the moon, the mother of multiform nature; the same also as Neitha or Minerva, and the causer of the Nile’s inundations. Tithrambo, Brimo, or Hecate, was Isis incensed, or the maleficent moon. Bubastis, Diana, or Latona, was the titular symbol of the New Moon, and Buto or Latona of the full. The Cabiri, or Seven Planets, were worshipped as appendants of the greater gods; thus the planet Venus was the star of Isis, and the planet Jupiter the star of Osiris. The dog-headed Anubis, or Mercury, was the celestial horizon, the guard of the Sun’s gate, and the follower of Isis or the Moon. The bull Apis was a living symbol of the Nile; but was supposed to have been generated in a heifer by the transmission of celestial fire from the Moon; and was sacred both to that planet and to the Sun. A living goat was the symbol of Mendes or Pan; the generative principle of all nature. These animal types were multiplied; thus a lion figured the Sun; a cow, Isis and Venus; and a hawk, Osiris. Stones were also made typical. An obelisk represented the Sun; and seven columns, such as Pausanias saw in Laconia, the Planets. They worshipped also Night, the supposed creative principle of all things, as Athor, Venus,[21] or Juno; and Pthas, the Vulcan as well as Minerva of the Grecians; the masculo-feminine cause and soul of the world; a pervading infinite spirit, or subtile ethereal fire, superior to the solar and planetary orbs; from which emanated terrestrial souls, and to which they returned. This system may very well be reconciled with the received theology; as it is not at all improbable that the subtile and scientific Ægyptians should have refined upon their original emblems, by connecting with them a secondary astronomical signification. In the explication of certain terms, and the identity and nature of many of the deities, the “Ægyptian Pantheon” agrees with the “New Analysis.”

Proclus (in Timæum, book i.) mentions a statue of Neitha or Minerva in a temple at Sais, in Ægypt, inscribed on the base with hieroglyphical characters to this effect: “I am whatever things are, whatever shall be, and whatever have been. None have lifted up my veil. The fruit which I have brought forth is the Sun.” Notwithstanding the mixed planetary worship, the Sun was considered by the Ægyptians as the king and architect of the universe: who under the name of Osiris comprehended in himself the power and efficacy of all the other material gods. Consistent with this is the Orphic fragment:

Hear me thou! for ever whirling round the rolling heavens on high

Thy far-travelling orb of splendour midst the whirlpools of the sky:

Hear, effulgent Jove and Bacchus! father both of earth and sea!

Sun all-various! golden-beaming! all things teeming out of thee!

In another passage Orpheus identifies with the sun the different deities.

One Jove and Pluto; Bacchus, and the Sun;

One God alike in all, and all are one.

The cosmogonists of Ægypt represented the Demiurgus or Universal Maker, in a human form, sending forth from his mouth an egg; which egg was the world. They called him Kneph; who was the same as Pthas, the essential pervading energy. Chaos is described by Orpheus, in the manner of Ovid, as an immense, self-existent, heterogeneous mass; neither luminous nor tenebrous; which in the lapse of ages generated an egg; and from this egg was produced a masculo-feminine principle, which disposed the elements, and created the forms of nature. A primæval water or Chaos, and a mundane egg, are found also in the mythology of India.

In the cosmogonic system of Ægypt the world was Deity, and its parts other gods; a doctrine equivalent to the το πᾶν of the Stoics; the inherent divinity of the universe; which Lucan seems to intend in the sentiment of Cato:

Deus est quodcunque vides: quòcunque moveris.

Whate’er we see, where’er we move, is God.

This system is unfolded in the Orphic hymns:

Jove is the breath of all: the force of quenchless flame:

The root of ocean Jove: the sun and moon the same:

Jove is the king, the sire, whence generation sprang:

One strength, one Dæmon, great, on whom all beings hang:

His regal body grasps the vast material round:

There fire, earth, air, and wave, and day and night, are found.

The same physico-theology appears in the Orphean verses,

I swear by those, the generating powers,

Whence sprang the gods that have eternal being;

Fire, Water, Earth, and Heaven, the Moon and Sun,

Great Love effulgent, and the sable Night!

and in another fragment, preserved by Eusebius: (Præparat. Evang. iii. 9.)

Fire, water, earth, and ether, night and day,

Metis, first sire, and all-delighting Love.

Metis is Minerva or Vulcan, the mind of the universe already noticed.

From a general view of the Ægyptian and Orphic theogonies, they would appear to consist in an atheistic materialism; for although they acknowledge a certain divine, or active, principle pervading and animating passive matter, nothing can be inferred from this, superior to a physical operative energy. Jablonski indeed contends that, exclusive of the worship of the signs of the zodiac, and the solar and lunar phenomena, the more ancient Ægyptians recognized an intelligent power, or infinite Eternal Mind, on whose wisdom the operations of the sensible or visible divinities depended. But it may be doubted whether this controlling intelligence were any thing different from the before described emanation of the supposed ethereal spirit of holy dæmons, or deified men.

Hesiod begins his poem on the generation of the gods with certain cosmogonical principles. Chaos first exists; then Earth; and thirdly Love. Erebus and Night spring from Chaos, and generate Ether and Day; and Earth produces Heaven. But we search in vain through the rest of the work for the subtile intelligence of the Orphic philosophy. It has been attempted, indeed, to reduce the whole into a consistent scheme of theogonic physiology, by allegorizing the supernatural battles into volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, and earthquakes; but much would still remain incapable of being wrested to a physical sense. On certain crude principles of cosmogonical tradition, and lineal generations of gods, intermingled with the generation of the world, the theogonist has ingrafted ancient legendary histories, and poetical and moral allegories. The historical mythology is alone significant; for every thing respecting the nature of the gods was in Hesiod’s time perverted and misunderstood. The bard was no longer clothed in the robe of the hierophant.

Very different hypotheses have been framed to explain the Greek polytheism. They have failed because they were hypotheses. When the Abbé Banier[22] detects the real characters of profane history in the gods of the Pantheon; and when De Gebelin[23] sees in them only emblematical shadows, personifying the successive inventions of the sciences and arts, we are reminded of the observation of Dr. Reid; (Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man:) “that there never was an hypothesis invented by an ingenious man, which although destitute of direct evidence, did not serve to account for a variety of phenomena, and had not therefore an indirect evidence in its favour.” Even the Alchemists have laid claim to the heathen mythology; the pagan stories have been analysed into chemical arcana: the golden fleece becomes a recipe for the discovery of the philosopher’s stone inscribed on a ram’s-skin, and Medea restores her father to life by means of the grand elixir.[24]

But it were an unreasonable scepticism to argue from these visionary theories, that the ancient fabulous philosophy is a mass of inscrutable and unmeaning superstition. The affinity between the different systems of paganism rests on irrefutable proof.[25] This affinity points to a common origin. The light of history directs us to Ægypt. The astronomical genius of that nation led them to symbolize their idols by the celestial signs. These idols were the deified memories of men. As to their individuality, we are assisted by certain resemblances in heathen theology to Mosaic scripture. This parallel may have been urged too closely and too fancifully; as by Huet, in his “Demonstratio Evangelica:” who affirms that all the deities of the Ægyptians, Indians, Americans, Greeks, and Italians, are only Moses in disguise; and by Theophilus Gale, in his “Court of the Gentiles;” who draws a parallel between the god Pan, and the Messias, Abel, and Israel; and who derives not only both the mythic or fabulous, and the physical theology of the heathens, but all human letters and sciences from the Hebrew language and scriptures, and the philosophies of Joseph, Moses, and Solomon. Mistakes may have arisen from trusting too much to a specious analogy; as where Tubal-cain, the artificer of brass and iron, is identified with Vulcan.[26] The conjectures of Hebraic etymologists, also, as of Bochart, in the Phaleg and Canaan of his Geographia sacra, must be acknowledged to be often vague and inconclusive. But so plain are the general traces of corrupted scripture-history, that Celsus, in his books against the Christians, attacks the biblical records as plagiarisms from the pagan mythology; and asserts that Paradise is borrowed from the gardens of Alcinous, and the flood of Noah from that of Deucalion; which Origen refutes by the greater antiquity of the Jewish traditions.

It is not to be supposed that they, who trace these parallels of mythology with scripture, mean that scripture was its immediate source: as the French Encyclopædists seem to think, when they ridicule the idea of the Grecian poets having deduced their fables from the Mosaic books, of which they knew nothing. The religious separation of the Jews renders it improbable, that even the intellectual philosophy of the Greek sages, as Thales and Pythagoras, should have been indebted for the idea of pure incorporeal deity to the sacred oracles: though Dr. Anderson conceives it probable that “the Mosaic scriptures, and other prophetical writings under the Jewish dispensation, could not be unknown to the priests of Ægypt, Chaldæa, and other adjacent countries.” History of Philosophy, p. 88.

But the improbability is greatly increased with respect to the mythological philosophy; nor is it credible that the circumstances of pagan story, on the supposition of their representing the same events as those recorded in the book of Genesis, should have been transferred immediately from the volume of Moses by poets or philosophers into the popular religion. Nations do not borrow vast systems of theology from poets or even from priests. Gale does not suppose that priests or bards imported the Hebrew accounts from the sacred writings; but that they were learnt, through international communication with the Jews, by the Phœnicians; who, in their various nautical enterprizes, carried them to distant countries.

But the temple of heathen mythology rests its pillars in the two hemispheres, and overshadows climes unvisited by the navigators of Phœnicia. Its basis must, apparently, be sought without the circle of Jewish report and scripture, in ancient gentile tradition. Stillingfleet convincingly argues, that, assuming the descent of mankind from the posterity of Noah, the obliteration and extinction of all remnants of oral history concerning the ancient world is utterly inconceivable. He proceeds to show that such fragments were, in fact, so preserved in many nations after the dispersion; that they were appropriated by the Phœnicians, Greeks, Italians, and others to their respective countries; and that portions of Noah’s memory, in particular, were retained in many fables under Saturn, Janus, Prometheus, and Bacchus.

Similar to this is the outline of the Analytic System; in which, however, the dæmon-worship of the patriarchs of mankind is connected with the arkite and ophite idolatry under the types of the sun and moon. The affinities in the pagan sister-mythologies are explained by the general dissemination of these idolatrous mysteries, and the traditions which they were designed to commemorate, through the dispersion of a peculiar people in the early ages; migrating from a central point, and spreading through the extremest regions of the east and west.

“This wonderful people were the descendants of Chus; and called Cuthites and Cuseans. They stood their ground at the general migration of families, but were at last scattered over the face of the earth. They were the first apostates from the truth, yet great in worldly wisdom. They introduced, wherever they came, many useful arts, and were looked up to as a superior order of beings. They were joined in their expeditions by other nations; especially by the collateral branches of their family; the Mizraim, Caphtorim, and the sons of Canaän. These were all of the line of Ham, who was held by his posterity in the highest veneration. They called him Amon; and having in process of time raised him to a divinity, they worshipped him as the Sun; and from this worship they were called Amonians. Under this denomination are included all of this family; whether they were Ægyptians or Syrians, of Phœnicia or of Canaän. They were a people who carefully preserved memorials of their ancestors, and of those great events which had preceded their dispersion. These were described in hieroglyphics on pillars and obelisks.

“The deity whom they originally worshipped was the Sun; but they soon conferred his titles upon some other of their ancestors; whence arose a mixed worship. Chus was one of these; and the idolatry began among his sons. The same was practised by the Ægyptians; but this nation made many subtile distinctions; and supposing that there were certain emanations of divinity, they affected to particularize each by some title, and to worship the deity by his attributes. This gave rise to a multiplicity of gods. The Grecians, who received their religion from Ægypt and the East, misapplied the terms which they had received, and made a god out of every title.” Preface to the Analysis of Ancient Mythology.

FOOTNOTES

[18] We know from Homer (Il. vi.) that when Prætus sent Bellerophon to the king of Lycia he gave him, not a written letter, but σηματα λυγρα, mournful signs; (probably like the picture-writing of the Mexicans:) writing could not be common till many centuries afterwards, since the first written laws were given in Greece only six centuries B. C. (Herod. lib. ii. Strab. lib. vi.) Dr. Gillies.

[19] “The Trœzenian histories,” observes Ælian, book xi. ch. 2, “relate that the poems of Oræbantius, a native of Trœzene, were in existence before Homer; and I know they affirm that Dares the Phrygian, whose Iliad is even now extant, lived before Homer’s time. Melisander, the Milesian, likewise, composed the battle of the Lapithæ and the Centaurs.”

[20] Brucker, Historia Critica Philosophiæ, tom. i. Homer represents father Oceanus as the generator of all things: and the Chaos of Hesiod is merely the watery element.

[21] So Orpheus:

Night, source of all things, whom we Venus name.

Night and Chaos, or the aqueous mass, seem reciprocally considered as the source of nature.

[22] La Mythologie, ou la Fable expliquée par l’Histoire.

[23] Monde Primitif.

[24] Wotton’s Reflections on ancient and modern Learning.

[25] See Sir William Jones’s Dissertation on the Gods of Greece, Italy, and India.

[26] The working of metals was not among the ancient attributes of Vulcan: but a diversity of character or attributes is not always an objection. Each god had not only a twofold nature, celestial, and human or heroical, but his history and qualities changed with change of place. Thus Hercules was the Sun; he was also a vagabond hero; but he may have been one person in Greece, and another in Phœnicia. Gerard Vossius, in his treatise “de Origine et Progressu Idolatriæ,” may therefore be right in his conjecture, that among the Phœnicians both Joshua and Samson were commemorated in the Tyrian Hercules. Bacchus was the Sun, and an Indian conqueror. His history also assimilates with that of Noah. He was likewise in all probability Caphtor, the grandson of Ham; the great Ægyptian warrior who dispossessed the Avim of that part of the land of Canaan, afterwards called Philistia. (See Priestley’s Lectures on History, i. 5.) But it is natural that the Phœnicians, who visited Greece when the memory of Moses was still vivid among the Canaanites, should have brought with them miraculous reports of the Jewish lawgiver, which were added to the history of Bacchus. Bacchus is called by Orpheus, Μισης; and by Plutarch (de Iside et Osiride) Palæstinus. Bacchus was exposed in an ark upon a river: a double coincidence with Noah and Moses, which is exactly in the spirit of the old mythologists. Nonnus, in his Dionysiacs, mentions the flight of Bacchus to the red sea, and his battles with the Princes of Arabia; and relates that he touched the rivers Orontes and Hydaspes with his thyrsus, and that the rivers dried up, and he passed through dry-shod. The Indians are in darkness, while the Bacchic army are in light. The ivy-rod of Bacchus is thrown on the ground, and creeps to and fro like a live serpent. Snakes twist themselves about the hair and limbs of Bacchus; which may be a shadow of the fiery serpents in the wilderness. The host of Bacchus, like the multitude led by Moses, is accompanied by women. One of the Bacchæ touches a rock, and water gushes out; at another time wine and honey; and the rivers run with milk. These circumstances are very remarkable. See Stillingfleet, Origines Sacræ, ch. v. Nonnus, Dionysiacs.

The Works and Days.

THE WORKS AND DAYS.

The Argument.

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

WORKS.

I.

Come, Muses! ye, that from Pieria raise

The song of glory, sing your father’s praise.

By Jove’s high will th’ unknown and known of fame

Exist, the nameless and the fair of name.

’Tis He with ease [27]the bowed feeble rears,

And casts the mighty from their highest spheres:

With ease of human grandeur shrouds the ray:

With ease on abject darkness pours the day:

Straightens the crooked: grinds to dust the proud;

Thunderer on high, whose dwelling is the cloud.

Now bend thine eyes from heaven: behold and hear:

Rule thou the laws in righteousness and fear:

While I to Perses’ heart would fain convey

The truths of knowledge which inspire my lay.

Two Strifes on earth of soul divided rove:

The wise will this condemn and that approve:

Accursed the one spreads misery from afar,

And stirs up discord and pernicious war:

Men love not this: yet heaven-enforced maintain

The strife abhorr’d, but still abhorr’d in vain.

[28]The other elder rose from darksome night:

The God high-throned, who dwells in ether’s light,

Fix’d deep in earth, and centred midst mankind

This better strife, which fires the slothful mind.

The needy idler sees the rich, and hastes

Himself to guide the plough, and plant the wastes:

Ordering his household: thus the neighbour’s eyes

Mark emulous the wealthy neighbour rise:

Beneficent this strife’s incensing zeal:

The potters angry turn the forming wheel:

Smiths beat their anvils; [29]almsmen zealous throng,

And minstrels kindle with the minstrel’s song.

Oh Perses! thou within thy secret breast
Repose the maxims by my care imprest;
Nor ever let that evil-joying strife

Have power to wean thee from the toils of life;

The whilst thy prying eyes the forum draws,
Thine ears the process, and the din of laws.
Small care be his of wrangling and debate
For whose ungather’d food the garners wait;
Who wants within the summer’s plenty stored,

Earth’s kindly fruits, and Ceres’ yearly hoard.

With these replenish’d, at the brawling bar

For others’ wealth go instigate the war.

But this thou mays’t no more: let justice guide,

Best boon of heaven, and future strife decide.

Not so we shared [30]the patrimonial land
When greedy pillage fill’d thy grasping hand:
The bribe-devouring Judges lull’d by thee

The sentence gave and stamp’d the false decree:

Oh fools! who know not in their selfish soul

How far the half is better than the whole:

[31]The good which asphodel and mallows yield,

The feast of herbs, the dainties of the field!

[32]The food of man in deep concealment lies:

The angry gods have hid it from our eyes.

Else had one day bestow’d sufficient cheer,

And, though inactive, fed thee through the year.

Then might thy hand [33]have laid the rudder by,

In blackening smoke for ever hung on high;

Then had the labouring ox foregone the soil,

And patient mules had found reprieve from toil.

But Jove conceal’d our food: incensed at heart,

Since [34]mock’d by wise Prometheus’ wily art.

Sore ills to man devised the heavenly Sire,
And hid the shining element of fire.
Prometheus then, benevolent of soul,
In hollow reed the spark recovering stole;

Cheering to man; and mock’d the god, whose gaze

Serene rejoices in the lightning’s blaze.

“Oh son of Japhet!” with indignant heart,

Spake the Cloud-gatherer: “oh, unmatch’d in art!

Exultest thou in this the flame retrieved,
And dost thou triumph in the god deceived?
But thou, with the posterity of man,

Shalt rue the fraud whence mightier ills began:

I will send evil for thy stealthy fire,

[35]An ill which all shall love, and all desire.

The Sire who rules the earth and sways the pole

Had said, and laughter fill’d his secret soul:

He bade famed Vulcan with the speed of thought

Mould plastic clay with tempering waters wrought:

Inform with voice of man the murmuring tongue;

The limbs with man’s elastic vigour strung;
The aspect fair as goddesses above,
A virgin’s likeness with the brows of love.
He bade Minerva teach the skill, that sheds
A thousand colours in the gliding threads:
Bade lovely Venus breathe around her face
The charm of air, the witchery of grace:
Infuse corroding pangs of keen desire,

And cares that trick the form with prank’d attire:

Bade Hermes last implant the craft refined

Of thievish manners and a shameless mind.

He gives command; th’ inferior powers obey:

The crippled artist moulds the temper’d clay:

By Jove’s design a maid’s coy image rose:

[36]The zone, the dress, Minerva’s hands dispose:

Adored Persuasion, and the Graces young,

[37]With chains of gold her shapely person hung:

Round her smooth brow [38]the beauteous-tressed Hours

A garland twined of spring’s purpureal flowers:

The whole, Minerva with adjusting art
Forms to her shape and fits to every part.
Last by the counsels of deep-thundering Jove,
The Argicide, [39]his herald from above,
Adds thievish manners, adds insidious lies,
And prattled speech of sprightly railleries:
Then by the wise interpreter of heaven
The name Pandora to the maid was given:

Since all in heaven conferr’d their gifts to charm,

For man’s inventive race, this beauteous harm.

When now the Sire had form’d this mischief fair,

He bade heaven’s messenger convey through air
To Epimetheus’ hands th’ inextricable snare:
Nor he recall’d within his heedless thought
The warning lesson by Prometheus taught:
That he disclaim each present from the skies,
And straight restore, lest ill to man arise:
But he received; and conscious knew too late

Th’ insidious gift, and felt the curse of fate.

On earth of yore the sons of men abode,

From evil free and labour’s galling load:

Free from diseases that with racking rage

Precipitate the pale decline of age.

Now swift the days of manhood haste away,

And misery’s pressure turns the temples gray.

The woman’s hands an ample casket bear;

She lifts the lid; she scatters ills in air.

Within [40]th’ unbroken vase Hope sole remained,

Beneath the vessel’s rim from flight detained:

The maid, by counsels of cloud-gathering Jove,

The coffer seal’d and dropp’d the lid above.

Issued the rest in quick dispersion hurl’d,

And woes innumerous roam’d the breathing world:

With ills the land is rife, with ills the sea,

Diseases haunt our frail humanity:

Through noon, through night [41]on casual wing they glide,

Silent, a voice the Power all-wise denied.

Thus mayst thou not elude th’ omniscient mind:

Now if thy thoughts be to my speech inclin’d,
I in brief phrase would other lore impart
Wisely and well: thou, grave it on thy heart.
When gods alike and mortals rose to birth,
A golden race th’ immortals form’d on earth
Of many-languaged men: they lived of old

When Saturn reign’d in heaven, an age of gold.

Like gods they lived, with calm untroubled mind;

Free from the toils and anguish of our kind:

Nor e’er decrepid age mishaped their frame,

The hand’s, the foot’s proportions still the same.

Strangers to ill, their lives in feasts flow’d by:

[42]Wealthy in flocks; dear to the blest on high:

Dying they sank in sleep, nor seem’d to die.

Theirs was each good; the life-sustaining soil

Yielded its copious fruits, unbribed by toil:

They with abundant goods midst quiet lands

All willing shared the gatherings of their hands.

When earth’s dark womb had closed this race around,

[43]High Jove as dæmons raised them from the ground.

Earth-wandering spirits they their charge began,

The ministers of good, and guards of man.

Mantled with mist of darkling air they glide,

And compass earth, and pass on every side:

And mark with earnest vigilance of eyes

Where just deeds live, or crooked wrongs arise:

[44]Their kingly state; and, delegate from heaven,

By their vicarious hands [45]the wealth of fields is given.

The gods then form’d a second race of man,

Degenerate far; and silver years began.

Unlike the mortals of a golden kind:

Unlike in frame of limbs and mould of mind.

Yet still [46]a hundred years beheld the boy

Beneath the mother’s roof, her infant joy;

All tender and unform’d: but when the flower

Of manhood bloom’d, it wither’d in an hour.

Their frantic follies wrought them pain and woe:

Nor mutual outrage could their hands forego:

Nor would they serve the gods: nor altars raise

That in just cities shed their holy blaze.

Them angry Jove ingulf’d; who dared refuse

The gods their glory and their sacred dues:

Yet named the second-blest in earth they lie,

And second honours grace their memory.

The Sire of heaven and earth created then

A race, the third of many-languaged men.

Unlike the silver they: of brazen mould:

With ashen war-spears terrible and bold:

Their thoughts were bent on violence alone,

The deeds of battle and the dying groan.

Bloody their feasts, with wheaten food unblest:

Of adamant was each unyielding breast.

Huge, nerved with strength each hardy giant stands,

And mocks approach with unresisted hands:

Their mansions, implements, and armour shine

In brass; dark iron slept within the mine.

They by each other’s hands inglorious fell,

In freezing darkness plunged, the house of hell:

Fierce though they were, their mortal course was run;

Death gloomy seized, and snatch’d them from the sun.

Them when th’ abyss had cover’d from the skies,

Lo! the fourth age on nurturing earth arise:

Jove form’d the race a better, juster line;

A race of heroes and of stamp divine:

Lights of the age that rose before our own;

As demi-gods o’er earth’s wide regions known.

Yet these dread battle hurried to their end:

Some where the seven-fold gates of Thebes ascend:

The Cadmian realm: where they with fatal might

Strove for the flocks of Œdipus in fight.

Some war in navies led [47]to Troy’s far shore;

O’er the great space of sea their course they bore;

For sake of Helen with the beauteous hair:

And death for Helen’ sake o’erwhelm’d them there.

Them on earth’s utmost verge the god assign’d
A life, a seat, distinct from human kind:
Beside the deepening whirlpools of the main,

[48]In those blest isles where Saturn holds his reign,

Apart from heaven’s immortals: calm they share

A rest unsullied by the clouds of care:

And yearly thrice with sweet luxuriance crown’d

Springs the ripe harvest from the teeming ground.

Oh would that Nature had denied me birth

Midst this fifth race; [49]this iron age of earth:

That long before within the grave I lay,

Or long hereafter could behold the day!

Corrupt the race, with toils and griefs opprest,

Nor day nor night can yield a pause of rest.

Still do the gods a weight of care bestow,

Though still some good is mingled with the woe.

Jove on this race of many-languaged man,

Speeds the swift ruin which but slow began:

[50]For scarcely spring they to the light of day

Ere age untimely strews their temples gray.

No fathers in the sons their features trace:

The sons reflect no more the father’s face:

The host with kindness greets his guest no more,

And friends and brethren love not as of yore.

Reckless of heaven’s revenge, the sons behold

The hoary parents wax too swiftly old:

And impious point the keen dishonouring tongue

With hard reproofs and bitter mockeries hung:

Nor grateful in declining age repay

The nurturing fondness of their better day.

[51]Now man’s right hand is law: for spoil they wait,

And lay their mutual cities desolate:

Unhonour’d he, by whom his oath is fear’d,

Nor are the good beloved, the just revered.

With favour graced the evil-doer stands,

Nor curbs with shame nor equity his hands:

With crooked slanders wounds the virtuous man,

And stamps with perjury what hate began.
Lo! ill-rejoicing Envy, wing’d with lies,
Scattering calumnious rumours as she flies,
The steps of miserable men pursue
With haggard aspect, blasting to the view.
Till those fair forms in snowy raiment bright

[52]Leave the broad earth and heaven-ward soar from sight:

Justice and Modesty from mortals driven,
Rise to th’ immortal family of heaven:
Dread sorrows to forsaken man remain;
No cure of ills: no remedy of pain.
[53]Now unto kings I frame the fabling song,
However wisdom unto kings belong.
A stooping hawk, crook-talon’d, from the vale

Bore in his pounce [54]a neck-streak’d nightingale,

And snatch’d among the clouds: beneath the stroke

This piteous shriek’d, and that imperious spoke:

“Wretch! why these screams? a stronger holds thee now:

Where’er I shape my course a captive thou,

Maugre thy song, must company my way:

I rend my banquet or I loose my prey.

Senseless is he who dares with power contend:

Defeat, rebuke, despair shall be his end.”

The swift hawk spake, with wings spread wide in air;

But thou to justice cleave, and wrong forbear.

Wrong, if he yield to its abhorr’d controul,

Shall pierce like iron in the poor man’s soul:

Wrong weighs the rich man’s conscience to the dust,

When his foot stumbles on the way unjust:

Far diff’rent is the path; a path of light,

That guides the feet to equitable right.

The end of righteousness, enduring long,

Exceeds the short prosperity of wrong.

[55]The fool by suffering his experience buys;

The penalty of folly makes him wise.

With crooked judgments, lo! the oath’s dread God

Avenging runs, and tracks them where they trod:

Rough are the ways of Justice as the sea;

Dragg’d to and fro by men’s corrupt decree:

Bribe-pamper’d men! whose hands perverting draw

The right aside, and warp the wrested law.

Though, while corruption on their sentence waits,

They thrust pale Justice from their haughty gates;

Invisible their steps the virgin treads,
And musters evils o’er their sinful heads.
She with the dark of air her form arrays
And [56]walks in awful grief the city-ways:
Her wail is heard, her tear upbraiding falls

[57]O’er their stain’d manners, their devoted walls.

But they who never from the right have stray’d,

Who as the citizen the stranger aid;

[58]They and their cities flourish: genial Peace

Dwells in their borders, and their youth increase:

Nor Jove, whose radiant eyes behold afar,

Hangs forth in heaven the signs of grievous war.

Nor scathe nor famine on the righteous prey;

Feasts, strewn by earth, employ their easy day:

Rich are their mountain oaks: the topmost trees

With clustering acorns full, the trunks with hiving bees.

Burthen’d with fleece their panting flocks: the race

Of woman soft [59]reflects the father’s face:

Still flourish they, nor tempt with ships the main;

The fruits of earth are pour’d from every plain.

But o’er the wicked race, to whom belong

The thought of evil, and the deed of wrong,

Saturnian Jove of wide-beholding eyes

Bids the dark signs of retribution rise:

And oft the crimes of one destructive fall:

The crimes of one are visited on all.

The god sends down his angry plagues from high,

Famine and pestilence: in heaps they die.

He smites with barrenness the marriage-bed,

And generations moulder with the dead:

Again in vengeance of his wrath he falls

On their great hosts, and breaks their tottering walls:

Arrests their navies on the ocean’s plain,

And whelms their strength with mountains of the main.

Ponder, oh judges! in your inmost thought
The retribution by his vengeance wrought.
Invisible, the gods are ever nigh,

Pass through the midst, and bend th’ all-seeing eye:

The men who grind the poor, who wrest the right,

Awless of heaven’s revenge, stand naked to their sight.

For thrice ten thousand [60]holy demons rove

This breathing world, the delegates of Jove.

Guardians of man, [61]their glance alike surveys

The upright judgments and th’ unrighteous ways.

A virgin pure is Justice: and her birth,

August, from him who rules the heavens and earth:

A creature glorious to the gods on high,

Whose mansion is yon everlasting sky.

Driven by despiteful wrong she takes her seat

In lowly grief at Jove’s eternal feet.

There of the soul unjust her plaints ascend:

[62]So rue the nations when their kings offend:

When uttering wiles and brooding thoughts of ill,

They bend the laws and wrest them to their will.

Oh gorged with gold! ye kingly judges hear!

Make straight your paths: your crooked judgments fear:

That the foul record may no more be seen,
Erased, forgotten, as it ne’er had been!
He wounds himself that aims another’s wound:
His evil counsels on himself rebound.
Jove at his awful pleasure looks from high
With all-discerning and all-knowing eye;
Nor hidden from its ken what injured right
Within the city-walls eludes the light.
Or oh! if evil wait the righteous deed,
If thus the wicked gain the righteous meed,
Then may not I, nor yet my son remain
In this our generation just in vain!

But sure my hope, not this doth Heaven approve,

Not this the work of thunder-darting Jove.

Deep let my words, oh Perses! graven be:

Hear Justice, and renounce th’ oppressor’s plea:

This law the wisdom of the god assign’d
To human race and to the bestial kind:
To birds of air and fishes of the wave,
And beasts of earth, devouring instinct gave
In them no justice lives: he bade be known
This better sense to reasoning man alone.
Who from the seat of judgment shall impart

The truths of knowledge utter’d from his heart;

On him the god of all-discerning eye

[63]Pours down the treasures of felicity.

Who sins against the right, his wilful tongue

With perjuries of lying witness hung;

Lo! he is hurt beyond the hope of cure:

Dark is his race, nor shall his name endure.

Who fears his oath shall leave a name to shine

With brightening lustre through his latest line.

Most foolish Perses! let the truths I tell,

Which spring from knowledge, in thy bosom dwell:

Lo! wickednesses rife in troops appear;

[64]Smooth is the track of vice, the mansion near:

On virtue’s path delays and perils grow:

The gods have placed before [65]the sweat that bathes the brow:

And ere the foot can reach her high abode,

Long, rugged, steep th’ ascent, and rough the road.

The ridge once gain’d, the path so rude of late

Runs easy on, and level to the gate.
Far best is he whom conscious wisdom guides;
Who first and last the right and fit decides:
He too is good, that [66]to the wiser friend
His docile reason can submissive bend:
But worthless he that reason’s voice defies,
Nor wise himself, nor duteous to the wise.
But thou, oh Perses! what my words impart
Let mem’ry bind for ever on thy heart.
[67]Oh son of Dios! labour evermore,
That hunger turn abhorrent from thy door;
That Ceres blest, with spiky garland crown’d,

Greet thee with love and bid thy barns abound.

[68]Still on the sluggard hungry want attends,

The scorn of man, the hate of heaven impends:

While he, averse from labour, drags his days,

Yet greedy on the gain of others preys:

Even as the stingless drones devouring seize

With glutted sloth the harvest of the bees.

Love ev’ry seemly toil, that so the store

Of foodful seasons heap thy garner’s floor.

From labour men returns of wealth behold;

Flocks in their fields and in their coffers gold:

From labour shalt thou with the love be blest
Of men and gods; the slothful they detest.
Not toil, but sloth shall ignominious be;
Toil, and the slothful man shall envy thee;

Shall view thy growing wealth with alter’d sense,

For glory, virtue walk with opulence.

Thou, like a god, since labour still is found

The better part, shalt live belov’d, renown’d;

If, as I counsel, thou thy witless mind,
Though weak and empty as the veering wind,
From others’ coveted possessions turn’d,
To thrift compel, and food by labour earn’d.
[69]Shame, which our aid or injury we find,
Shame to the needy clings of evil kind;
Shame to low indigence declining tends:
Bold zeal to wealth’s proud pinnacle ascends.
[70]But shun extorted riches; oh far best

The heaven-sent wealth without reproach possest.

Whoe’er shall mines of hoarded gold command,
By fraudful tongue or by rapacious hand;
As oft betides when lucre lights the flame,
And shamelessness expels the better shame;

Him shall the god cast down, in darkness hurl’d,

His name, his offspring wasted from the world:

The goods for which he pawn’d his soul decay,
The breath and shining bubble of a day.
Alike the man of sin is he confest,

[71]Who spurns the suppliant and who wrongs the guest;

Who climbs, by lure of stolen embraces led,
With ill-timed act, a brother’s marriage bed;
Who dares by crafty wickedness abuse

His trust, and robs the orphans of their dues;

Who, on the threshold of afflictive age,
His hoary parent stings with taunting rage:
On him shall Jove in anger look from high,
And deep requite the dark iniquity:
But wholly thou from these refrain thy mind,
Weak as it is, and wavering as the wind.
With thy best means perform the ritual part,
Outwardly pure and spotless at the heart,
And on thy altar let unblemish’d thighs
In fragrant savour to th’ immortals rise.
Or thou in other sort may’st well dispense
Wine-offerings and the smoke of frankincense,
Ere on the nightly couch thy limbs be laid;
Or when the stars from sacred sun-rise fade.
So shall thy piety accepted move
Their heavenly natures to propitious love:
Ne’er shall thy heritage divided be,
But others part their heritage to thee.
Let friends oft bidden to thy feast repair;
Let not a foe the social moment share.
Chief to thy open board the neighbour call:
When, unforeseen, domestic troubles fall,
The neighbour runs ungirded; kinsmen wait,

And, lingering for their raiment, hasten late.

As the good neighbour is our prop and stay,

So is the bad a pit-fall in our way.

Thus blest or curs’d, we this or that obtain,

The first a blessing and the last a bane.

How should thine ox by chance untimely die?

The evil neighbour looks and passes by.

[72]If aught thou borrowest, well the measure weigh;

The same good measure to thy friend repay,
Or more, if more thou canst, unask’d concede,
So shall he prompt supply thy future need.
Usurious gains avoid; usurious gain,
Equivalent to loss, will prove thy bane.

[73]Who loves thee, love; him woo that friendly wooes:

Give to the giver, but to him refuse

That giveth not; their gifts the generous earn;

But none bestows where never is return.

Munificence is blest: by heaven accurst

Extortion, of death-dealing plagues the worst.

Who bounteous gives though large his bounty flow,

Shall feel his heart with inward rapture glow:

Th’ extortioner of bold unblushing sin,

Though small the plunder, feels a thorn within.

If with a little thou a little blend

Continual, mighty shall the heap ascend.

Who bids his gather’d substance gradual grow

Shall see not livid hunger’s face of woe.

No bosom-pang attends the home-laid store,

But rife with loss the food without thy door:

’Tis good to take from hoards, and pain to need

What is far from thee: give the precept heed.

When broach’d or at the lees, no care be thine

To save the cask, but [74]spare the middle wine.

To him the friend that serves thee glad dispense

With bounteous hand the meed of recompense.
Not on a brother’s plighted word rely,
But, [75]as in laughter, set a witness by;
Mistrust destroys us and credulity.
Let no fair woman tempt thy sliding mind
[76]With garment gather’d in a knot behind;

She [77]prattling with gay speech inquires thy home;

But trust a woman, and a thief is come.

One only son his father’s house may tend,

And e’en with one domestic hoards ascend:

Then mayst thou leave a second son behind:

For many sons from heaven shall wealth obtain;

The care is greater, greater is the gain.

Do thus: if riches be thy soul’s desire,

By toils on toils to this thy hope aspire.

II.

When, Atlas-born, the Pleiad stars [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.

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.

Begin we from the Muses oh my song!
Muses of Helicon: their dwelling-place
The mountain vast and holy: where around
The altar of high Jove and fountain dark

From azure depth, [142]they lightly leap in dance

With delicate feet; and having duly bathed

Their tender bodies in Permessian streams,

[143]In springs that gush’d fresh from the courser’s hoof,

Or blest Olmius’ waters, many a time
Upon the topmost ridge of Helicon
Their elegant and amorous dances thread,

And smite the earth with strong-rebounding feet.

Thence breaking forth tumultuous, and enwrapt
With the deep mist of air, they onward pass
Nightly, and utter, as they sweep on high,
A voice in stilly darkness beautiful.
They hymn the praise of Ægis-wielding Jove,
And Juno, named of Argos, who august
In golden sandals walks: and her, whose eyes
Glitter with azure light, Minerva born
From Jove: Apollo, [144]sire of prophecy,
And Dian gladden’d by the twanging bow:

Earth-grasping Neptune, shaker of earth’s shores:

Majestic Themis and Dione fair:

[145]And Venus twinkling bland her tremulous lids:

Hebe, her brows with golden fillet bound:
Morn, the vast Sun, and the resplendent Moon:
Latona and Japetus: and him
Of crooked wisdom, Saturn: and the Earth:
And the huge Ocean, and the sable Night
And all the sacred race of deities
Existing ever. They to Hesiod erst

Have taught their stately song: the whilst he fed

His lambs beneath the holy Helicon.

And thus the goddesses, th’ Olympian maids

Whose sire is Jove, first hail’d me in their speech;

“Shepherds! that tend in fields the fold; ye shames!

[146]Ye fleshly appetites! the Muses hear:

’Tis we can utter fictions veil’d like truths,

Or, if we list, speak truths without a veil.”
So said the daughters of the mighty Jove,
Sooth-speaking maids: and gave unto my hand

A rod of marvellous growth, [147]a laurel-bough

Of blooming verdure; and within me breathed

A heavenly voice, that I might utter forth

All past and future things: and bade me praise

The blessed race of ever-living gods:

And ever first and last the Muses sing.

Away then—why [148]this tale of oaks and rocks?

Begin we from the Muses oh my song!

They the great spirit of their father Jove

Delight in heaven: their tongues symphonious breathe

All past, all present, and all future things:

Sweet, inexhaustible, from every mouth

That voice flows on: the Thunderer’s palace laughs

With scatter’d melody of honied sounds
From the breathed voice of goddesses, and all
The snow-topp’d summits of Olympus ring,
The mansions of immortals. They send forth
Their undecaying voice, and in their songs
Proclaim before all themes the race of gods
From the beginning: the majestic race,

Whom earth and awful heaven endow’d with life:

And all the deities who sprang from these,
Givers of blessings. Then again they change
The strain to Jove, the sire of gods and men:
Him praise the choral goddesses: him first
And last: with rising and with ending song:
How excellent he is above all gods,
And in his power most mighty. Once again
They sing the race of men, and giants strong;
And soothe the soul of Jupiter in heaven.
They, daughters of high Jove: Olympian maids:
Whom erst Mnemosyne, protecting queen
Of rich Eleuther’s fallows, in embrace

With Jove their sire amidst [149]Pieria’s groves

Conceived: of ills forgetfulness; to cares

Rest: thrice three nights did counsel-shaping Jove

Melt in her arms, apart from eyes profane
Of all immortals to the sacred couch
Ascending: and when now the year was full,

When moons had wax’d and waned, and reasons roll’d,

And days were number’d, she, some space remote

From where Olympus highest towers in snow,

[150]Bare the nine maids, with souls together knit

In harmony: whose thought is only song:

Within whose bosoms dwells th’ unsorrowing mind.

There on the mount they shine in troops of dance,

And dwell in beautified abodes: and nigh

The Graces also dwell, and Love himself,

And hold the feast. But they through parted lips

Send forth a lovely voice; they sing the laws
Of universal heaven; the manners pure
Of deathless gods, and lovely is their voice.

Anon they bend their footsteps tow’rds the mount,

Rejoicing in their beauteous voice and song
Unperishing: far round the dusky earth
Rings with their hymning voices, and beneath
Their many-rustling feet a pleasant sound
Ariseth, as tumultuous pass they on

To greet their heavenly sire. He reigns in heaven,

The bolt and glowing lightning in his grasp,
Since by the strong ascendant of his arm
Saturn his father fell: he to the gods

Appoints the laws, and he their honours names.

So sing the Muses; dwellers on the mount
Of heaven: nine daughters of the mighty Jove:
Melpomene, Euterpe, Erato,
Polymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia,
Urania, Clio, and Calliope:
The chiefest she: who walks upon the steps
Of kingly judges in their majesty:
And whomsoe’er of heavenly-nurtured kings
Jove’s daughters will to honour, looking down
With smiling aspect on his cradled head
They pour a gentle dew upon his tongue:

And words, as honey sweet, drop from his lips.

To him the people look: on him all eyes
Wait awful, who in righteousness discerns
The ways of judgment: in a single breath,

Utter’d with knowledge, ends the mightiest strife,

And all is peace. The wisdom this of kings:

That in their judgment-hall they from the oppress’d

Turn back the tide of ills, retrieving wrongs

With mild accost of [151]soothing eloquence.

On him, the judge and king, when passing forth

Among the city-ways, all reverent look
With a mild worship, as he were a god:
And in [152]the great assembly first is he.
Such is the Muses’ goodly gift to man.
The Muses, and Apollo darting far
The arrows of his splendour, raise on earth
[153]Harpers and men of song: but kings arise
From Jove himself. Oh blessed is the man
Whome’er the Muses love! sweet is the voice

That from his lips flows ever. [154]Is there one

Who hides some fresh grief in his wounded mind

And mourns with aching heart? but he, the bard,

[155]The servant of the Muse, awakes the song

To deeds of men of old, and blessed gods

That dwell on mount Olympus. Straight he feels

His sorrow stealing in forgetfulness:
Nor of his griefs remembers aught: so soon
The Muse’s gift has turn’d his woes away.
Daughters of Jove! all hail! but oh inspire
The lovely song! record the heavenly race
Of gods existing ever: those who sprang
From earth and starry heaven and murky night,

And whom the salt deep quicken’d. Say how first

The gods and earth became: how rivers flow’d:
Th’ unbounded sea raged high in foamy swell,
The stars shone forth, and overhead the sky

Spread its broad arch: and say from these what gods,

Givers of blessings, sprang: and how they shared

Heaven’s splendid attributes and parted out

Distinct their honours: and how first they fix’d

Their dwelling midst Olympus’ winding vales:
Tell, oh ye Muses! ye who also dwell
In mansions of Olympus: tell me all
From the beginning: say who first arose.
[156]First of all beings Chaos was: and next
Wide-bosom’d Earth, the seat for ever firm
Of all th’ immortals, whose abode is placed
Among the mount Olympus’ snow-top’d heads,
[157]Or in the dark abysses of the ground:
Then Love most beauteous of immortals rose:
He of each god and mortal man at once

Unnerves the limbs, dissolves the wiser breast

By reason steel’d, and quells the very soul.

From Chaos, Erebus and sable Night:

From Night arose the Sunshine and the Day:

Offspring of Night from Erebus’ embrace.

Earth first conceived with Heaven: whose starry cope,

Like to herself immense, might compass her
On every side: and be to blessed gods
A resting-place immoveable for ever.

She teem’d with the high Hills, the pleasant haunts

Of goddess nymphs, who dwell within the glens

Of mountains. With no aid of tender love

She gave to birth the sterile Sea, high-swol’n

In raging foam: and, Heaven-embraced, anon
She teem’d with Ocean, rolling in deep whirls
His vast abyss of waters. Crœus, then,
Cæus, Hyperion, and Iäpetus,
Themis, and Thea rose; Mnemosyne,
And Rhea; Phœbe diadem’d with gold,
And love-inspiring Tethys: and of these,
Youngest in birth, the wily Saturn came,
The sternest of her sons; for he abhorr’d

The sire who gave him life. Then brought she forth

[158]The Cyclops brethren, arrogant of heart,

Undaunted Arges, Brontes, Steropes:

Who forged the lightning shaft, and gave to Jove

His thunder: they were like unto the gods:

Save that a single ball of sight was fix’d

In their mid-forehead. Cyclops was their name,

From that round eye-ball in their brow infix’d:

And strength and force and manual craft were theirs.

Others again were born from Earth and Heaven:

Three giant sons: strong, dreadful but to name,

Children of glorying valour: Briareus,
Cottus and Gyges: from whose shoulders burst
A hundred arms that mock’d approach, and o’er

Their limbs hard-sinew’d fifty heads upsprang:

Mighty th’ immeasurable strength display’d

In each gigantic stature: and of all

The children born to earth and heaven these sons

Were dreadfullest: and they, e’en from the first,

Drew down their father’s hate: as each was born

He seized them all, and hid them in th’ abyss

Of Earth: nor e’er released them to the light.

Heaven in his evil deed rejoiced: vast Earth

Groan’d inly, sore aggrieved: but soon devised

A stratagem of mischief and of fraud.

Sudden creating for herself a kind

Of whiter iron, she with labour framed

A scythe enormous: and address’d her sons:

She spoke emboldening words, though grieved at heart.

“My sons! alas! ye children of a sire
Most impious, now obey a mother’s voice:
So shall we well avenge the fell despite
Of him your father, who the first devised
Deeds of injustice.” While she said, on all

Fear fell: nor utterance found they, till with soul

Embolden’d, wily Saturn huge address’d
His awful mother. “Mother! be the deed
My own: thus pledged I will most sure achieve
This feat: nor heed I him, our sire, of name
Detested: for that he the first devised
Deeds of injustice.” Thus he said, and Earth
Was gladden’d at her heart. She planted him
In ambush dark and secret: in his grasp

She placed the sharp-tooth’d scythe, and tutor’d him

In every wile. Vast Heaven came down from high,

And with him brought the gloominess of Night
On all beneath: with ardour of embrace
Hovering o’er Earth, in his immensity

He lay diffused around. The son stretch’d forth

His weaker hand from ambush: in his right

[159]He took the sickle huge and long and rough

With sharpen’d teeth: and hastily he reap’d
The genial organs of his sire, at once
Cut sheer: then cast behind him far away.
They not in vain escaped his hold: for Earth

Received the blood-drops, and as years roll’d round

Teem’d with strong furies and with giants huge,

Shining in mail, and grasping in their hands

Protended spears: and wood-nymphs, named of men

Dryads, o’er all th’ immeasurable earth.
So severing, as was said, with edge of steel
The genial spoils, he from the continent
Amidst the many surges of the sea

Hurl’d them. Full long they drifted o’er the deeps:

Till now swift-circling a white foam arose
From that immortal substance, and a nymph
Was quicken’d in the midst. The wafting waves
First bore her to Cythera’s heavenly coast:

Then reach’d she Cyprus, girt with flowing seas,

And forth emerged a goddess, in the charms

Of awful beauty. Where her delicate feet

Had press’d the sands, green herbage flowering sprang.

Her Aphrodite gods and mortals name,

[160]The foam-born goddess: and her name is known,

As Cytherea with the blooming wreath,

For that she touch’d Cythera’s flowery coast:

And Cypris, for that on the Cyprian shore

She rose, amidst the multitude of waves:

And Philomedia, from the source of life.

[161]Love track’d her steps; and beautiful Desire

Pursued, while soon as born she bent her way

Towards heaven’s assembled gods: her honours these

From the beginning: whether gods or men

Her presence bless, to her the portion fell

Of [162]virgin whisperings and alluring smiles,

And smooth deceits, and gentle ecstasy,
And dalliance, and the blandishments of love.
But the great Heaven, rebuking those his sons

That issued from his loins, new-named them now

Titans: and said that they avenging dared
A crime; but retribution was behind.
Abhorred Fate and dark Necessity

And Death were born from Night: by none embraced

These gloomy Night brought self-conceiving forth:

And Sleep and all the hovering host of dreams.

[163]Then bare she Momus; Care, still brooding sad

On many griefs; and next [164]th’ Hesperian maids,

Whose charge o’er-sees the fruits of blooming gold

Beyond the sounding ocean, the fair trees
Of golden fruitage. Then the Destinies
Arose, and Fates in vengeance pitiless:
Clotho, and Lachesis, and Atropos:
Who at the birth of men dispense the lot
Of good and evil. They of men and gods
The crimes pursue, nor ever pause from wrath
Tremendous, till destructive on the head
Of him that sins the retribution fall.
Then teem’d pernicious Night with Nemesis,
The scourge of mortal men: again she bare
Fraud and lascivious Love: slow-wasting Age,

And still-persisting Strife. From hateful Strife

Came sore Affliction and Oblivion drear:

Famine and weeping Sorrows: Combats, Wars,

And Slaughters, and all Homicides: and Brawls,

And Bickerings, and deluding Lies: with them
Perverted Law and galling Injury,
Inseparable mates: and the dread Oath;
A mighty bane to him of earth-born men
Who wilful swears, and perjured is forsworn.
The Sea with Earth embracing, Nereus rose,
[165]Eldest of all his race: unerring seer,
And true: with filial veneration named
Ancient of Years: for mild and blameless he:
Remembering still the right; still merciful

As just in counsels. [166]Then rose Thaumas vast,

[167]Phorcys the mighty, Ceto fair of cheek,

And stern Eurybia, of an iron soul.

From Nereus and the fair-hair’d Doris, nymph

Of ocean’s perfect stream, the lovely race

Of goddess Nereids rose to light, whose haunt

Is midst the waters of the sterile main:

Eucrate, Proto, Thetis, Amphitrite,

Love-breathing Thália, Sao, and Eudora,

And Spio, skimming with light feet the wave:

Galene, Glauce, and Cymothöe:

Agave, and the graceful Melita:

[168]Rose-arm’d Eunice, and Eulimene:

Pasithea, Doto, Erato, Pherusa,

Nesæa, Cranto, and Dynamene:

Protomedía, Doris, and Actæa:

And Panope, and Galatæa fair:

Rose-arm’d Hipponöe: soft Hippothöe:

Cymodoce who calms, at once, the waves

Of the dark sea, and blasts of heaven-breathed winds:

With whom Cymatolége, and the nymph

Of beauteous ankles Amphitrite glide:

Cymo, Eïone, Liagore,

And Halimede, with her sea-green wreath:

Pontoporïa, and Polynome;

Evagore, and blithe Glauconome:

Laomedía, and Evarne blest

With gracious nature and with faultless form:

Lysianassa, and Autonome,

And Psamathe, with shape of comeliness:

Divine Menippe, Neso, and Themistho:

And Pronöe, and Eupompe, and Nemertes:

Full of her deathless sire’s prophetic soul.

These sprang from blameless Nereus: [169]Nereid nymphs:

Who midst the waters ply their blameless tasks.

Electra, nymph of the deep-flowing ocean,
Embraced with Thaumas: rapid Iris thence
Rose, and Aëllo and Ocypetes,

[170]The sister-harpies, fair with streaming locks:

Who track the breezy winds and flights of birds,

On wings of swiftness hovering nigh the heaven.

Then Ceto, fair of cheek, to Phorcys bore

[171]The Graiæ; from their birth-hour gray: and hence

Their name with gods, and men that walk the earth:

Long-robed Pephredo, saffron-veil’d Enýo:

And Gorgons dwelling on the brink of night

Beyond the sounding main: where silver-voiced

Th’ Hesperian maidens in their watches sing:

Stheno, Euryale, Medusa these:

The last ill-fated, since of mortal date:

The two immortal, and unchanged by years.

Yet her alone the blue-hair’d god of waves

Enfolded, on the tender meadow grass,

And bedded flowers of spring: [172]when Perseus smote

Her neck, and snatch’d the sever’d bleeding head,

[173]The great Chrysaor then leap’d into life:

[174]And Pegasus the steed; who born beside

[175]Old Nilus’ fountains thence derived a name.

Chrysaor, grasping in his hands a sword
Of gold, flew upward on the winged horse:
And left beneath him earth, mother of flocks,

And soar’d to heaven’s immortals: and there dwells

In palaces of Jove, and to the god

Deep-counsell’d bears the bolt and arrowy flame.

Chrysaor with Callirhöe, blending love,
Nymph of sonorous ocean, [176]Geryon rose,
Three headed form: him the strong Hercules
Despoil’d of life among his hoof-cloven herds
On Erythia, girdled by the wave:
What time those oxen ample-brow’d he drove
To sacred Tyrinth, the broad ocean frith

Once past: and Orthrus, the grim herd-dog, stretch’d

Lifeless; and in their murky den beyond
The billows of the long-resounding deep,
The keeper of those herds, Eurytion, slain.
Another monster Ceto bare anon
[177]In the deep-hollow’d cavern of a rock:
Stupendous nor in shape resembling aught
Of human or of heavenly; the divine
Echidna, the untameable of soul:
Above, a nymph with beauty-blooming cheeks,
And eyes of jetty lustre; but below,
A speckled serpent horrible and huge,

Gorged with blood-banquets, monstrous, hid in caves

Of sacred earth. There in the uttermost depth
Her cavern is, within a vaulted rock:
Alike from mortals and immortals deep
Remote: the gods have there decreed her place
In mansions known to fame. So pent beneath
The rocks of Arima Echidna dwelt
Hideous: a nymph immortal, and in youth
Unchanged for evermore. But legends tell,
That with the jet-eyed nymph Typhaon mix’d

His fierce embrace: [178]a whirlwind rude and wild:

She, fill’d with love, conceived a progeny
Of strain undaunted. Geryon’s dog of herds,
Orthrus, the first arose: the second birth,
Unutterable, was the dog of hell:

Blood-fed and brazen-voiced, and bold and strong,

[179]The fifty-headed Cerberus; and third

Upsprang the Hydra, pest of Lerna’s lake:

Whom Juno, white-arm’d goddess, fostering rear’d

With deep resentment fill’d, insatiable,
’Gainst Hercules: but he, the son of Jove,
Named of Amphytrion, in the dragon’s gore
Bathed his unpitying steel: by warlike aid
Of Iolaus, and the counsels high
Of Pallas the Despoiler. Last came forth
[180]Chimæra, breathing fire unquenchable:

A monster grim and huge, and swift and strong:

Her’s were three heads: a glaring lion’s one:

One of a goat: a mighty snake’s the third:

In front the lion threatened, and behind

The serpent, and the goat was in the midst,

Exhaling fierce the strength of burning flame.

But the wing’d Pegasus his rider bore,

The brave Bellerophon, and laid her dead.

She, grasp’d by forced embrace of Orthrus, gave

[181]Depopulating Sphinx, the mortal plague
Of Cadmian nations: and the lion bare
Named of Nemæa. Him Jove’s glorious spouse

To fierceness rear’d: and placed his secret lair

Among Nemæa’s hills, the pest of men.
There lurking in his haunts he long ensnared
The roving tribes of man, and held stern sway

O’er cavern’d Tretum: o’er the mountain heights

Of Apesantus, and Nemæa’s wilds:

Till strong Alcides quell’d his gasping strength.

Now Ceto, in embrace with Phorcys, bare

Her youngest born: the dreadful snake, that couch’d

In the dark earth’s abyss, his wide domain,

Holds o’er the golden apples wakeful guard.

[182]Tethys to Ocean brought the rivers forth,

In whirlpool waters roll’d: Eridanus

Deep-eddied, and Alpheus, and the Nile:

Fair-flowing Ister, Strymon, and Meander,

Phasis and Rhesus: Achelous bright

With silver-circled tides: Heptaporus,

And Nessus: Haliacmon and Rhodíus:

Granícus and the heavenly Simois:

Æsapus, Hermus, and Sangarius vast:

Penéus, and Caicus smoothly flowing:

And Ladon, and Parthenius, and Evenus:

Ardescus, and Scamander the divine.

Then bore she a blest race of Naiad nymphs,

Who with the rivers and the king of day

O’er the wide earth [183]claim the shorn locks of youth:

Their portion this and privilege from Jove.

Admete, Pitho, Doris and Ianthe:

Urania heavenly-fair: and Clymene:

Prymno, Electra, and Calliröe:

Rhodía, Hippo, and Pasithöe:

Plexaure, Clytie, and Melobosis:

Idya, Thöe, Xeuxo, Galaxaure:

And amiable Dione, and Circeis

Of nature soft, and Polydora fair;

[184]And Ploto, with the bright dilated eyes:

Perseis, Ianira, and Acaste:

Xanthe, the sweet Petræa, saffron-robed

Telestho, Metis, and Eurynome:

And Crisie, and Menestho, and Europa:

Lovely Calypso, Amphiro, Eudora:

Asia, and Tyche, and Ocyröe:

And Styx, the chief of oceanic streams.

The daughters these of Tethys and of Ocean,

The eldest-born: for more untold remain:

Three-thousand graceful Oceanides

[185]Long-stepping tread the earth: or far and wide

Dispersed, they haunt [186]the glassy depth of lakes,

A glorious sisterhood of goddess birth.
As many rivers also, yet untold,
Rushing with hollow-dashing echoes, rose
From awful Tethys: but their every name
Is not for mortal man to memorate,

Arduous; yet known to all the borderers round.

Now Thia, yielding to Hyperion’s arms,
Bare the great Sun and the refulgent Moon:
And Morn, that scatters wide the rosy light

To men that walk the earth, and deathless gods

Whose mansion is yon ample firmament.
Eurybia, noble goddess, blending love
With Crius, gave the great Astræus birth,
Pallas the god, and Perses, wise in lore.
The Morning to Astræus bare the Winds

Of spirit untamed: [187]East, West, and South, and North

Cleaving his rapid course: a goddess thus
Embracing with a god. Last, Lucifer
Sprang radiant from the dawn-appearing Morn:

And all the glittering stars that gird the heaven.

Styx, ocean-nymph, with Pallas mingling love,

Bare Victory, whose feet are beautiful

In palaces: and Zeal, and Strength, and Force,

Illustrious children. [188]Not apart from Jove

Their mansion is: nor is there seat, or way,
But he before them in his glory sits
Or passes forth: and where the Thunderer is,
Their place is found for ever. So devised
The nymph of Ocean, the eternal Styx:

What time the Lightning-sender call’d from heaven,

And summon’d all th’ immortal deities
To broad Olympus’ top: then thus he spake:
“Hear all ye gods! That god who wars with me
Against the Titans, shall retain the gifts
Which Saturn gave, and honours heretofore
His portion midst th’ immortals: and whoe’er
Unhonour’d and ungifted has repined
Under Saturnian sway, the same shall rise,
“As just it is, to honours and rewards.”
Then first of every power eternal Styx,
Sway’d by the careful counsels of her sire,
Stood on Olympus, and her sons beside:
Her Jove received with honour, and endow’d

With goodly gifts: ordain’d her the great oath

Of deities: her sons for evermore
Indwellers with himself. Alike to all,
Even as he pledged that sacred word, the god

Perform’d; so reigns he, strong in power and might.

Now Phœbe sought the love-delighting couch

Of Cœus: so within a god’s embrace

Conceived the goddess. Then arose to life

The azure-robed Latona: ever mild:

Gracious to man and to immortal gods:

Mild from the first beginning of the world:

Gentlest of all within th’ Olympian courts.

Anon she bare [189]Asteria, blest in fame:

Whom Perses to his spacious palace led,

That he might call her spouse: and [190]she conceived

With Hecaté. Her o’er all others Jove

Hath honour’d, and endow’d with splendid gifts:

With power on earth and o’er the untill’d sea:

Nor less her glory from the starry heaven,
Chief honour’d by immortals: and if one
Of earthly men performing the due rite
Of victim divination, would appease
The gods above, he calls on Hecaté:

To him, whose prayer the goddess gracious hears,

High honour comes spontaneous, and to him

She yields all affluence; for the power is hers.

Whatever gods, the sons of heaven and earth,

Shared honour at the hands of Jove, o’er all

[191]Her wide allotment stands: nor whatsoe’er

Of rank she held, midst the old Titan gods,
Has Saturn’s son invaded or deprived;
As was the ancient heritage of power

So hers remains: e’en from the first of things.

Nor is [192]her solitary birth reproach:

Nor less, though singly born, her rank and power

In heaven and earth and main, but higher meed
Of glory, since her honour is from Jove.
She, in the greatness of her power, is nigh
With aid to whom she lists: whoe’er she wills
O’er the great council of the people shines:
And when the mailed men arise to wage
Destroying battle, she to whom she lists
Is present, yielding victory and fame;
And on the judgment-seat with awful kings
She sits; and when in the gymnastic strife
Men struggle, the propitious goddess comes
Present with aid: then easily the man,
Conqueror in hardiment and strength, obtains

The graceful wreath, and glad-triumphing sheds

[193]A gleam of glory o’er his parents’ days.

She, as she lists, is nigh to charioteers

Who strive with steeds: and voyagers who cleave

Through the blue watery vast th’ untractable way.

They call upon the name of Hecaté

With vows: and his, loud-sounding god of waves,

Earth-shaker Neptune. Easily at will
The glorious goddess yields the woodland prey
Abundant: easily, while scarce they start

On the mock’d vision, snatches them in flight.

She too with Hermes is propitious found

To herd and fold: and bids increase the droves

Innumerable of goats and woolly flocks,

And swells their numbers or their numbers thins.

And thus, although her mother’s lonely child,

She midst th’ immortals shares all attributes.

Her Jove appointed nursing-mother bland
Of babes, who after her to morn’s broad light
Should lift the tender lid: so from the first
The foster-nurse of babes: her honours these.
Embraced by Saturn, Rhea gave to light

Illustrious children. [194]Golden-sandal’d Juno,

[195]Ceres, and Vesta: [196]Pluto strong, who dwells

In mansions under earth: of ruthless heart;

[197]Earth-shaker Neptune, loud with dashing waves:

And [198]Jupiter th’ all-wise: the sire of gods

And men; beneath whose crashing thunder-peal
The wide earth rocks in elemental war.
But them, as issuing from the sacred womb

They touch’d the mother’s knees, did Saturn huge

Devour: revolving in his troubled thought
Lest other one of beings heavenly-born
Usurp the kingly honours. For from earth
And starry heaven the rumour met his ear,

That it was doom’d by Fate, strong though he were,

[199]To his own son he should bow down his strength.

Jove’s wisdom this fulfill’d. No blind design
He therefore cherish’d, and in crooked craft
Devour’d his children. But on Rhea prey’d
Never-forgotten anguish. When the time
Was full, and Jove, the sire of gods and men,
Came to the birth, her parents she besought,

Earth and starr’d Heaven, that they should counsel yield

How secretly the babe may spring to life:

And how the father’s furies ’gainst his race

In subtlety devour’d may meet revenge:

They to their daughter listen’d and complied:

Unfolding what the Fates had sure decreed

Of kingly Saturn and his dauntless son:

And her they sent to Lyctus: to the clime

Of fallow’d Crete. Now when her time was come,

The birth of Jove her youngest-born, vast Earth

Took to herself the mighty babe, to rear
With nurturing softness in the spacious isle
Of Crete. So came she then, transporting him

With the swift shades of night, to Lyctus first:

And thence, upbearing in her arms, conceal’d

Beneath the sacred ground, in sunless cave,

Where shagg’d with thickening woods th’ Egæan mount

Impends. Then swathing an enormous stone

She placed it in the hands of Heaven’s huge son,

The ancient king of gods: that stone he snatch’d;

And in his ravening breast convey’d away:

Wretch! nor bethought him that the stone supplied

His own son’s place; survivor in its room,
Unconquer’d and unharm’d: the same, who soon
Subduing him with mightiness of arm,

Should drive him from his state, and reign himself

King of immortals. Swiftly grew the strength

And hardy limbs of that same kingly babe:

And when the great year had fulfill’d its round,

Gigantic Saturn, wily as he was,

Yet foil’d by Earth’s considerate craft, and quell’d

By his son’s arts and strength, released his race:

The stone he first disgorged, the last devour’d:

This Jove on earth’s broad surface firmly fix’d

At Pythos the divine, in the deep cleft
Of high Parnassus: [200]to succeeding times
A monument, and miracle to man.
The brethren of his father too he loosed,

Whom Heaven, their sire, had in his frenzy bound:

They the good deed in grateful memory bore:

And gave the thunder, and the burning bolt,

And lightning, which vast Earth had heretofore

Hid in her central caves. In these confides

The god, and reigns o’er deities and men.

Iäpetus ascends the bed of love

With Clýmene, fair-ankled ocean-nymph:

She brought forth Atlas: her undaunted son:

Glorying Menœtius and Prometheus vers’d

In changeful turns and shifting subtleties:

And Epimetheus of unwary mind:

Who from old time became an evil curse

To man’s inventive race; for he received

The clay-form’d virgin-woman sent from Jove.

All-seeing Jove struck with his smouldering flash

Haughty Menœtius, and cast down to hell;
Shameless in crime and arrogant in strength.
Atlas, enforced by stern necessity,

[201]Props the broad heaven: on earth’s far borders, where

Full opposite th’ Hesperian virgins sing

With shrill sweet voice, he rears his head and hands

Aye unfatiguable: Heaven’s counsellor

So doom’d his lot. But with enduring chains

[202]He bound Prometheus, train’d in shifting wiles,

With galling shackles fixing him aloft
Midway a column. Down he sent from high
His eagle hovering on expanded wings:
She gorged his liver: still beneath her beak
Immortal; for it sprang with life, and grew
In the night-season, and repair’d the waste
Of what the wide-wing’d bird devour’d by day.
But her the fair Alcmena’s hardy son
Slew; from Prometheus drove the cruel plague,
And freed him from his pangs. Olympian Jove,
Who reigns on high, consented to the deed;
That thence yet higher glory might arise,
O’er peopled earth, to Hercules of Thebes:
And in his honour, Jove now made to cease

The wrath he felt before; ’gainst him who strove

In wisdom e’en with Saturn’s mighty son.
Of yore when strife arose for sacrifice,
Twixt gods and men, within Mecona’s walls,
Prometheus wilful [203]parted a huge ox
And set before the god: so tempting him
With purpose to deceive: for here he laid

The unctuous substance, entrails, and the flesh

Close cover’d with the belly of the hide:

There the white bones he craftily disposed;

And with the marrowy substance wrapt them round.

Then spake the father of the gods and men:

“Son of Iäpetus!” thou famous god!

How partial, friend! are thy divided shares!”

So in rebuke spoke Jupiter: whose thoughts

Of wisdom perish not. Then answer’d him

Wily Prometheus, with a laugh suppress’d,

And well remembering his insidious fraud:

“Hail glorious Jove! thou mightiest of the gods

Who shall endure for ever: choose the one

Which now the spirit in thy breast persuades.”

He spoke, revolving treachery. Jove, whose thoughts

Of wisdom perish never, knew the guile,

Not unforewarn’d: and straight his soul devised

Evil to mortals, that should surely be:
He raised the snowy portion with his hands,
And felt his spirit wroth: yea, anger seiz’d
His spirit, when he saw the whitening bones
O’erlaid with cunning artifice: and thence,
E’en from that hour, the dwellers upon earth

Consume the whitening bones, when climbs the smoke

Wreath’d from their flaming altars. Then again

Cloud-gatherer Jove with indignation spake:

“Son of Iäpetus! of all most wise!

Still, friend! rememberest thou thy arts of guile?”

So spake, incensed, the god, whose wisdom yields

To no decay: and from that very hour,
Remembering still the treachery, he denied
The strength of indefatigable fire
To all the dwellers upon earth. But him
Benevolent Prometheus did beguile:
For in a hollow reed he stole from high
The far-seen splendour of unwearied flame.

Then deep resentment stung the Thunderer’s soul;

And his heart chafed in anger, when he saw

The fire far-gleaming in the midst of men.

And for the flame restored, he straight devised

A mischief to mankind. At Jove’s behest
Famed Vulcan fashion’d from the yielding clay
A bashful virgin’s likeness: and the maid
Of azure eyes, Minerva, round her waist

Clasp’d the broad zone, and dress’d her limbs in robe

Of flowing whiteness; placed upon her head
A wondrous veil of variegated threads;
Entwined amidst her hair delicious wreaths

Of verdant herbage and fresh-blooming flowers;

And set a golden mitre on her brow;
Which Vulcan framed, and with adorning hands
Wrought, at the pleasure of his father Jove.
Rich-labour’d figures, marvellous to sight,

Enchased the border: forms of beasts that range

The earth, and fishes of the rolling deep:
Of these innumerable he there had graven;
And exquisite the beauty of his art
Shone in these wonders, like to animals
Moving in breath, with vocal sounds of life.
Now when his plastic hand instead of good

Had framed this beauteous bane, he led her forth

Where were the other gods and mingled men.

She went exulting in her graced array,

Which Pallas, daughter of a mighty sire,

Known by her eyes of azure, had bestow’d.

On gods and men in that same moment seiz’d

The ravishment of wonder, when they saw

The deep deceit, th’ inextricable snare.

From her the sex of tender woman springs:

[204]Pernicious is the race: the woman tribe

Dwell upon earth, a mighty bane to men:

No mates for wasting want, but luxury:

And as within the close-roof’d hive, the drones,

Helpers of sloth, are pamper’d by the bees;

These all the day, till sinks the ruddy sun,

Haste on the wing, “their murmuring labours ply,”

And still cement the white and waxen comb:
Those lurk within the cover’d hive, and reap
With glutted maw the fruits of others’ toil;
Such evil did the Thunderer send to man
In woman’s form, and so he gave the sex,
Ill helpmates of intolerable toils.
Yet more of ill instead of good he gave:
The man who shunning wedlock thinks to shun
The vexing cares that haunt the woman-state,
And lonely waxes old, shall feel the want
Of one to foster his declining years:
Though not his life be needy, yet his death

Shall scatter his possessions to strange heirs,

And aliens from his blood. Or if his lot
Be marriage, and his spouse of modest fame,
Congenial to his heart, e’en then shall ill
For ever struggle with the partial good,
And cling to his condition. But the man,
Who gains the woman of injurious kind,
Lives bearing in his secret soul and heart
Inevitable sorrow: ills so deep
As all the balms of medicine cannot cure.
Therefore it is not lawful to elude

The eye of Heaven, nor mock th’ Omniscient Mind.

For not Prometheus, the benevolent,

Could shun Heaven’s heavy wrath: and vain were all

His arts of various wisdom: vain to ’scape

Necessity, or loose the mighty chain.

When Heaven their sire ’gainst Cottus, Briareus,

And Gyges, felt his moody anger chafe

Within him, sore amazed with that their strength

Immeasurable, their aspect fierce, and bulk

Gigantic, with a chain of iron force

He bound them down; and fix’d their dwelling-place

Beneath the spacious ground: beneath the ground

They dwelt in pain and durance: in th’ abyss

There sitting, where earth’s utmost bound’ries end.

Full long oppress’d with mighty grief of heart

They brooded o’er their woes: but them did Jove

Saturnian, and those other deathless gods
Whom fair-hair’d Rhea bare to Saturn’s love,
By policy of Earth, lead forth again
To light. For she successive all things told:
How with the giant brethren they should win
Conquest and splendid glory. Long they fought
With toil soul-harrowing: they the deities
Titanic and Saturnian: each to each
Opposed, in valour of promiscuous war.

From Othrys’ lofty summit warr’d [205]the host

Of glorious Titans: from Olympus they,
The band of gift-dispensing deities
Whom fair-hair’d Rhea bore to Saturn’s love.

So waged they war soul-harrowing: each with each

Ten years and more the furious battle join’d,
Unintermitted: nor to either host
Was issue of stern strife or end: alike
Did either stretch the limit of the war.
But now when Jove had set before his powers
All things befitting; the repast of gods;
The nectar and ambrosia, in each breast
Th’ heroic spirit kindled: and now all
With nectar and with sweet ambrosia fill’d,
Thus spake the father of the gods and men:

“Hear me! illustrious race of Earth and Heaven!

That what the spirit in my bosom prompts
I now may utter. Long, and day by day,
Confronting each the other, we have fought
For conquest and dominion: Titan gods,
And we the seed of Saturn. Still do ye,
Fronting the Titans in funereal war,
Show mighty strength: invulnerable hands:

Remembering that mild friendship, and those pangs

Remembering, when ye trod the upward way

Back to the light: and by our counsels broke

“The burthening chain, and left the murky gloom.”

He spake: and Cottus brave of soul replied:
“Oh Jove august! not darkly hast thou said:
Nor know we not how excellent thou art
In counsel and in knowledge: thou hast been
Deliverer of immortals from a curse
Of horror: by thy wisdom have we risen,
Oh kingly son of Saturn! from dark gloom
And bitter bonds, unhoping of relief.
Then with persisting spirit and device
Of prudent warfare, shall we still assert
Thy empire midst the fearful fray, and still
In hardy conflict brave the Titan foe.”
He said: the gods, the givers of all good,
Heard with acclaim: nor ever till that hour
So burn’d each breast with ardour to destroy.
All on that day stirr’d up the mighty strife,
Female and male: Titanic gods, and sons
And daughters of old Saturn; and that band
Of giant brethren, whom, from forth th’ abyss
Of darkness under earth, deliverer Jove

Sent up to light: grim forms and strong, with force

Gigantic: arms of hundred-handed gripe

Burst from their shoulders: fifty heads up-sprang,

Cresting their muscular limbs. They thus opposed

In dreadful conflict ’gainst the Titans stood,

In all their sinewy hands [206]wielding aloft

Precipitous rocks. On th’ other side, alert

The Titan phalanx closed: then hands of strength

Join’d prowess, and show’d forth the works of war.

Th’ immeasurable sea tremendous dash’d

With roaring; earth re-echoed; the broad heaven

Groan’d shattering: vast Olympus reel’d throughout

Down to its rooted base beneath the rush

Of those immortals: the [207]dark chasm of hell

Was shaken with the trembling, with the tramp

Of hollow footsteps and strong battle-strokes,

And measureless uproar of wild pursuit.

So they against each other through the air

Hurl’d intermix’d their weapons, scattering groans

Where’er they fell. The voice of armies rose

With rallying shout through the starr’d firmament,

And with a mighty war-cry both the hosts
Encountering closed. Nor longer then did Jove
Curb down his force; but sudden in his soul

There grew dilated strength, and it was fill’d

With his omnipotence: [208]his whole of might

Broke from him, and the godhead rush’d abroad.

The vaulted sky, the mount Olympus, flash’d
With his continual presence; for he pass’d
Incessant forth, and lighten’d where he trod.

Thrown from his nervous grasp the lightnings flew

Reiterated swift; the whirling flash
Cast sacred splendour, and the thunderbolt
Fell. Then on every side the foodful earth
Roar’d in the burning flame, and far and near

The trackless depth of forests crash’d with fire.

Yea—the broad earth burn’d red, the floods of Nile

Glow’d, and the desert waters of the sea.
Round and around the Titans’ earthy forms
Roll’d the hot vapour, and on fiery surge

Stream’d upward, swathing in one boundless blaze

The purer air of heaven. Keen rush’d the light

In quivering splendour from the writhen flash:

Strong though they were, intolerable smote

Their orbs of sight, and with bedimming glare

Scorch’d up their blasted vision. [209]Through the void

Of Erebus, the preternatural flame

Spread, mingling fire with darkness. But to see

With human eye and hear with ear of man

Had been, as on a time [210]the heaven and earth

Met hurtling in mid-air: as nether earth

Crash’d from the centre, and the wreck of heaven

Fell ruining from high. Not less, when gods

Grappled with gods, the shout and clang of arms

Commingled, and the tumult roar’d from heaven.

Shrill rush’d the hollow winds, and roused throughout

A shaking and a gathering dark of dust;
Crushing the thunders from the clouds of air,
Hot thunderbolts and flames, the fiery darts
Of Jove: and in the midst of either host
They bore upon their blast the cry confused
Of battle, and the shouting. For the din
Tumultuous of that sight-appalling strife

Rose without bound. Stern strength of hardy proof

Wreak’d there its deeds, till weary sank the fight.

But first, array’d in battle, front to front,

Full long they stood, and bore the brunt of war.

Amid the foremost, towering in the van,

[211]The war-unsated Gyges, Briareus,

And Cottus, bitterest conflict waged: for they

Successive thrice a hundred rocks in air

Hurl’d from their sinewy grasp: with missile storm

[212]The Titan host o’ershadowing, them they drove,

Vain-glorious as they were, with hands of strength

O’ercoming them, beneath th’ expanse of earth

And bound with galling chains: [213]so far beneath

This earth, as earth is distant from the sky:

So deep the space to darksome Tartarus.

A brazen anvil rushing from the sky

Through thrice three days would toss in airy whirl,

Nor touch this earth, till the tenth sun arose:

Or down earth’s chasm precipitate revolve,

Nor till the tenth sun rose attain [214]the verge

Of Tartarus. A fence of massive brass
Is forged around: around the pass is roll’d
A night of triple darkness; and above
Impend the roots of earth and barren sea.
There the Titanic gods in murkiest gloom
Lie hidden: such the cloud-assembler’s will:

There in a place of darkness, where vast earth

Has end: from thence no egress open lies:

Neptune’s huge hand has closed with brazen gates

The mouth: a wall environs every side.
There Gyges, Cottus, high-souled Briareus,
Dwell vigilant: the faithful sentinels
Of Ægis-bearer Jove. Successive there
The dusky Earth, and darksome Tartarus,
The sterile Ocean, and the starry Heaven,

[215]Arise and end, their source and boundary.

[216]A drear and ghastly wilderness, abhorr’d

E’en by the gods; a vast vacuity:

Might none the space of one slow-circling year

Touch the firm soil, that portal enter’d once,

[217]But him the whirls of vexing hurricanes
Toss to and fro. E’en by immortals loathed
This prodigy of horror. There too stand

The mansions drear of gloomy Night, o’erspread

With blackening vapours: and before the doors
Atlas upholding heaven his forehead rears,
And indefatigable hands. There Night
And Day, near passing, mutual greeting still

Exchange, [218]alternate as they glide athwart

The brazen threshold vast. This enters, that

Forth issues; nor the two can one abode

At once constrain. This passes forth and roams

The round of earth; that in the mansion waits,

Till the due season of her travel come.
Lo! from the one the far-discerning light
Beams upon earthly dwellers; but a cloud
Of pitchy blackness veils the other round:
Pernicious Night: aye-leading in her hand

[219]Sleep, Death’s half-brother: sons of gloomy Night

There hold they habitation, Death and Sleep;

Dread deities: [220]nor them the shining Sun

E’er with his beam contemplates, when he climbs

The cope of heaven, or when from heaven descends.

Of these the one glides gentle o’er the space
Of earth and broad expanse of ocean waves,
Placid to man. The other has a heart
Of iron; yea, the heart within his breast
Is brass, unpitying: whom of men he grasps
Stern he retains: e’en [221]to immortal gods
A foe. The hollow-sounding palaces
Of Pluto strong the subterranean god,

[222]And stern Prosérpina, there full in front

Ascend: a grisly dog, implacable,
Holds watch before the gates: a stratagem
Is his, malicious: them who enter there,
With tail and bended ears he fawning soothes:
But suffers not that they with backward step
Repass: whoe’er would issue from the gates
Of Pluto strong and stern Prosérpina,
For them with marking eye he lurks; on them
Springs from his couch, and pitiless devours.
There, odious to immortals, dreadful Styx
Inhabits: refluent Ocean’s eldest-born:
She from the gods apart for ever dwells

In far-re-echoing mansions, [223]with arch’d roofs

Of loftiest rock o’erhung: and all around
The silver columns lean upon the skies.
Swift-footed Iris, nymph of Thaumas born,
Takes with no frequent embassy her way

O’er the broad main’s expanse, when haply strife

Be risen, and midst the gods dissension sown:

And if there be among th’ Olympian race

Who falsehood utters, [224]Jove sends Iris down

To bring the great oath in a golden ewer:

The far-famed water, from steep, sky-capt rock

Distilling in cold stream. Beneath wide Earth

Abundant from [225]the sacred river-head,

Through shades of blackest night, the Stygian horn

Of ocean flows: a tenth of all the streams

To the dread oath allotted. In nine streams

Circling the round of earth and the broad seas,

With silver whirlpools twined in many a maze,
It falls into the deep: one stream alone
Flows from the rock; a mighty bane to gods.
Who of immortals, that inhabit still
Olympus top’d with snow, [226]libation pours
And is forsworn, he one whole year entire
Lies reft of breath: nor yet approaches once
The nectar’d and ambrosial sweet repast:

But still reclines on the spread festive couch

Mute, breathless; and a mortal lethargy
O’erwhelms him: but, his malady absolved
With the great round of the revolving year,

More ills on ills afflictive seize: nine years

From ever-living deities remote

His lot is cast: in council nor in feast

Once joins he, till nine years entire are full:

The tenth again he mingles with the blest
Societies, who fill th’ Olympian courts.
So great an oath the deities of heaven
Decreed the water of eternal Styx,

The ancient stream; that sweeps with wandering waves

A rugged region: where of dusky Earth,
And darksome Tartarus, and Ocean waste,
And starry Heaven, the source and boundary
Successive rise and end: a dreary wild
And ghastly: e’en by deities abhorr’d.

There gates resplendent rise; the threshold brass;

Immoveable; on deep foundations fix’d;
Self-framed. Before them the Titanic gods
Abide, without th’ assembly of the Blest,
Beyond the gulf of darkness. There beneath
The ocean-roots, th’ auxiliaries renown’d
Of Jove who rolls the hollow-pealing thunder,
Cottus and Gyges in near mansions dwell:

But He that shakes the shores with dashing surge

Hailing him son, gave Briareus as bride
Cymopolía; prize of brave desert.
But now when Jupiter from all the heaven

Had cast the Titans forth, huge Earth embraced

By Tartarus, through balmy Venus’ aid,

[227]Her youngest-born Typhœus bore; whose hands

Of strength are fitted to stupendous deeds:

And indefatigable are the feet

Of the strong god: and from his shoulders rise

A hundred snaky heads of dragon growth,

Horrible, quivering with their blackening tongues:

In each amazing head, from eyes that roll’d

Within their sockets, fire shone sparkling: fire

Blazed from each head, the whilst he roll’d his glance

Glaring around him. In those fearful heads
Were voices of all sound, miraculous:
Now utter’d they distinguishable tones
Meet for the ear of gods: now the deep cry
Of a wild-bellowing bull untamed in strength:
And now the roaring of a lion, fierce
In spirit: and anon the yell of whelps

Strange to the ear: and now the monster hiss’d,

That the high mountains echoed back the sound.

Then had a dread event that fatal day
Inevitable fall’n, and he had ruled
O’er mortals and immortals; but the Sire
Of gods and men the peril instant knew
Intuitive; and vehement and strong
He thunder’d: instantaneous all around

Earth reel’d with horrible crash: the firmament

Of high heaven roar’d: the streams of Nile, the sea,

And uttermost caverns. While the king in wrath

Uprose, [228]beneath his everlasting feet

The great Olympus trembled, and earth groan’d.

From either god a burning radiance caught

The darkly azured ocean: from the flash

Of lightnings, and that monster’s darted flame,

Hot thunderbolts, and blasts of fiery winds.

Earth, air, sea, glow’d: the billows, heaved on high,

Foam’d round the shores, and dash’d on every side

Beneath the rush of gods. Concussion wild
And unappeasable uprose: aghast
The gloomy monarch of th’ infernal dead
Shudder’d: the sub-tartarean Titans heard

E’en where they stood, with Saturn in the midst:

They heard appall’d the unextinguish’d rage

Of tumult, and the din of dreadful war.

But now when Jove had gather’d all his strength,

And grasp’d his weapons, bolts, and bickering flames,

He from the mount Olympus’ topmost ridge

Leap’d at a bound, and smote him: hiss’d at once

The horrible monster’s heads enormous, scorch’d

In one conflagrant blaze. When thus the god

Had quell’d him, thunder-smitten, mangled, prone,

He fell: earth groan’d and shook beneath his weight.

Flame from [229]the lightning-stricken deity

Flash’d, midst the mountain-hollows, rugged, dark,

Where he fell smitten. Broad earth glow’d intense

From that unbounded vapour, and dissolv’d:

As fusile tin by art of youths above

The wide-brimm’d vase up-bubbling foams with heat;

Or iron, hardest of the mine, subdued
By burning flame amidst [230]the woody dales
Melts in the sacred caves beneath the hands
Of Vulcan, so earth melted in the glare
Of blazing fire. He down wide Hell’s abyss
His victim hurl’d in bitterness of soul.

[231]Lo! from Typhœus is the strength of winds

Moist-blowing: save the South, North, East, and West:

[232]These born from gods, a blessing great to man:

Those, unavailing gusts, o’er the waste sea

Breathe barren: with sore peril fraught to man:

In whirlpool rage fall black upon the deep:

Now here, now there, they rush with stormy gale,

Scatter the rolling barks, and whelm in death
The mariner: an evil succourless
To men, who midst the ocean-ways their blast
Encounter. They again o’er all th’ expanse
Of flowery earth the pleasant works of man

Despoil, and fill the blacken’d air with cloud

Of eddying dust and hollow rustlings drear.

Now had the blessed Powers of Heaven fulfill’d

Their toils, for meed of glory ’gainst the gods

Titanic striving in their strength: and now,
Earth-counsell’d, they exhort Olympian Jove,
Of wide beholding eyes, to regal sway
And empire o’er immortals: he to them
Due honours portion’d with an equal hand.
First as a bride the Monarch of the gods
[233]Led Metis: her o’er deities and men

Vers’d in all knowledge. But when now the time

Was full, that she should bear [234]the blue-eyed maid

Minerva, he with treacheries of smooth speech
Beguiled her thought, and hid his spouse away
In his own breast: so Earth and starry Heaven
Had counsell’d: him they both advising warn’d
Lest, in the place of Jove, another seize
The kingly honour o’er immortal gods.
For so the Fates had destined, that from her

An offspring should be born, of wisest strain.

First the Tritonian virgin azure-eyed:
Of equal might and prudence with her sire:
And then a son, king over gods and men,
Had she brought forth, invincible of soul,
But Jove in his own breast before that hour
Deposited the goddess: evermore
So warning him of evil and of good.
Next led he shining Themis: and she bare
Order, and Justice, and the blooming Peace,
The Hours by name: who perfect all the works
Of human kind: and Destinies, whom Jove
All-wise array’d with honour: Lachesis,
Clotho, and Atropos: who deal to men
The dole of good or ill. To him anon
Old Ocean’s daughter, amiablest of mien,
Eurynome, [235]brought the three Graces forth
Beauteous of cheek: Euphrosyne, Aglaia,

And Thália blithe: their eye-lids, as they gaze,

Drop love, unnerving: and beneath the shade

Of their arch’d brows they steal the sidelong glance

Of sweetness. To the couch anon he came
Of many-nurturing Ceres: Proserpine
The snowy-arm’d she bare: her gloomy Dis

Snatch’d from her mother, and all-prudent Jove

Consign’d the prize. Next loved he the fair-hair’d

Mnemosyne: from her the Muses nine

Are born: their brows with golden fillets wreath’d;

Whom feasts delight, and rapture sweet of song.

In mingled joy with ægis-wielding Jove
Latona bore [236]the arrow-shooting Dian,
And Phœbus, loveliest of the heavenly tribe.
He last the blooming Juno led as bride:
And she, embracing with the king of gods

And men, bore Mars, and [237]Hebe, and Lucina.

He from his head disclosed himself to birth

The blue-eyed maid, Tritonian [238]Pallas; fierce,

Rousing the war-field’s tumult; unsubdued;
Leader of armies; awful: whom delight
The shout of battle and the shock of war.
Without th’ embrace of love did Juno bear

[239]Illustrious Vulcan, o’er celestials graced

With arts: and strove contending with her spouse

Emulous. From the god of sounding waves,
Shaker of earth, and Amphitrite, sprang
[240]Sea-potent Triton huge: beneath the deep
He dwells in golden edifice, a god
Of awful might. Now [241]Venus gave to Mars,

Breaker of shields, a dreadful offspring: Fear,

And Consternation: they confound, in rout
Of horrid war, the phalanx dense of men,
With city-spoiler Mars. [242]Harmonia last

She bare, whom generous Cadmus clasp’d as bride.

Daughter of Atlas, Maia bore to Jove
[243]The glorious Hermes, herald of the gods;
The sacred couch ascending. [244]Semele,
Daughter of Cadmus, melting in embrace
With Jove, gave jocund Bacchus to the light:
A mortal an immortal: now alike
Immortal deities. Alcmena bare
Strong Hercules: dissolving in embrace

With the cloud-gatherer Jove. The crippled god,

In arts illustrious, Vulcan, as his bride

The gay Aglaia led, the youngest Grace.

[245]Bacchus of golden hair, his blooming spouse

Daughter of Minos, Ariadne clasp’d
With yellow tresses. Her Saturnian Jove
Immortal made, and fearless of decay.

Fair-limb’d [246]Alcmena’s valiant son, achieved

His agonizing labours, Hebe led
A bashful bride, the daughter of great Jove
And Juno golden-sandal’d, on the mount

Olympus top’d with snow. Thrice blest who thus,

A mighty task accomplish’d, midst the gods
Uninjur’d dwells, and free from withering age
For evermore. Perseis, ocean-nymph
Illustrious, to th’ unwearied Sun produced
Circe and king Æetes. By the will
Of Heaven, Æetes, boasting for his sire
The world-enlightning Sun, Idya led

Cheek-blooming, nymph of ocean’s perfect stream:

And she, to love by balmy Venus’ aid
Subdued, [247]Medea beauteous-ankled bare.
And now farewell, ye heavenly habitants!
Ye islands, and ye continents of earth!
And thou, oh main! of briny wave profound!
Oh sweet of speech, Olympian Muses! born
From ægis-wielding Jove! sing now the tribe
Of goddesses; whoe’er, by mortals clasp’d
In love, have borne a race resembling gods.
Ceres, divinest goddess, in soft joy
Blends with Iäsius brave, in the rich tract

Of Crete, whose fallow’d glebe thrice-till’d abounds;

And [248]Plutus bare, all-bountiful, who roams

Earth, and th’ expanded surface of the sea:

And him that meets him on his way, whose hands

He grasps, him gifts he with abundant gold,
And large felicity. Harmonia, born
Of lovely Venus, gave to Cadmus’ love
Ino and Semele: and fair of cheek
Agave, and Autonöe, the bride
Of Aristæus with the clustering locks;
And Polydorus, born in towery Thebes.
Aurora to Tithonus Memnon bare,
The brazen-helm’d, the Æthiopian king,
And king Emathion: and to Cephalus
Bare she a son illustrious, Phäethon,
Gallantly brave, a mortal like to gods:

Whom, while a youth, e’en in the tender flower

Of glorious prime, a boy, and vers’d alone

In what a boy may know, love’s amorous queen

Snatch’d with swift rape away: in her blest fane

Appointing him her nightly-serving priest;
The heavenly dæmon of her sanctuary.
[249]Jason Æsonides, by heaven’s high will,
Bore from Æetes, foster-son of Jove,

His daughter: those afflictive toils achieved,

Which Pelias, mighty monarch, bold in wrong,
Unrighteous, violent of deed, imposed:
And much-enduring reach’d th’ Iolchian coast,
Wafting in winged bark the jet-eyed maid,

His blooming spouse. She yielding thus in love

To Jason, shepherd of his people, bare

Medeus, whom the son of Philyra,

[250]Sage Chiron, midst the mountain-solitudes

Train’d up to man: thus were high Jove’s designs

Fulfill’d. Now Psamathe, the goddess famed,
Who sprang from ancient Nereus of the sea,
Bare Phocus; through the lovely Venus’ aid
By Æacus embraced. To Peleus’ arms
Resign’d, the silver-footed Thetis bare
Achilles lion-hearted: cleaving fierce
The ranks of men. Wreath’d Cytherea bare
Æneas: blending in ecstatic love
With brave Anchises on the verdant top
Of Ida, wood-embosom’d, many-valed.
Now [251]Circe, from the Sun Hyperion-born
Descended, with the much-enduring man
Ulysses blending love, Latinus bare,

And Agrius, brave and blameless: far they left

Their native seats in Circe’s hallow’d isles,

And o’er the wide-famed Tyrrhene tribes held sway.

Calypso, noble midst the goddess race,
Clasp’d wise Ulysses: and from rapturous love
Nausithous and Nausinous gave to day.
Lo! these were they, who yielding to embrace
Of mortal men, themselves immortal, gave
A race resembling gods. Oh now the tribe
Of gentle women sing! Olympian maids!
Ye Muses, born from ægis-bearer Jove!

FOOTNOTES

[142] They lightly leap in dance.] This representation of the Muses is taken from the ancient custom of dancing round the altar during sacrifice.

[143] In springs that gush’d fresh from the courser’s hoof.] Hippos was an Ægyptian title of the sun. This ancient term became obsolete, and was misapplied by the Greeks, who uniformly applied it to horses. Hippocrene was a sacred fountain denominated from the god of light, who was the patron of verse and science. But by the Greeks it was referred to an animal, and supposed to have been produced by the hoof of a horse. Other nations, says Athanasius, reverenced rivers and fountains: but above all people in the world the Ægyptians held them in the highest honour, and esteemed them as divine. From hence the custom passed westward to Greece, Italy, and the extremities of Europe. One reason for holding waters so sacred arose from a notion that they were gifted with supernatural powers. Bryant.

[144] Sire of prophecy.] Phœbus is thought to be derived from Φαος βιου, light of life: but the Greeks always associated with the name the prophetic attribute of Apollo: hence they formed from it the word φοιβαζω, to prophecy: as βακχευν, to celebrate orgies or madden, is formed from βακχος: like the debacchor of the Latins. Lycophron, v. 6:

Δαφιηφαγων φοιβαζεν εκ λαιμων οπα.

From foaming mouth with laurel fed

She pour’d the voice of prophecy.

[145] And Venus twinkling bland her tremulous lids.] Ελικοβλεφαρος is explained by Guietus arcuatis superciliis: so Creech, in his translation of a chapter of Plutarch’s Morals, where the verse is quoted;

And Venus beauteous with her bending brows.

But the Greek for an eyebrow is οφρυς. Robinson more properly interprets it orbiculatis palpebris, with semicircular eye-lids: after the old scholiast; who conceives it a metaphor drawn from ελιξ: the bending tendril of ivy or the vine. Le Clerc explains it volubilibus palpebris: and is supported by Grævius, who quotes Petronius in illustration of the peculiar propriety of the epithet as applied to Venus:

Blandos oculos et inquietos,

Et quadam propriâ notâ loquaces.

Soft and ever restless eyes,

Still talkative, with language all their own.

Ελισσω is circumvolvo, to roll about.

[146] Ye fleshly appetites.] This degrading address seems to betray a modern hand. If the proem be genuine, the shepherd’s occupation must have degenerated in the time of Hesiod from its ancient honourable character. But it is not likely that an agricultural poet should speak of husbandmen in these debasing terms. Le Clerc’s apology, that revilings such as these belong to the manners of primeval simplicity, does not appear very satisfactory. The poet, whoever he was, meant the address, probably, as an exhortation to higher pursuits.

[147] A laurel-bough.] Salmasius observes that they who aspired to skill in divination, chewed the leaf of the laurel. Its poisonous quality produced a preternatural action on the nerves, and a convulsion and frothing at the mouth, favourable to the idea of being possessed or inspired. As poets feigned a kind of divination, and a knowledge of supernatural things, the laurel was equally a symbol of poesy and prophecy: and held sacred to Phœbus, the god of verse and divination. We find from Pausanias that those poets who did not play on the lyre held a laurel-bough in their hand, during their public recitations, as the badge of their profession. Hence probably the term “rhapsodist:” επι ραβδω αδειν, “to sing to the branch.” and a rhapsody seems to have designated such a portion of verses as the bard would recite at one time. Salmasius seems therefore mistaken in deriving the word from ραπτειν τας ωδας, stitching together songs: in allusion to the centos which the Homeric rhapsodists were accustomed to recite from the works of Homer: although the derivation appears countenanced by Pindar’s expression of ραπτων επεων αοιδοι, singers of tissued verses.

[148] This tale of oaks.] This seems to have been a proverbial expression to signify any idle tale or preamble. The Scholiasts illustrate it from Odyssey xvii. 163, where Penelope asks Ulysses, whom she does not yet recognise, “whence he is?” and observes,

Thou comest not from some ancient oak or rock:

in allusion to the fable of men born from trees: originating, possibly, in children being found exposed in hollow trees and cavities of rocks. But there is another passage in Homer more to the purpose, Il. xx. 126:

It is no time from oak or hollow rock
With him to parley, as a nymph and swain,
A nymph and swain soft parley mutual hold.

Cowper.

Mr. Bryant explains this passage in Homer by the traditionary reverence paid to caverns: which in the first ages were deemed oracular temples: whence persons entered into compacts under rocks and oaks as places of security. But surely there is no need to go back to the first ages, or to dive into traditional superstitions for the solution of a circumstance so extremely obvious, as that of two lovers conversing in the shade. Harmer in his “Illustrations of the Classics,” vol. iii. of his “Observations on Scripture,” renders απο δρυος, on account of an oak: instead of from an oak: “when people meet each other on account of some rock or some tree which they happen upon in travelling.” But the alteration is quite unnecessary: the word from perhaps indicates that one is resting under the tree, while the other is passing by. The adage in Hesiod is expressed “around an oak:” which implies a number of persons. The rock associated with the oak marks the peculiar climate of Greece and the East. The shade cast by a rock is described by Eastern travellers as singularly cool.

[149] Pieria’s groves.] The Pierians were celebrated for their skill in music and poetry. Hence Pieria came to be regarded as the birth place of the Muses. Bryant.

[150] Bare the nine maids.] The origin of verse itself, which is to be sought in the necessity of some mechanical help for the memory at an æra when letters were not invented, and every thing depended on oral tradition, obviously accounts for the fiction of memory being the mother of the Muses. But there is a farther reason. The ancient temples were the depositaries of all traditionary knowledge. We are told by Homer that the voice of the Syrens was enchanting, but their knowledge of the past equally so. The Syrens appear to have been merely priestesses of one of this description of temples, which stood in Sicily, and was erected on the sea-shore, answering also the purpose of a lighthouse. The rites of the temple consisted partly of hymns chanted by young and beautiful women to the sound of harps and flutes: and it was their office to entangle by their allurements such strangers as touched upon the coast: who were instantly seized by the priests and sacrificed to the solar god. The Syrens are described as the daughters of Calliope, Melpomene, and Terpsichore; three of the Muses: they were in fact the same with the Muses. These temples were sacred colleges: sciences were taught there: in particular music and astronomy. The transition was easy from the young priestesses of these temples, to blooming goddesses who presided over history, poetry, &c. See the “Analysis of Ancient Mythology.”

[151] Soothing eloquence.] This passage is exactly similar to one in the Odyssey, b. viii.:

Jove

Crowns him with eloquence: his hearers charm’d

Behold him, while with unassuming tone
He bears the prize of fluent speech from all;
And when he walks the city, as they pass,
All turn and gaze, as they had pass’d a god.

Cowper.

[152] The great assembly.] The ancient Grecian princes, as Dionysius of Halicarnassus remarks, were not absolute like the Asiatic monarchs: their power being limited by laws and established customs:” and this is perfectly consonant to the higher authority of Homer. The poet himself appears a warm friend to monarchical rule, and takes every opportunity zealously to inculcate loyalty. “The government of many is bad: let there be one chief, one king.” It is, however, sufficiently evident that the poet means here to speak of executive government only: “Let there be one chief, one king,” he says: but he adds, “to whom Jupiter has intrusted the sceptre and the laws, that by them he may govern.” Accordingly in every Grecian government which he has occasion to enlarge upon, he plainly discovers to us strong principles of republican rule. Not only the council of principal men, but the assembly of the people also is familiar to him. The name agora signifying a place of meeting, and the verb formed from it to express haranguing in assemblies of the people, were already in common use; and to be a good public speaker was esteemed among the highest qualifications a man could possess. In the government of Phæacia, as described in the Odyssey, the mixture of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy is not less clearly marked than in the British constitution. One chief, twelve peers (all honoured, like the chief, with the title which we translate king), and the assembly of the people, shared the supreme authority. The universal and undoubted prerogatives of kings were religious supremacy and military command. They often also exercised judicial power. But in all civil concerns their authority appears very limited. Every thing, indeed, that remains concerning government in the oldest Grecian poets and historians, tends to demonstrate that the general spirit of it among the early Greeks was nearly the same as among our Teutonic ancestors. The ordinary business of the community was directed by the chiefs. Concerning extraordinary matters and more essential interests, the multitude claimed a right to be consulted. Mitford, History of Greece, i. 3.

[153] Harpers and men of song.] Singer was a common name among the Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, and other ancient people, for poet and musician; employments which were then inseparable: as no poetry was written but to be sung; and little or no music composed, but as an accompaniment to poetry. Burney, History of Music, 312.

[154]

Is there one

Who hides some fresh grief.]

This whole passage is found among the fragments attributed to Homer. This sentiment of the power of poesy and the subjects chosen by the bard is entirely in the spirit of antiquity, when mythology and heroism were the favourite themes. Achilles is described by Homer as diverting the uneasiness of his mind by warlike odes which he accompanied on the lyre, Il. ix. 189:

Arriving soon
Among the Myrmidons, their chief they found
Soothing his sorrows with the silver-framed
Harmonious lyre, spoil taken when he took
Æetion’s city: with that lyre his cares

He soothed, and glorious heroes were his theme.

Cowper.

[155] The servant of the Muse.] Laws were always promulgated in verse, and often publicly sung; a practice which remained in many places long after letters were become common: morality was taught: history was delivered in verse. Lawgivers, philosophers, historians, all who would apply their experience or their genius to the instruction and amusement of others, were necessarily poets. The character of poet was therefore a character of dignity: an opinion even of sacredness became attached to it: a poetical genius was esteemed an effect of divine inspiration and a mark of divine favour: and the poet, who moreover carried with him instruction and entertainment, not to be obtained without him, was a privileged person, enjoying by a kind of prescription the rights of universal hospitality. Mitford.

Yet in the vulgar tradition, Homer is represented as a mere ballad-singing mendicant! and whoever attempts to refute, by the light of historic evidence and of reason, this or similar absurdities of modern ignorance, when sanctioned by popular prejudice, must expect to be set down as a dealer in paradoxes.

[156] First of all beings Chaos was.] The ancients were in general materialists, and thought the world eternal. But the mundane system, or at least the history of the world, they supposed to commence from the deluge. The confusion which prevailed at the deluge is often represented as the chaotic state of nature: for the earth was hid, and the heavens obscured, and all the elements in disorder. Bryant.

[157] Or in the dark abysses of the ground.] Tartarus is considered by Brucker in his epitome of the Theogony (Historia Critica Philosophiæ, tom. 1.) as the third birth. Tartarus is, indeed, after introduced as a person, but in the singular number: the word is here used in the plural, and I conceive it to mean simply the cavities of the earth, and to be connected with the preceding sentence.

[158] The Cyclops brethren.] Thucydides acquaints us concerning the Cyclopes, that they were the most ancient inhabitants of Sicily, but that he could not find out their race. Strabo places them near Ætna and Icontina, and supposes that they once ruled over that part of the island; and it is certain that a people called Cyclopians did possess that province. It is generally agreed by writers upon the subject, that they were of a size superior to the common race of mankind. Among the many tribes of the Amonians who went abroad, were to be found people who were styled Anakim; and were descended from the sons of Anak: so that this history, though carried to a great excess, was probably founded in truth. They were particularly famous for architecture; and in all parts whither they came, they erected noble structures, which were remarkable for their height and beauty: and were often dedicated to the chief deity, the sun, under the name of Elorus and P’Elorus. People were so struck with their grandeur, that they called every thing great or stupendous Pelorian (πελωρος, huge): and when they described the Cyclopians as a lofty towering race, they came at last to borrow their ideas of this people from the towers to which they alluded. They supposed them in height to reach the clouds, and in bulk equal to the promontories on which these edifices were founded. As these buildings were often-times light-houses, and had in their upper story one round casement, “like an Argolick buckler or the moon,” by which they afforded light in the night-season, the Greeks made this a characteristic of the people. They supposed this aperture to have been an eye, which was fiery and glaring, and placed in the middle of their foreheads. What confirmed the mistake was the representation of an eye, which was often engraved over the entrance of these temples: the chief deity of Ægypt being elegantly represented by the symbol of an eye, which was intended to signify the superintendency of Providence. The notion of the Cyclopes framing the thunder and lightning for Jupiter, arose chiefly from the Cyclopians engraving hieroglyphics of this sort upon the temples of the deity. The poets considered them merely in the capacity of blacksmiths, and condemned them to the anvil. Bryant.

The proximity of Ætna doubtless had its share in this delusion, Virg. Æn. viii. 417:

Deep below
In hollow caves the fires of Ætna glow.
The Cyclops here their heavy hammers deal:
Loud strokes and hissings of tormented steel
Are heard around: the boiling waters roar,
And smoky flames through fuming tunnels soar.
Hither the father of the fire by night,

Through the brown air precipitates his flight:

On their eternal anvils here he found

The brethren beating, and the blows go round.

Dryden.

[159] He took the sickle.] In a fragment of Sanchoniatho, the Phœnician philosopher, translated by Philo the Jew, is recorded this very history of Uranus and Cronus, or Saturn. De Gebelin, in his “Monde Primitif,” resolves it, according to his system, into the invention of reaping, which he supposes Saturn to personify. But Saturn is often represented with a ship, as well as a sickle; which has no reference to agriculture. The explanation may, however, be correct, if we consider Saturn not as a mere figurative prosopopœia of reaping, but as the real person who restored the labours of harvest; in the same manner as his Greek name Cronus, which some have thought to intimate a personification of Time, points out very significantly the person who began the new æra of time: the great father of the post-diluvian world. The type of the ship on the ancient coins of Saturn is an apposite emblem of the ark: and the concealment of the children of Heaven in a cavern seems an obscure remnant of the same tradition.

[160] The foam-born goddess.] The name of the Dove among the ancient Amonians was Iön and Iönah. This term is often found compounded, and expressed Ad-Iönah, queen dove: from which title another deity, Adiona, was constituted. This mode of idolatry must have been very ancient, as it is mentioned in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, and is one species of false worship, which Moses forbade by name. According to our method of rendering the Hebrew term it is called Idione. This Idione or Adione was the Dione of the Greeks: the deity who was sometimes looked upon as the mother of Venus: at other times as Venus herself: and styled Venus Dionæa. Venus was no other than the ancient Iönah: and we shall find in her history numberless circumstances relating to the Noachic dove, and to the deluge. We are told, when the waters covered the earth, that the dove came back to Noah, having roamed over a vast uninterrupted ocean, and found no rest for the sole of her foot. But upon being sent forth a second time by the patriarch, in order to form a judgment of the state of the earth, she returned to the ark in the evening, and “Lo! in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off.” From hence Noah conceived his first hopes of the waters being assuaged, and the elements reduced to order. He likewise began to foresee the change that was to happen in the earth: that seed-time and harvest would be renewed, and the ground restored to its pristine fecundity. In the hieroglyphical sculptures and paintings where this history was represented, the dove was depicted hovering over the face of the deep. Hence it is that Dione, or Venus, is said to have risen from the sea. Hence it is, also, that she is said to preside over waters, to appease the troubled ocean, and to cause by her presence a universal calm: that to her were owing the fruits of the earth, and the flowers of the field were renewed by her influence. The address of Lucretius to this goddess is founded on traditions, which manifestly allude to the history above mentioned. Bryant.

[161] Love track’d her steps.] What the Greeks called Iris, was expressed Eiras by the Ægyptians. The Greeks out of Eiras formed Eros, a god of love, whom they annexed to Venus, and made her son: and finding that the bow was his symbol, instead of the iris they gave him a material bow, with the addition of a quiver and arrows. The bows of Apollo and Diana were formed from the same original. After the descent from the ark the first wonderful occurrence was the bow in the clouds, and the covenant of which it was made an emblem. At this season another æra began. The earth was supposed to be renewed, and Time to return to a second infancy. They therefore formed an emblem of a child with the rainbow, to denote this renovation in the world, and called him Eros, or Divine Love. But however like a child he might be expressed, the more early mythologists esteemed him the most ancient of the gods; and Lucian, with great humour, makes Jupiter very much puzzled to account for the appearance of this infant deity. “Why thou urchin,” says the father of the gods, “how came you with that little childish face, when I know you to be as old as Iapetus?” The Greek and Roman poets reduced the character of this deity to that of a wanton, mischievous pigmy: but he was otherwise esteemed of old. He is styled by Plato a mighty god; and it is said that Eros was the cause of the greatest blessings to mankind. Bryant.

[162] Virgin whisperings.] These attributes of Venus suggest a comparison with the properties of her cestus as described by Homer:

It was an ambush of sweet snares: replete

With love, desire, soft intercourse of hearts,

And music of resistless whisper’d sounds,

Which from the wisest steal their best resolves.

Cowper.

[163] Then bare she Momus.] Hesiod has truly painted the nature of detraction (Momus) in describing it as born from Night. The same origin is given to Care: because all anxieties are increased in the night-season: whence Night is styled by Ovid, “the mighty nurse of Cares.” Le Clerc.

[164] Th’ Hesperian maids.] The ancient temples in which the sun was adored often stood within enclosures of large extent. Some of them were beautifully planted, and ornamented with pavilions and fountains. Places of this nature are alluded to under the description of the gardens of the Hesperides and Alcinous. They were also regal edifices: and termed Tor-chom and Tar-chon; which signified a regal tower, and was of old a high place or temple of Cham. By a corruption it was in later times rendered Trachon. The term was still further sophisticated by the Greeks, and expressed Drachon. The situation of these buildings on a high eminence, and the reverence in which they were held, made them be looked upon as places of great security. On these accounts they were the repositories of much treasure. When the Greeks understood that in these temples the people worshipped a serpent-deity, they concluded that Trachon was a serpent: hence the name Draco came to be appropriated to that imaginary animal. Hence also arose the notion of treasures being guarded by dragons, and of the gardens of the Hesperides being under the protection of a serpent. Bryant.

Perhaps also in these gardens was kept up the ancient Paradisiacal tradition: as the golden apples and the dragon present an analogy with the hieroglyphic account given by Moses of the forbidden fruit and the serpent. This is the more probable, as it is evident this tradition had mixed itself in the dispersed legends of pagan mythology from the remarkable coincidence of the “serpent-woman,” considered by the Mexicans as the mother of the human race, and ranked next to “the god of the celestial paradise.” The Mexican temples, also, where “the great spirit,” or sun personified, was worshipped, are described by Humboldt in his “American Researches,” as raised in the midst of a square and walled enclosure, which contained gardens and fountains. This mixed worship of the Paradisiacal serpent may account for a serpent, twisted into the form of a fillet, being made an emblem of the sun’s disk: and for snaky hair being typical of divine wisdom: while the tresses were, at the same time, so disposed as to figure the sun’s rays, and the human visage represented his orb.

The Hesperian virgins seem the same with the Muses and Syrens, the priestesses of the temple: and their singing sweetly on their watch, as described afterwards by Hesiod, alludes to the hymns which they chanted at the altar. They are made the daughters of Night, because the gardens were in Afric: which, equally with Italy and Spain, was denominated Hesperia by the Greeks: and the region of the west was considered as synonymous with Night.

[165] Eldest of all his race.] The history of the patriarch was recorded by the ancients through their whole theology. All the principal deities of the sea, however diversified, have a manifest relation to him. Noah was figured under the history of Nereus: and his character of an unerring prophet, as well as of a just, righteous, and benevolent man, is plainly described by Hesiod. Bryant.

[166] Then rose Thaumas vast.] That beautiful phenomenon in the heavens, which we call the rainbow, was by the Ægyptians styled Thamuz, and signified “the wonder.” The Greeks expressed it Thaumas: and hence was derived θαυμαζω, to wonder. This Thaumas they did not immediately appropriate to the bow: but supposed them to be two personages, and Thaumas the parent. Bryant.

[167] Phorcys the mighty.] Homer calls him “the old man of the sea:” and gives precisely the same appellation to Proteus. The character of the latter varies only from that of Nereus in the quality of transforming himself into sundry shapes. This may have a reference to the great diluvian changes, varying the face of nature. The connexion of Phorcys and Ceto favours the supposition that these three deities are one and the same personage.

“The ark in which mankind were preserved was figured under the semblance of a large fish. It was called Cetos.” Bryant.

Cetos is the Greek term for a whale.

[168] Rose-arm’d Eunice.] ροδοπῃχυς, rosy-elbow’d: this epithet, together with that of ροδοδακτυλος, rosy-fingered, was derived from the artificial custom of staining the elbow and tops of the fingers with rose-colour. In Dallaway’s Constantinople it is remarked of the modern Greek girls “that the nails both of the fingers and the feet are always stained of a rose-colour:” a curious vestige of Grecian antiquity.

[169] Nereid nymphs.] Spenser, in his “Spousals of the Thames and Medway,” b. 4. cant. ii. of the “Faery Queen,” has imposed on himself a task, from which a translator would fain escape: and has transposed into his stanzas the whole fifty Nereids of Hesiod, together with his catalogue of Rivers.

[170] The sister-harpies.] The harpies were priests of the sun: they were denominated from their seat of residence, which was an oracular temple called Harpi. The representation of them as winged animals was only the insigne of the people, as the eagle and vulture were of the Ægyptians. They seem to have been a set of rapacious persons, who for their repeated acts of violence and cruelty were driven out of Bithynia, their country. Bryant.

[171] The Graiæ; from their birth-hour gray.] The circumstance of their being gray seems to be explained by a passage of Æschylus, who describes them as half-women, half-swans:

The Gorgonian plains

Of Cisthine, where dwell the Phorcydes

Swan-form’d, three ancient nymphs, one common eye

Their portion.

Prometheus Chained.

“This history relates to an Amonian temple founded in the extreme parts of Africa, in which there were three priestesses of Canaänitish race, who on that account are said to be in the shape of swans: the swan being the insigne under which their country was denoted. The notion of their having but one eye among them took its rise from a hieroglyphic very common in Ægypt and Canaän: this was the representation of an eye, which was engraved on the pediment of their temples.” Bryant.

The Gorgons were probably similar personages: they are described by Æschylus with wings and serpentine locks: attributes apparently borrowed from the emblematical devices in the temples of Ægypt. Gorgon was a title of Minerva at Cyrene in Lybia.

[172]

When Perseus smote

Her neck.]

The island of Seriphus is represented as having once abounded with serpents; and it is styled by Virgil in his Ciris serpentifera: it had this epithet, not on account of any real serpents, but according to the Greeks, from Medusa’s head, which was brought thither by Perseus. By this is meant the serpent-deity, whose worship was here introduced by a people called Peresians. It was usual with the Ægyptians to describe upon the architrave of their temples some emblem of the deity who there presided: among others the serpent was esteemed a most salutary emblem, and they made use of it to signify superior skill and knowledge. A beautiful female countenance surrounded with an assemblage of serpents was made to denote divine wisdom. Many ancient temples were ornamented with this curious hieroglyphic. These devices upon temples were often esteemed as talismans, and supposed to have a hidden influence by which the building was preserved. In the temple of Minerva, at Tigea, was some sculpture of Medusa, which the goddess was said to have given to preserve the city from ever being taken in war. It was probably from this opinion that the Athenians had the head of Medusa represented on the walls of their Acropolis; and it was the insigne of many cities, as we find from ancient coins. Perseus was one of the most ancient heroes in the mythology of Greece: the merit of whose supposed achievements the Helladians took to themselves, and gave out that he was a native of Argos. Herodotus more truly represents him as an Assyrian; by which is meant a Babylonian. Yet he resided in Ægypt, and is said to have reigned at Memphis. To say the truth, he was worshipped at that place: for Perseus was a title of the deity, and was no other than the Sun, the chief god of the gentile world. His true name was Perez; rendered Peresis, Perses, and Perseus: and in the account given of this personage we have the history of the Peresians in their several peregrinations; who were no other than the Heliadæ and Osirians. It is a mixed history in which their forefathers are alluded to: particularly their great progenitor, the father of mankind. He was supposed to have had a renewal of life: they therefore described Perseus as enclosed in an ark and exposed in a state of childhood on the waters, after having been conceived in a shower of gold. Bryant.

[173] The great Chrysaor.] Chus by the Ægyptians and Canaanites was styled Or-chus, and Chus-or: the latter of which was expressed by the Greeks by a word more familiar to their ear Chrusor; as if it had a reference to gold. This name was sometimes changed into Chrusaor: and occurs in many places where the Cuthites were known to have settled. They were a long time in Ægypt: and we read of a Chrusaor in those parts, who is said to have sprung from the blood of Medusa. We meet with the same Chrusaor in the regions of Asia Minor, especially among the Carians: in those parts he was particularly worshipped, and said to have been the first deified mortal. The Grecians borrowed this term, and applied it to Apollo: and from this epithet, Chrusaor, he was denominated the god of the golden sword. This weapon was at no time ascribed to him, nor is he ever represented with one either on a gem or marble. He is described by Homer in the hymn to Apollo, as wishing for a harp and a bow. There is never any mention made of a sword, nor was the term Chrusaor of Grecian etymology. Since, then, we may be assured that Chus was the person alluded to, we need not wonder that so many cities, where Apollo was particularly worshipped, should be called Chruse, and Chrusopolis. Nor is this observable in cities only, but in rivers. It was usual in the first ages to consecrate rivers to deities, and to call them after their names. Hence many were denominated from Chrusorus: which by the Greeks was changed to χρυσορροας, flowing with gold: and from this mistake, the Nile was called Chrusorrhoas, which had no pretensions to gold. In all the places where the sons of Chus spread themselves, the Greeks introduced some legend about gold. Hence we read of a golden fleece at Colchis: golden apples at the Hesperides: at Tartessus a golden cup: and at Cuma in Campania a golden branch. But although this repeated mistake arose in great measure from the term Chusus being easily convertible into Chrusus, there was another obvious reason for the change. Chus was by many of the Eastern nations expressed Cuth; and his posterity, the Cuthim. This term, in the ancient Chaldaic and other Amonian languages, signified gold: and hence many cities and countries where the Cuthites settled were described as golden. Bryant.

[174] And Pegasus the steed.] Pegasus received its name from a well-known emblem, the horse of Poseidon: by which we are to understand an ark or ship. “By horses,” says Artemidorus, “the poets mean ships:” and hence it is that Poseidon is called Hippius; for there is a strict analogy between the poetical or winged horse on land, and a real ship in the sea. Hence it came that Pegasus was esteemed the horse of Poseidon (Neptune), and often named scuphius; a name which relates to a ship, and shows the purport of the emblem. The ark, we know, was preserved by divine providence from the sea, which would have overwhelmed it: and as it was often represented under this symbol of a horse, it gave rise to the fable of the two chief deities, Jupiter and Neptune, disputing about horses. Bryant.

To this we may add the still more remarkable fable of the dispute between Neptune and Pallas: when the former produces a horse, and the latter an olive-tree. “These notions,” observes the author of the Analysis, “arose from emblematical descriptions of the deluge, which the Grecians had received by tradition: but what was general they limited, and appropriated to particular places.”

[175] Old Nilus’ fountains.] Ωκεανου περι πηγας. Le Clerc remarks that “this derivation is absurd: as we do not talk of the fountains of the sea, but of rivers.” He adds, however, that “Hesiod more than once calls the ocean the river:” and this should have led him to perceive that it is in fact a river of which Hesiod speaks. The oceanic river was the Nile, which in very ancient times was called the Oceanus.

[176] Geryon rose.] One of the principal and most ancient settlements of the Amonians upon the ocean was at Gades; where a prince was supposed to have reigned, named Geryon. The harbour at Gades was a very fine one, and had several tor, or towers, to direct shipping: and as it was usual to imagine the deity to whom the temple was erected to have been the builder, this temple was said to have been built by Hercules. All this the Grecians took to themselves. They attributed the whole to Hercules of Thebes: and as he was supposed to conquer wherever he came, they made him subdue Geryon: and changing the tor or towers into so many head of cattle, they describe him as leading them off in triumph. Tor-keren signified a regal tower; and this being interpreted τρικαρηνος, this personage was in consequence described with three heads. Bryant.

Erythia, according to Pliny, is another name for Gades.

[177] In the deep-hollow’d cavern of a rock.] It is probable that at Arima in Cilicia there was an Ophite temple; which, like all the most ancient temples, was a vast cavern. Some emblematical sculpture of the serpent-deity may have given rise to the creation of this mythological prodigy. The Hydra had, probably, a similar origin.

[178] A whirlwind, rude and wild.] There were two distinct Typhons or Typhaons, although they are sometimes confounded together. The one is the same as the gigantic Typhæus, subsequently described by Hesiod: the other the whirlwind here mentioned.

“By this Typhon was signified a mighty whirlwind, or inundation. It had a relation to the deluge. In hieroglyphical descriptions, the dove was represented as hovering over the mundane egg which was exposed to the fury of Typhon: for an egg, containing in it the proper elements of life, was thought no improper emblem of the ark, in which were preserved the rudiments of the future world.” Bryant.

Robinson is therefore manifestly wrong in proposing to substitute ανομον, lawless, for ανεμον, a wind: though the reading be countenanced by the Bodleian copy and the Florentine edition of Junta.

[179] The fifty-headed Cerberus.] Cerberus was the name of a place, though esteemed the dog of hell. We are told by Eusebius from Plutarch, that Cerberus was the Sun: but the term properly signified the temple, or place, of the Sun. The great luminary was styled by the Amonians both Or and Abor; that is, light, and the parent of light: and Cerberus is properly Kir-abor, the place of that deity. The same temple had different names from the diversity of the god’s titles, who was there worshipped. It was called Tor-caph-el; which was changed to τρικεφαλος: and Cerberus was from hence supposed to have had three heads. Bryant.

The poets increased the number of heads, as they seem to have thought a multitude of heads or arras sublimely terrific. Pindar out-does Hesiod by a whole fifty, and speaks of the hundred-headed Cerberus. Εκατον τα κεφαλον.

[180] Chimæra, breathing fire unquenchable.] The same passage occurs in the 6th book of the Iliad. “In Lycia was the city Phaselis, situated upon the mountain Chimæra; which mountain was sacred to the god of fire. Phaselis is a compound of Phi, which in the Amonian language is a mouth or opening, and of Az-el: another name for Orus, the god of light. Phaselis signifies a chasm of fire. The reason why this name was imposed may be seen in the history of the place. All the country around abounded in fiery eruptions. Chimæra is a compound of Chamur, the name of the deity, whose altar stood towards the top of the mountain. But the most satisfactory idea of it may be obtained from coins which were struck in its vicinity, and particularly describe it as a hollow and inflamed mountain.” Bryant.

[181] Depopulating Sphinx.] The Nile begins to rise during the fall of the Abyssinian rains; when the sun is vertical over Æthiopia: and its waters are at their height of inundation when the sun is in the signs Leo and Virgo. The Ægyptians seem to have invented a colossal representation of the two zodiacal signs, which served as a water-mark to point out the risings of the Nile: and this biform emblem of a virgin and lion constituted the famous ænigma.

[182] Tethys to Ocean brought the rivers forth.] When towers were situated upon eminences fashioned very round, they were by the Amonians called Tith, answering to Titthos in Greek. They were so denominated from their resemblance to a woman’s breast, and were particularly sacred to Orus and Osiris, the deities of light, who by the Grecians were represented under the title of Apollo. Tethys, the ancient goddess of the sea, was nothing else but an old tower upon a mount. On this account it was called Tith-is, the mount of fire. Thetis seems to have been a transposition of the same name, and was probably a Pharos, or fire-tower, near the sea. Bryant.

[183] Claim the shorn locks.] It was the custom of the Greeks for adult youths to poll their hair as an offering to Apollo and the Rivers.

[184] And Ploto, with the bright dilated eyes.] Βοωπις, ox-eyed: that is, with eyes artificially enlarged. Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxiii. 6, speaks of the stibium or antimony as an astringent, especially as to the eye-lid: and mentions that it was called platyophthalmum, eye-opener: from its forming an ingredient in the washes of women, as it had the effect of opening or dilating the eye by contracting the lid. The modern Greek women retain the custom. “Of the few that I have seen with an open veil or without one, the faces were remarkable for symmetry and brilliant complexion: with the nose straight and small: the eyes vivacious: either black or dark-blue: having the eyebrows, partly from nature, and as much from art, very full, and joining over the nose. They have a custom, too, of drawing a black line with a mixture of powder of antimony and oil above and under the eye-lashes in order to give the eye more fire.” Dallaway, Constantinople Ancient and Modern.

Strutt, in the general introduction to his “View of the Dress and Habits of the People of England,” observes that the Moorish ladies in Barbary, the women in Arabia Felix, and those about Aleppo continue the same traditional custom of tinging the inside of the eye-lid. Dr. Russel describes the operation as effected “by means of a short smooth probe of ivory, wood, or silver; charged with a powder named the black Kohol. This substance is a kind of lead-ore brought from Persia: and is prepared by roasting it in a quince, an apple, or a truffle; then, adding a few drops of oil of almonds, it is ground to a subtile powder on a marble. The probe being first dipped in water, a little of the powder is sprinkled on it. The middle part is then applied horizontally to the eye, and the eye-lids being shut upon it, the probe is drawn through between them, leaving the inside tinged, and a black rim all round the edge. The Kohol is used likewise by the men: but not so generally by way of ornament merely: the practice being deemed rather effeminate. It is supposed to strengthen the sight and prevent various disorders of the eye.” Natural History of Aleppo, vol. i. iii. 22.

Mr. Gifford, in the notes to his admirable version of Juvenal, supposes the effeminate practice of the Roman fops to assimilate with this: in the passage which he translates,

Some with a tiring-pin their eye-brows dye,

Till the full arch gives lustre to the eye.

Sat. ii. 67.

Juvenal, however, mentions only the painting of the eye-brows: unless by the epithet tremulous, trementes, which he applies to the eyes, he means to intimate the whole operation, and the eye-ball quivering under the application of the needle.

In the second book of Kings, ix. 30, when it is said “Jezebel painted her face,” the Septuagint has it, “she antimonized her eyes:” Εστιμμιζατο τους οφθαλμους αυτης.

[185] Long-stepping tread the earth.] The Greeks, as appears from their female epithets, were very attentive to the form of the ankle, and the manner of walking: and a long step, no less than a well-turned ankle, as implying a tallness of figure, was thought characteristic of graceful beauty.

[186] The glassy depth of lakes.] All fountains were esteemed sacred: but especially those which had any preternatural quality and abounded with exhalations. It was an universal notion that a divine energy proceeded from the effluvia; and that the persons who resided in their vicinity were gifted with a prophetic quality. Fountains of this nature, from the divine influence with which they were supposed to abound, the Amonians styled Ain-omphe, or oracular fountain. These terms the Greeks contracted to numphe, a nymph: and supposed such a person to be an inferior goddess who presided over waters. Hot springs were imagined to be more immediately under the inspection of the nymphs. Another name for these places was Ain-Ades, the fountain of Ades or the Sun; which in like manner was changed to Naïades, a species of deities of the same class. Bryant.

[187] East, West, and South, and North.] Le Clerc and the generality of editors suppose Hesiod to omit the east-wind entirely: and consider αργεστεω as an epithet, signifying swift or serene: as the term is so used by Homer. Grævius quotes a subsequent line of the Theogony as authority for αργεστης being so used by Hesiod also: but there is evidence for αργεστης being the name of a wind; though Aulus Gellius and Pliny suppose it to be a west-wind, called by the Latins Caurus. Aristotle also, as is observed by the Monthly Reviewer, describes the αργεστης as a westerly wind, which blows from that part of the heaven in which the sun sets at the summer solstice: and adds that by some it is called Olympias, by others Iapyx. We see however from this very passage of Aristotle, that the names of winds were capricious and arbitrary: and in fact almost every district in Greece called the winds by names different from those which the neighbouring district used. The same critic observes that in a note to the word σκειροιν (Caurus), in Alberti’s edition of Hesychius, an opinion is intimated that αργεστης is properly an easterly wind, απηλιωτης ανεμος: nor can there be the least doubt of the matter, in so far as regards Hesiod. The London Reviewer, indeed, remarks that “the omission of the wind would be no proof of Hesiod’s ignorance of its existence”: a similar omission occurs in the Psalms. “Promotion cometh neither from the east, nor the west, nor yet from the south.” But it is forgotten that Hesiod is describing the genealogy of the winds: and it is very inconceivable that one of the four cardinal winds should have escaped his notice. The editions of Stephens and Trincavellus read

Νοσφι Νοτου, Βορεω τε, και Αργεστου, Ζεφυρου τε:

instead of αργεστεω Ζεφιροιο: and I have no doubt that this is the true reading.

[188]

Not apart from Jove

Their mansion is.]

So Callimachus, Hymn to Jupiter:

No lots have made thee king above all gods:

But works of thy own hands: thy Strength and Force,

Whom thou hast, therefore, station’d next thy throne.

Strength and Force are introduced by Æschylus as characters, in the first scene of his “Prometheus Chained.”

[189] Asteria, blest in fame.] According to Callimachus Asteria was metamorphosed into the Isle of Delos: a term which alludes to its appearing after having been submerged in the sea: δηλος, visible. Asteria is from αστηρ a star.

Asteria was thy name
Of old: since like a star from heaven on high
Thou didst leap down precipitate within
A fathomless abyss of waters, flying
From nuptial violence of Jove.

Hymn to Delos.

[190]

She conceived

With Hecaté.]

Εκατη was a title of Diana, as εκατος of Apollo: from εκας far off: alluding to the distance to which the sun and moon dart their rays. This goddess is represented in ancient sculptures as three females joined in one, with various attributes in their hands: this triple figure was combined of the three characters sustained by the moon: who was Selene or Luna in heaven, Diana on earth, and Proserpine in the subterranean regions. Luna is said by Cicero to be the same as Lucina, the goddess of child-bearing: a title given also to Diana and Juno. Hecate has also assigned to her by Hesiod the office of foster-mother of children. This may be explained partly by the reckoning of pregnant women being guided by the number of lunar periods; and partly by the emblematic character of the moon, as an object of worship.

“The moon was a type of the ark: the sacred ship of Osiris being represented in the form of a crescent, of which the moon was made an emblem. Selene was the reputed mother of the world, as Plutarch confesses: which character cannot be made in any degree to correspond with the planet. Selene was the same as Isis: the same also as Rhea, Vesta, Cubele, and Damater, or Ceres.” Bryant.

These female deities not only melt into each other, but at last resolve themselves into the one Zeus: so that the lunar idolatry is absorbed ultimately in the solar. “The patriarch had the names of Meen or Menes; which signify a moon, and was worshipped all over the east as Deus Lunus. Strabo mentions several temples of this lunar god in different places: all these were dedicated to the same Arkite deity, called Lunus, Luna, and Selene. The same deity was both masculine and feminine: what was Deus Lunus in one country was Dea Luna in another. Meen was also one of the most ancient titles of the Ægyptian Osiris; the same as Apollo.” Bryant.

The sacred bull Apis is figured in the ancient coins and sculptures, with a crescent moon upon his head instead of horns: by which the great restorer of husbandry, Noah, was connected with the ark in which he had been miraculously preserved; and of which the lunar crescent was an emblem.

[191] Her wide allotment stands.] The other gods were either celestial, terrestrial, marine, or subterranean: but the divinity of Hecate pervaded heaven, earth, and the abyss, from her being intermixed with Luna, Dian, and Proserpine: and the sea, from the moon influencing the tides. She was invoked at sacrifices, probably, as presiding over divination from the entrails of beasts: because she was the patroness of magical rites and incantations: from such ceremonies being performed in the secrecy of night by the light of the moon. The Greeks, on every new moon, were accustomed to spread a feast in the cross-ways, which was carried away by the poor: this was called “Hecate’s supper;” and was said to have been eaten by Hecaté. See Aristophanes, Plutus.

[192] Her solitary birth.] This alludes to the honour and the privileges attached by the ancients to numerous children. The moon is said to be single in birth, as the only planet of the same apparent size and lustre.

[193] A gleam of glory o’er his parents’ days.] The odes of Pindar are traditional records of the glory attached by the Greeks to the conquerors in their games: a glory which extended to their parents and connexions, and even to the city in which they were born. Cicero describes the return from an Olympic victory as equivalent to a Roman triumph. The victor in fact rode in a triumphal chariot, and entered through a breach in the walls into the city: which Plutarch explains to signify that walls are useless with such defenders. The same writer relates, that a Spartan meeting Diagoras, who had been crowned in the Olympic games, and had seen his sons and grand-children crowned after him, exclaimed, “Die Diagoras! for thou canst not be a god.” A memorial on the gymnastic exercises of the Greeks will be found in the “Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres,” tom. i. 286.

[194] Golden-sandal’d Juno.] Juno was the same as Iöna: and she was particularly styled Juno of Argus. Argus was one of the terms by which the ark was distinguished. The Grecians called her Hera; which was not originally a proper name, but a title: the same as Ada of the Babylonians; and expressed “the Lady” or “Queen.” She was the same as Luna or Selene, from her connexion with the ark; and at Samos she was described as standing in a lunette, with the lunar emblem on her head. She was sometimes worshipped under the symbol of an egg: so that her history had the same reference as that of Venus. She presided equally over the seas, which she was supposed to calm or trouble. Isis, Io, and Ino were the same as Juno, and Venus also was the same deity under a different title. Hence in Laconia there was an ancient statue of the goddess styled Venus Junonia. Juno was also called Cupris, and under that title was worshipped by the Hetrurians. As Juno was the same with Iöna we need not wonder at the Iris being her concomitant. Bryant.

[195] Ceres, and Vesta.] Ceres was the deity of fire; hence at Cnidus she was called Cura: a title of the Sun. The Roman name Ceres, expressed by Hesychius Gerys, was by the Dorians more properly rendered Garis. It was originally the name of a city called Charis: for many of the deities were erroneously called by the names of the places where they were worshipped. Charis is Char-is, the city of fire: the place where Orus and Hephaistus were worshipped. It may after this seem extraordinary that she should ever be esteemed the goddess of corn. This notion arose from the Greeks not understanding their own theology. The towers of Ceres were P’urtain or Prutaneia: so called from the fires which were perpetually there preserved. The Grecians interpreted this purou tameion: and rendered what was a temple, a granary of corn. In consequence of this, though they did not abolish the ancient usage of the place, they made it a repository of grain; from whence they gave largesses to the people. In early times the corn there deposited seems to have been for the priests or divines: but this was only a secondary use to which these places were adapted. They were properly sacred towers, where a perpetual fire was preserved. It was sacred to Hestia, the Vesta of the Romans, which was only another title for Damater or Ceres: and the sacred hearth had the same name. Bryant.

[196] Pluto strong.] “Some,” says Diodorus, “think that Osiris is Serapis: others that he is Dionusus: others still that he is Pluto: many take him for Zeus or Jupiter, and not a few for Pan.” This was an unnecessary embarrassment, for they were all titles of the same god. Pluto, among the best mythologists, was esteemed the same as Jupiter; and indeed the same as Proserpine, Ceres, Hermes, Apollo, and every other deity. Bryant.

[197] Earth-shaker Neptune.] The patriarch was commemorated by the name of Poseidon. Under the character of Neptune Genesius he had a temple in Argolis: hard by was a spot of ground called the place of descent; similar to the place on mount Ararat, mentioned by Josephus; and undoubtedly named from the same ancient history. The tradition of the people of Argolis was, that it was so called because in this spot Danaus made his first descent from the ship in which he came over. In Arcadia was a temple of “Neptune looking-out.” Poseidon god of the sea was also reputed the chief god, the deity of fire. This we may infer from his priest; who was styled P’urcon. P’urcon is the lord of fire or light; and from the name of the priest we may know the department of the god. He was no other than the supreme deity, the Sun: from whom all may be supposed to descend. Hence Neptune in the Orphic verses is, like Zeus or Jupiter, styled the father of gods and men. Bryant.

[198] Jupiter th’ all-wise.] In the Orphic fragments both Jove and Bacchus are identified with the Sun: which is described as the source of all things. Hammon, the African Jupiter, is mentioned by Lucan; who specifies his having horns. These were the lunar crescent of Apis or Osiris, the Arkite god. The patriarch, his son Ham, and his grandson Chus, are reciprocally mixed with each other; in the same manner as the ark and the dove: the moon, the sun, and the typical serpent, are often mixed and confounded in this hieroglyphical mythology.

[199] To his own son he should bow down his strength.] Although the Romans made a distinction between Janus and Saturn they were two titles of one and the same person. The former had the remarkable characteristic of being the author of time, and the god of the new year: the latter also was looked upon as the author of time, and held in his hand a serpent, whose tail was in his mouth and formed a circle: by which emblem was denoted the renovation of the year. On their coins they were equally represented with keys in their hand and a ship near them. Janus was described with two faces: the one that of an aged man; the other that of a youthful personage. Saturn as of an uncommon age with hair white like snow: but they had a notion that he would return to infancy. He is also said to have destroyed all things: which however were restored with vast increase. Bryant.

The faces of Janus, supposed to look to the time past and that which is to come, evidently regard the æra before the flood and that after it: and the aged and youthful visage represent the old world and the new. The keys may allude to the shutting up the productions of the earth, and again opening them. The ship is the ark. The story of Saturn and the infant Jupiter involves similar allusions. The old god devouring his children significantly points to the destruction of the human race. Saturn and Jupiter seem only separate personifications of the double visage of Janus: and the infant Jupiter personifies the second infancy of Saturn. The new order of things which took place on the renovation of nature is typified in the dethronement of the aged monarch by his youthful son.

[200]

To succeeding times

A monument.]

The stone, which Saturn was supposed to have swallowed instead of a child, stood according to Pausanias at Delphi: it was esteemed very sacred, and used to have libations of wine poured upon it daily: and upon festivals was otherwise honoured. The purport of the above history I take to have been this. It was for a long time the custom to offer children at the altar of Saturn: but in process of time they removed it, and in its form erected a stone pillar, before which they made their vows, and offered sacrifices of another nature. Bryant.

[201] Props the broad heaven.] “This Atlas,” says Maximus Tyrius, “is a mountain, with a cavity of a tolerable height, which the natives esteem both as a temple and a deity: and it is the great object by which they swear, and to which they pay their devotions.” The cave in the mountain was certainly named Cöel, the house of god: equivalent to Cœlus of the Romans: and this was the heaven which Atlas was supposed to support. Bryant.

[202] He bound Prometheus.] Prometheus, who renewed the race of men, was Noos, or Noah. Prometheus raised the first altar to the gods, constructed the first ship, and transmitted to posterity many useful inventions. He was supposed to have lived at the time of the deluge, and to have been guardian of Ægypt at that season. He was the same as Osiris, the great husbandman, the planter of the vine, and inventor of the plough. Prometheus is said to have been exposed on mount Caucasus, near Colchis, with an eagle placed over him, preying on his heart. These strange histories are undoubtedly taken from the symbols and devices which were carved upon the front of the ancient Amonian temples, and especially those of Ægypt. The eagle and vulture were the insignia of that country. We are told by Orus Apollo that a heart over burning coals was an emblem of Ægypt. The history of Tityus, Prometheus, and many other poetical personages was certainly taken from hieroglyphics misunderstood and badly explained. Prometheus was worshipped by the Colchians as a deity, and had a temple and high place upon mount Caucasus: and the device upon the portal was Ægyptian, an eagle over a heart. Bryant.

[203] Parted a huge ox.] Pliny, book vii. ch. 56, speaks of Prometheus as the first who slaughtered an ox. This traditionary circumstance is agreeable to that passage in scriptural history, where Noah receives the divine permission to kill animals for food: and Hesiod’s tale of the division of the ox may be only a disfigured representation of the first sacrifice after the flood. The affinity of Iäpetus, the father of Prometheus, with Japhet, is very remarkable. This confusion of personages has been already noticed as common in the ancient mythology.

[204] Pernicious is the race.] Lord Kaimes, in his sketches of the History of Man, i. 6. observes that in the more polished age of Greece women were treated with but little consideration by their husbands: and female influence was confined to the artful accomplishments of courtezans. But it was very different at an earlier æra of society. “Women in the Homeric age,” remarks Mr. Mitford, “enjoyed more freedom, and communicated more in business and amusement among men, than in after-ages has been usual in those eastern countries; far more than at Athens, in the flourishing times of the commonwealth. Equally, indeed, Homer’s elegant eulogies and Hesiod’s severe sarcasm prove women to have been in their days important members of society.”

Milton has imitated this description of the infelicities supposed to be produced by woman-kind, in a prophetic complaint, which comes with beautiful propriety from the lips of Adam: and which his own domestic unhappiness enabled him to express with feeling.

[205]

The host

Of glorious Titans.]

The giants, whom Abydenus makes the builders of Babel, are by other writers represented as the Titans. They are said to have received their name from their mother Titæa: by which we are to understand that they were denominated from their religion and place of worship. The ancient altars consisted of a conical hill of earth, in the shape of a woman’s breast. Titæa was one of these. It is a term compounded of Tit-aia, and signifies literally a breast of earth. These altars were also called Tit-an, and Tit-anis, from the great fountain of night, styled An and Anis: hence many places were called Titanis and Titana where the worship of the sun prevailed. By these giants and Titans are always meant the sons of Ham and Chus. That the sons of Chus were the chief agents both in erecting the tower of Babel, and in maintaining principles of rebellion, is plain: for it is said of Nimrod, the son of Chus, that “the beginning of his kingdom was Babel.” The sons of Chus would not submit to the divine dispensation in the original disposition of the several families: and Nimrod, who first took upon him regal state, drove Ashur from his demesnes, and forced him to take shelter in the higher parts of Mesopotamia. This was their first act of rebellion and apostacy. Their second was to erect a lofty tower, as a landmark to repair to, as a token to direct them, and prevent their being scattered abroad. It was an idolatrous temple, erected in honour of the sun, and called the tower of Bel: as the city, from its consecration to the sun, was named Bel-on: the city of the solar god. Their intention was to have founded a great, if not an universal, empire: but their purpose was defeated by the confounding of their labial utterance. By this judgment they were dispersed; the tower was deserted; and the city left unfinished. These circumstances seem, in great measure, to be recorded by the gentile writers. They add, that a war soon after commenced between the Titans and the family of Zeuth. This was no other than the war mentioned by Moses; which was carried on by four kings of the family of Shem against the sons of Ham and Chus. The dispersion from Babylonia had weakened the Cuthites. The house of Shem took advantage of their dissipation, and recovered the land of Shinar, which had been unduly usurped by their enemies. After this success they proceeded farther: and attacked the Titans in all their quarters. After a contest of some time they made them tributaries: but upon their rising in rebellion, after a space of thirteen years, the confederates made a fresh inroad into their countries. “Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer: and in the thirteenth they rebelled: and in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer, and the kings that were with him, and smote the Rephaims in Ashtaroth Karnaim;” who were no other than the Titans. They were accordingly rendered by the Seventy, “the giant brood of Ashtaroth:” and the valley of the Rephaim, in Samuel, is translated “the valley of the Titans.” From the sacred historians we may then infer that there were two periods of this war. The first, when the king of Elam and his associates laid the Rephaim under contribution: the other, when, upon their rebellion, they reduced them a second time to obedience. The first part is mentioned by several ancient writers, and is said to have lasted ten years. Hesiod takes notice of both, but makes the first rather of longer duration:

Ten years and more they sternly strove in arms.

In the second engagement the poet informs us that the Titans were quite discomfited and ruined: and according to the mythology of the Greeks, they were condemned to reside in Tartarus, at the extremity of the known world. A large body of Titanians, after their dispersion, settled in Mauritania: which is the region called Tartarus. The mythologists adjudged the Titans to the realms of night merely from not attending to the purport of the term ζοφος. This word described the West, and it signified also darkness. From this secondary acceptation the Titans of the West were consigned to the realms of night: being situated, with respect to Greece towards the regions of the setting sun. Bryant.

[206]

Wielding aloft

Precipitous rocks.]

This, perhaps, suggested to Milton the arming the angels with mountains:

They pluck’d the seated hills with all their load;

Rocks, waters, woods; and by the shaggy tops

Uplifting, bore them in their hands.

Par. Lost. vi.

[207]

The dark chasm of hell

Was shaken.]

This is expanded by Milton with uncommon sublimity:

Hell heard th’ insufferable noise: hell saw

Heaven ruining from heaven, and would have fled

Affrighted: but strict Fate had cast too deep

Her dark foundations, and too fast had bound.

Book vi.

[208]

His whole of might

Broke from him.]

Milton attains to a higher conception of omnipotence in the passage:

Yet half in strength he put not forth, but check’d

His thunder in mid-volley: for he meant

Not to destroy, but root them out of heaven.

There is, however, nothing in Milton which equals in sublimity the sudden expansion of power in the soul of the deity: ειθαρ μεν μενεος πληντο φρενες. The plan of the battle of angels is evidently built on that of the battle of giants: the Messiah, like Hesiod’s Jove, coming forth to decide the contest; and sending before him thunderbolts and plagues. Milton’s magnificent imagery of the chariot is borrowed from the vision of the prophet Ezekiel.

[209]

Through the void

Of Erebus.]

Χαος is here only a gulf or void. Le Clerc quotes Aristophanes to show that it is the vacuity of air: but the conflagration of air has already been described. Grævius is undoubtedly right in interpreting it the subterraneous abyss, or Erebus: in which sense it is afterwards used by Hesiod; when the Titans are said to dwell “beyond the obscure chaos,” or chasm. Virgil uses chaos in this acceptation, Æneid. vi. 205:

Ye silent shades!

Oh Chaos hoar! and Phlegethon profound!

Pitt.

So also Ovid, Metamorph. x. Orpheus to Pluto and Proserpine:

I call you by those sights so full of fear:

This chaos vast; these silent kingdoms drear!

[210]

The heaven and earth

Met hurtling in mid-air.]

Milton, Paradise Lost, book ii:

Nor was his ear less pealed
With noises loud and ruinous ...
than if this frame
Of heaven were falling, and these elements
In mutiny had from their axle torn
The steadfast earth.

[211] The war-unsated Gyges.] Hesiod has confounded the history by supposing the Giants and Titans to have been different persons. He accordingly makes them oppose each other: and even Cottus, Briareus, and Gyges, whom all other writers mention as Titans, are by him introduced in opposition, and described as of another family. His description is however much to the purpose, and the first contest and dispersion are plainly alluded to. Bryant.

[212] The Titan host o’er-shadowing.] Milton, Par. Lost, b. vi.:

Themselves invaded next and on their heads

Main promontories flung, which in the air

Came shadowing, and oppress’d whole legions arm’d.

[213]

So far beneath

This earth.]

Virgil, Æn. vi. 577:

The gaping gulf low to the centre lies,

And twice as deep as earth is distant from the skies:

The rivals of the gods, the Titan race,

Here, singed with lightning, roll within th’ unfathom’d space.

Dryden.

[214]

The verge

Of Tartarus.]

The ancients had a notion that the earth was a widely extended plain, which terminated abruptly in a vast clift of immeasurable descent. At the bottom was a chaotic pool, which so far sunk beneath the confines of the world, that, to express the depth and distance, they imagined an anvil of iron, tossed from the top, could not reach it in ten days. This mighty pool was the great Atlantic ocean: and these extreme parts of the earth were Mauritania and Iberia: for in each of these countries the Titans resided. Bryant.

This explains the introduction of Atlas before the gates of Tartarus: Guietus is therefore in error when, not being able to account for this situation of Atlas, he marks the passage as supposititious.

Milton’s classical reading appears in his admeasurement of the distance which the rebel angels passed in their fall from heaven:

Nine days they fell: the tenth the yawning gulf

Received them.

[215] Arise and end.] Seneca, Hercules Frantic:

Rank with corruption’s moss the sterile vast

Of that abyss: th’ unsightly earth is numb’d

In its eternal barren hoariness:

The dismal end of things:

The limits of the world:

Air moveless hangs with clinging weight above:

And black night brooding sits

Upon the lifeless universe.

[216] A drear and ghastly wilderness.] Homer, Il. xx.:

A dismal wilderness
Hoary with desolation: which the gods
Behold, and shuddering turn their eyes away.

[217]

But him the whirls of vexing hurricanes

Toss to and fro.]

Dante, Inferno, canto quinto:

I venn’ in luogo d’ogni luce muto:

Che mughia, come fa mar per tempesta,

Se da contrarii venti se combattuto:

La bufera infernale, che mai non resta,

Mena gli spiriti con la sua rapina,

Voltando et percuotendo gli molesta.

They reach a spot, void of all ray of light,

Which howls as seas in storms, where winds opposing fight:

The hellish whirlwind, never resting, hurls

The hovering spirits snatch’d upon its whirls:

And vexing smites, and eddying turns them round.

Milton seems to have conceived from this passage of Hesiod his idea of Satan falling down the chaotic void, book ii.:

A vast vacuity: all unawares,

Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb down he drops

Ten thousand fathoms deep: and to this hour

Down had been falling, had not, by ill chance,

The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud
Instinct with fire and nitre hurried him
As many miles aloft.

[218]

Alternate as they glide athwart

The brazen threshold.]

Milton, Par. Lost, vi. 4:

There is a cave
Within the mount of God, fast by his throne,
Where light and darkness in perpetual round

Lodge and dislodge by turns, which makes through heaven

Grateful vicissitude, like day and night:

Light issues forth, and at the other door

Obsequious darkness enters, till her hour

To veil the heaven.

[219] Sleep, Death’s half brother.] Virg. Æn. vi. 278:

Here Toils and Death, and Death’s half-brother Sleep,

Forms terrible to view, their sentry keep.

Dryden.

[220]

Nor them the shining Sun

E’er with his beam contemplates.]

Odyssey, xi. 14:

With clouds and darkness veil’d: on whom the Sun

Deigns not to look with his beam-darting eye:

Or when he climbs the starry arch, or when

Earthward he slopes again his westering wheels.

Cowper.

[221]

To immortal gods

A foe.]

Probably from his destroying the human favourites of the gods, and the sons of the goddesses who have descended to mortal amours: as in the instances of Hyacinthus, the favourite of Apollo; and Memnon, the son of Aurora; whose death and burial are described with such romantic fancy in Quintus Calaber, Post-Homerics, or Supplemental Iliad.

[222] And stern Prosérpina.] Many of the temples of Ceres were dedicated to the deity under the name of Persephone or Proserpine, who was supposed her daughter; but they were in reality the same personage. Persephone was styled Cora; which the Greeks misinterpreted the virgin or damsel. This was the same as Cura, a feminine title of the Sun; by which Ceres also was called at Cnidos. However mild and gentle Proserpine may have been represented in her virgin state by the poets, yet her tribunal seems in many places to have been very formidable. In consequence of this we find her, with Minos and Rhadamanthus, condemned to the shades below as an infernal inquisitor. Nonnus says, “Proserpine armed the Furies:” the notion of which Furies arose from the cruelties practised in the Prutaneia, or fire-temples. They were originally only priests of fire; but were at last ranked among the hellish tormentors. Herodotus speaks of a Prutaneion in Achaia Pthiotic, of which he gives a fearful account. No person, he says, ever entered the precincts, that returned: whatever person strayed that way was immediately seized upon by the priests and sacrificed. Bryant.

[223]

With arch’d roofs

Of loftiest rock o’erhung.]

Not far from the ruins (of Nonacrum, a town of Arcadia,) is a lofty cliff: I have seen none that ascended to such a height. A stream distils from the declivity. This water is denominated Styx by the Greeks. It is deadly to man and to all animals whatever. Pausanias, Arcadics, b. viii.

Le Clerc supposes an opinion to have existed, that a person wrongfully accused might securely drink the water of Styx: and conceives Hesiod to mean that the gods drank of the water at the same time that they made a libation, and if they took a false oath, were convicted by the lethargic properties of this noxious stream.

[224] Jove sends Iris down.] To this covenant (with Noah) Hesiod alludes: he calls it the great oath. He says that this oath was Iris, or the bow in the heavens; to which the deity appealed when any of the inferior divinities were guilty of an untruth. On such an occasion the great oath of the gods was appointed to fetch water from the extremities of the ocean, with which those were tried who had falsified their word. Bryant.

The words will certainly admit of this construction; but the context directs that the great oath be connected with the Stygian water. The employment of Iris on the mission is still a remarkable coincidence with the diluvian covenant.

[225] The sacred river-head.] That is, the ocean; which probably received this title from the Nile, a river highly venerated, being of old called the Oceanus. Styx is said to be a horn, or branch of the ocean, from the ancient idea that all rivers sprang from it: Homer Il. 21:

Therefore not kingly Acheloius,

Nor yet the strength of ocean’s vast profound:

Although from him all rivers and all seas,

All fountains and all wells proceed, can boast

Comparison with Jove.

Cowper.

The rivers of Earth and Orcus were believed to communicate; thus Virgil, Æn. vi. 658, of the Elysian fields:

In fragrant laurel groves, where Po’s vast flood

From upper earth rolls copious through the wood.

[226]

Libation pours

And is forsworn.]

It was customary to pour a libation, while taking a solemn oath. Thus in the third Iliad:

Then pouring from the beaker to the cups

They fill’d them.

All-glorious Jove, and ye, the powers of heaven!

Whoso shall violate this contract first,

So be their blood, their children’s and their own,

Pour’d out, as this libation on the ground.

Cowper.

[227] Her youngest-born Typhœus.] Taph, which at times was rendered Tuph, Toph, and Taphos, was a name current among the Amonians, by which they called their high places. Lower Ægypt being a flat, and annually overflowed, the natives were forced to raise the soil on which they built their principal edifices, in order to secure them from the inundation: and many of their sacred towers were erected on conical mounds of earth. There were often hills of the same form constructed for religious purposes, upon which there was no building. These were high altars; on which they used sometimes to offer human sacrifices. Tophet, where the Israelites made their children pass through fire to Moloch, was a mount of this form. Those cities in Ægypt which had a high place of this sort, and rites in consequence of it, were styled Typhonian. Many writers say that these rites were performed to Typhon at the tomb of Osiris. Hence he was in later times supposed to have been a person; one of immense size; and he was also esteemed a god. But this arose from the common mistake by which places were substituted for the deities there worshipped. Typhon was the Tuph-on, or altar; and the offerings were made to the Sun, styled On; the same as Osiris and Busiris. What they called his tombs were mounds of earth raised very high: some of these had also lofty towers adorned with pinnacles and battlements. They had also carved on them various symbols; and particularly serpentine hieroglyphics; in memorial of the god to whom they were sacred. In their upper story was a perpetual fire, that was plainly seen in the night. The gigantic stature of Typhon was borrowed from this object: and his character was formed from the hieroglyphical representations in the temples styled Typhonian. This may be inferred from the allegorical description of Typhœus given by Hesiod. Typhon and Typhœus were the same personage; and the poet represents him of a mixed form; being partly a man, and partly a monstrous dragon, whose head consisted of an assemblage of smaller serpents: and as there was a perpetual fire kept up in the upper story, he describes it as shining through the apertures of the building. The tower of Babel was undoubtedly a Tuph-on, or altar of the Sun; though generally represented as a temple. Hesiod certainly alludes to some ancient history concerning the demolition of Babel, when he describes Typhon or Typhœus as overthrown by Jove. He represents him as the youngest son of Earth; as a deity of great strength and immense stature; and adds what is very remarkable, that had it not been for the interposition of the chief god, this dæmon would have obtained a universal empire. Bryant.

Equally remarkable is the diversity of voices, described as issuing from the different heads of the giant. In the Mexican mythology a giant builds an artificial hill, in the form of a pyramid, as a memorial of the mountain, in whose caverns he, with six others, had taken shelter from a deluge. This monument was to reach the clouds; but the gods destroyed it with fire. See Humboldt’s American Researches.

[228]

Beneath his everlasting feet

The great Olympus trembled.]

Mr. Todd, in his notes on Milton, quotes the passage describing the rushing of the Messiah’s chariot, as superior in grandeur to this of Hesiod:

Under his burning wheels
The steadfast empyreum shook throughout,
All but the throne itself of God.

The majesty of Milton’s exception certainly exceeds Hesiod in loftiness of thought: but the mere rising of Jupiter causing the mountain to rock beneath his eternal feet, is more sublime than the shaking of the firmament from the rolling of wheels.

[229] The lightning-stricken deity.] Τοιο ανακτος. King is merely a title of deity, and was applied before to Prometheus.

[230] The woody dales.] Forges were erected in woody valleys, on account of the abundance of fuel. Guietus.

[231] Lo! from Typhœus is the strength of winds.] By these are meant the intermediary winds: with some of which it is evident that Hesiod was acquainted, although perhaps they were not yet distinguished by names. The ancient Greeks at first used only the four cardinal winds: but afterwards admitted four collaterals. Vitruvius enumerates twenty collateral winds in the Roman practice.

[232] These born from gods.] That is, from superior gods: as Aurora and Astræus.

[233] Led Metis.] One of the most ancient deities of the Amonians was named Meed or Meet; by which was signified divine wisdom. It was rendered by the Grecians Metis. It was represented under the symbol of a beautiful female countenance surrounded with serpents. Bryant.

The figure of wedding Wisdom occurs in “The Wisdom of Solomon,” ch. viii. v. 2. “I loved her, and sought her out from my youth: I desired to make her my spouse, and I was a lover of her beauty.”

In the Proverbs, Solomon describes Wisdom as the companion of Deity, in the language of exquisite poetry:

“I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When there were no depths I was brought forth: when there were no fountains abounding with water. When he prepared the heavens I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depths: when he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep: when he gave to the sea his decree: when he appointed the foundations of the earth: then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him.” Chap. viii.

[234]

The blue-eyed maid

Minerva.]

An-ath signified the fountain of light: and was abbreviated Nath and Neith by the Ægyptians. They worshipped under this title a divine emanation, supposed to be the goddess of Wisdom. The Athenians, who came from Sais, in Ægypt, were denominated from this deity, whom they expressed Athana, or in the Ionian manner, Athene. Bryant.

Cudworth mentions Hammon and Neith as titles for one and the same deity; and quotes Plutarch as authority that Isis and Neith were also the same among the Ægyptians: and therefore the temple of Neith or Athene (Minerva) at Sais, was by him called the temple of Isis. Intellectual System, b. i. ch. 4.

[235] Brought the three Graces forth.] As Charis was a tower sacred to fire, some of the poets supposed a nymph of that name, who was beloved by Vulcan. Homer speaks of her as his wife. The Graces were said to be related to the Sun, who was, in reality, the same as Vulcan. The Sun, among the people of the East, was called Hares, and with a strong guttural, Chares: and his temple was styled Tor-chares: this the Greeks expressed Tricharis; and from thence formed a notion of three Graces. Bryant.

[236] The arrow-shooting Dian.] Artemis Diana and Venus Dione were in reality the same deity, and had the same departments. This sylvan goddess was distinguished by a crescent, as well as Juno Samia; and was an emblem of the Arkite history, and in consequence of it was supposed to preside over waters. Bryant.

[237] Hebe.] Hebe is a mere personification of youth. The poets made her the cup-bearer of the gods, as an emblem of their immortality.

[238]

Pallas; fierce,

Rousing the war-field’s tumult.]

In her martial character Minerva is intended to personify the wisdom and policy of war as opposed to brute force and animal courage; which are represented by Mars.

[239] Illustrious Vulcan.] The author of the New Analysis has exploded the notion that Vulcan was the same with Tubal-cain: who is mentioned in Genesis iv. 22, as “an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron:” for nothing of this craft was of old attached to Hephaistus or Vulcan: who was the god of fire; that is, the Sun. Later mythologists degraded him to a blacksmith; and placed him over the Cyclops, or Cyclopians, the Sicilian worshippers of fire. The emblems carved in the temples led to the idea of Vulcan and the Cyclops forging thunderbolts and weapons for the celestial armoury.

[240] Sea-potent Triton.] The Hetrurians erected on their shores towers and beacons for the sake of their navigation, which they called Tor-ain: whence they had a still farther denomination of Tor-aini (Tyrrheni). Another name for buildings of this nature was Tirit or Turit: which signified a tower or turret. The name of Triton is a contraction of Tirit-on: and signifies the tower of the Sun: but a deity was framed from it, who was supposed to have had the appearance of a man upwards, but downwards to have been like a fish. The Hetrurians are thought to have been the inventors of trumpets; and in their towers on the sea-coast there were people appointed to be continually on the watch, both by day and by night, and to give a proper signal if any thing happened extraordinary. This was done by a blast from the trumpet. In early times, however, these brazen instruments were but little known; and people were obliged to use what were near at hand; the conchs of the sea: by sounding these they gave signals from the tops of the towers when any ship appeared: and this is the implement with which Triton is more commonly furnished. So Amphi-tirit is merely an oracular tower, which by the poets has been changed into Amphitrite, and made the wife of Neptune. Bryant.

[241]

Venus gave to Mars,

Breaker of shields, a dreadful offspring.]

The making the goddess of Love, Concord, and Fertility, the spouse of Mars, and the mother of Fear and Terror, is obviously of later invention and of Grecian origin: and was, no doubt, suggested by the Rape of Helen, which was supposed to be instigated by Venus, and which kindled the war of Troy. See that elegant and classical poem of the sixth century: “The Rape of Helen” of Coluthus.

[242]

Harmonia last

She bare, whom generous Cadmus clasp’d as bride.]

I am persuaded that no such person as Cadmus ever existed. If we consider the whole history of this celebrated hero, we shall find that it was impossible for any one person to have effected what he is supposed to have performed. They were not the achievements of one person nor of one age: the travels of Cadmus, like the expeditions of Perseus, Sesostris, and Osiris, relate to colonies, which at different times went abroad and were distinguished by this title. As colonies of the same denomination went to parts of the world widely distant, their ideal chieftain, whether Cadmus, or Bacchus, or Hercules, was supposed to have traversed the same ground.

Harmonia, the wife of Cadmus, who has been esteemed a mere woman, seems to have been an emblem of nature, and the fostering nurse of all things. In some of the Orphic verses she is represented not only as a deity, but as the light of the world. She was supposed to have been a personage from whom all knowledge was derived. On this account the books of science were styled the books of Harmonia: as well as the books of Hermes. These were four in number; of which Nonnus gives a curious account, and says that they contained matter of wonderful antiquity. The first of them is said to be coeval with the world. Hence we find that Hermon or Harmonia was a deity to whom the first writing is ascribed. The same is said of Hermes. The invention is also attributed to Thoth. Cadmus is said not only to have brought letters into Greece, but to have been the inventor of them. Whence we may fairly conclude, that under the characters of Hermon, Hermes, Thoth, and Cadmus, one person is alluded to.

The story of Cadmus, and of the serpent with which he engaged upon his arrival in Bœotia, relates to the Ophite worship which was there instituted by the Cadmians. So Jason in Colchis, Apollo in Phocis, Hercules at Lerna, engaged with serpents: all of which are histories of the same purport, but mistaken by the latter Grecians. It is said of Cadmus that, at the close of his life, he was, together with his wife Harmonia, changed into a serpent of stone. This wonderful metamorphosis is supposed to have happened at Encheliæ, a town of Illyria. The true history is this. These two personages were here enshrined in a temple, and worshipped under the symbol of a serpent. Bryant.

[243] The glorious Hermes, herald of the gods.] The Ægyptians acknowledged two personages under the title of Hermes and Thoth. The first was the same as Osiris; the most ancient of all the gods, and the head of all. The other was called the second Hermes; and likewise, for excellence, styled Trismegistus. This person is said to have been a great adept in mysterious knowledge, and an interpreter of the will of the gods. He was a great prophet; and on that account was looked upon as a divinity. To him they ascribed the reformation of the Ægyptian year: and there were many books, either written by him, or concerning him, which were preserved by the Ægyptians in the most sacred recesses of their temples. As he had been the cause of great riches to their nation, they styled him the dispenser of wealth, and esteemed him the god of gain. We are told that the true name of this Hermes was Siphoas. What is Siphoas but Aosiph misplaced? and is not Aosiph the Ægyptian name of the patriarch Joseph, as he was called by the Hebrews? Bryant.

[244] Semele.] The amour of Jupiter with Semele is described with brilliant luxuriancy of fancy and diction by Nonnus in his Dionysiacs.

[245] Bacchus of golden hair.] The history of Dionusus is closely connected with that of Bacchus, though they were two distinct persons. Dionusos is interpreted by the Latins Bacchus; but very improperly. Bacchus was Chus, the grandson of Noah; as Ammon was Ham. Dionusus was Noah; expressed Noos, Nus, Nusus; the planter of the vine, and the inventor of fermented liquors: whence he was also denominated Zeuth; which signifies ferment; rendered Zeus by the Greeks. Dionusus was the same as Osiris. According to the Grecian mythology, he is represented as having been twice born; and is said to have had two fathers and two mothers. He was also exposed in an ark, and wonderfully preserved. The purport of which histories is plain. We must, however, for the most part, consider the account given of Dionusus as the history of the Dionusians. This is two-fold: part relates to their rites and religion, in which the great events of the infant world and preservation of mankind in general were recorded: in the other part, which contains the expeditions and conquests of this personage, are enumerated the various colonies of the people who were denominated from him. They were the same as the Osirians and Herculeans. There were many places which claimed his birth: and as many where was shown the spot of his interment. The Grecians, wherever they met with a grot or cavern sacred to him, took it for granted that he was born there: and wherever he had a taphos, or high altar, supposed that he was there buried. The same is also observable in the history of all the gods.

There are few characters which at first sight appear more distinct than those of Apollo and Bacchus. Yet the department which is generally appropriated to Apollo as the Sun, I mean the conduct of the year, is by Virgil given to Bacchus, Georg. i. 5:

Lights of the world! ye brightest orbs on high,

Who lead the sliding year around the sky,

Bacchus and Ceres!

Warton.

Hence we find that Bacchus is the Sun or Apollo; in reality they were all three the same; he was the ruling deity of the world. Bryant.

In this passage of Virgil, Ceres is Luna, or the Moon.

[246] Alcmena’s valiant son.] Hercules was a title given to the chief deity of the gentiles: who has been multiplied into almost as many personages as there were countries where he was worshipped. What has been attributed to this god singly was the work of Herculeans, a people who went under this title, among the many which they assumed, and who were the same as the Osirians, Peresians, and Cuthites. Wherever there were Herculeans, a Hercules has been supposed. Hence his character has been variously represented. One while he appears little better than a sturdy vagrant: at other times he is mentioned as a great benefactor; also as the patron of science; the god of eloquence, with the Muses in his train. He was the same as Hermes, Osiris, and Dionusus; and his rites were introduced into various parts by the Cuthites. In the detail of his peregrinations is contained in great measure a history of that people, and of their settlements. Each of these the Greeks have described as a warlike expedition, and have taken the glory of it to themselves. Bryant.

[247] Medea.] The natives of Colchis and Pontus were of the Cuthite race: they were much skilled in simples. Their country abounded in medicinal herbs, of which they made use both to good and bad purposes. In the fable of Medea we may read the character of the people: for that princess is represented as very knowing in all the productions of nature, and as gifted with supernatural powers. Bryant.

[248] Plutus.] Plutus is the same with Pluto: who, in his subterranean character, presided over all the riches of the ground: whether metallic or vegetable.

[249] Jason.] In the account of the Argo we have, undeniably, the history of a sacred ship; the first which was ever constructed. This truth the best writers among the Grecians confess; though the merit of the performance they would fain take to themselves. Yet after all their prejudices, they continually betray the truth, and show that the history was derived to them from Ægypt. Plutarch informs us, that the constellation, which the Greeks called the Argo, was a representation of the sacred ship of Osiris: and that it was out of reverence placed in the heavens. The ship of Osiris was esteemed the first ship constructed; and was no other than the ark. Jason was certainly a title of the Arkite god; the same as Areas, Argus, Inachus, and Prometheus: and the temples supposed to have been built by him in regions so remote were temples erected to his honour. It is said of this personage that, when a child, he underwent the same fate as Osiris, Perseus, and Dionusus: “he was concealed, and shut up in an ark, as if he had been dead.” Bryant.

[250] Sage Chiron.] Chiron, so celebrated for his knowledge, was a mere personage formed from a tower or temple of that name. It stood in Thessaly; and was inhabited by a set of priests called Centauri. They were so denominated from the deity they worshipped, who was represented under a particular form. They styled him Cahen-taur: and he was the same as the Minotaur of Crete, and the Tauromen of Sicilia: consequently of an emblematical and mixed figure. The people, by whom this worship was introduced, were many of them Anakim; and are accordingly represented as of great strength and stature. Such persons among the people of the East were styled nephele, which the Greeks, in after-times, supposed to relate to Nephele, a cloud: and in consequence described the Centaurs as born of a cloud. Chiron was a temple: probably at Nephele in Thessalia; the most ancient seat of the Nephelim. His name is a compound of Chir-on: the tower or temple of the Sun. In places of this sort, people used to study the heavenly motions; and they were made use of for seminaries, where young persons were instructed. Hence Achilles was said to have been taught by Chiron; who is reported to have had many disciples. Bryant.

[251] Circe.] From the knowledge of the Cuthites in herbs we may justly infer a great excellence in physic. Ægypt the nurse of arts, was much celebrated for botany. To the Titanians, or race of Chus, was attributed the invention of chemistry: hence it is said by Syncellus, that chemistry was the discovery of the Giants. Circe and Calypso are, like Medea, represented as very experienced in pharmacy and simples. Under these characters we have the history of Cuthite priestesses, who presided in particular temples near the sea-coast, and whose charms and incantations were thought to have a wonderful influence. The nymphs who attended them were a lower order in these sacred colleges; and they were instructed by their superiors in their arts and mysteries. Bryant.

The Shield of Hercules.

THE SHIELD OF HERCULES.

The Argument.

I. The arrival of Alcmena at Thebes, as the companion of her husband’s exile. The expedition of Amphitryon against the Teloboans. The artifice of Jupiter, who anticipates his return, and steals the embraces of Alcmena. The birth of Hercules.

II. The meeting of Hercules with Cygnus: the description of his armour: and particularly of his Shield, diversified with sculptured imagery.

III. The combat: and the burial of Cygnus.

THE SHIELD OF HERCULES.

Or as Alcmena, from Electryon born,
The guardian of his people, her lov’d home
And natal soil abandoning, to Thebes
Came with Amphitryon: with the brave in war.
She all the gentle race of womankind

[252]In height surpass’d and beauty: nor with her

Might one in prudence vie, of all who sprang
From mortal fair-ones, blending in embrace
With mortal men. Both from her tressed head,

And [253]from the darkening lashes of her eyes,

She breathed enamouring odour like the breath
Of balmy Venus: passing fair she was,
Yet not the less her consort with heart-love
Revered she; so had never woman loved.
Though he her noble sire by violent strength

Had slain, amid [254]those herds, the cause of strife,

Madden’d to sudden rage: his native soil

He left, and thence to the Cadmean state,

Shield-bearing tribe, came supplicant: and there

Dwelt with his modest spouse; yet from the joys

Of love estranged: for he might not ascend
The couch of her, the beautiful of feet,
Till for the slaughter of her brethren brave,

His arm had wreak’d revenge; and burn’d with fire

The guilty cities of those warlike men
Taphians and Teloboans. This the task
Assign’d: the gods on high that solemn vow
Had witness’d: of their anger visitant
In fear he stood; and speeded in all haste

T’ achieve the mighty feat, imposed by Heaven.

Him the Bœotians, gorers of the steed,
Who coveting the war-shout and the shock
Of battle o’er the buckler breathe aloft
Their open valour: him the Locrian race
Close-combating; and of undaunted soul,
The Phocians follow’d: towering in the van
Amphitryon gallant shone: and in his host
Gloried. But other counsel secret wove
Within his breast the sire of gods and men:
That both to gods and to th’ inventive race
Of man a great deliverer might arise

Sprung from his loins, of plague-repelling fame.

Deep-framing in his inmost soul deceit,
He through the nightly darkness took his way
From high Olympus, glowing with the love
Of her, the fair-one of the graceful zone.
Swift to the Typhaonian mount he pass’d:

Thence drew nigh Phycium’s lofty ridge: sublime

There sitting, the wise counsellor of heaven

Revolved a work divine. That self-same night

He sought the couch of her, who stately treads

With long-paced step; and melting in her arms

Took there his fill of love. That self-same night

The host-arousing chief, the mighty deed
Perform’d, in glory to his home returned:
Nor to the vassals and the shepherd hinds

His footstep bent, before he climb’d the couch

Of his Alcmena: such inflaming love

Seiz’d in the deep recesses of his heart

The chief of thousands. And as he, that scarce

Escapes, and yet escapes, from grievous plague

Or the hard-fettering chain, flies free away

Joyful,—so struggling through that arduous toil

With pain accomplish’d, wishful, eager, traced

The prince his homeward way. The live-long night

He with the modest partner of his bed

Embracing lay, and revell’d in delight

The bounteous bliss of love’s all-charming queen.

Thus by a god and by the first of men

Alike subdued to love, Alcmena gave

Twin-brethren birth, within the seven-fold gates

Of Thebes: yet brethren though they were, unlike

Their natures: this of weaker strain; but that

Far more of man; valorous and stern and strong.

Him, Hercules, conceived she from th’ embrace
Of the cloud-darkener: to th’ Alcæan chief,
Shaker of spears, gave Iphiclus: a race
Distinct: nor wonder: this of mortal man,
That of imperial Jove. The same who slew
The lofty-minded Cygnus, child of Mars.
For in the grove of the far-darting god
He found him: and insatiable of war
His father Mars beside. Both bright in arms,

Bright as the sheen of burning flame, they stood

On their high chariot; and the horses fleet

Trampled the ground with rending hoofs: around

In parted circle smoked the cloudy dust,

Up-dash’d beneath the trampling hoofs, and cars

Of complicated frame. The well-framed cars

Rattled aloud: loud clash’d the wheels: while rapt

In their full speed the horses flew. Rejoiced
The noble Cygnus; for the hope was his,
Jove’s warlike offspring and his charioteer

To slay, and strip them of their gorgeous mail.

But to his vows the Prophet-god of day
Turn’d a deaf ear: for he himself set on
Th’ assault of Hercules. Now all the grove,

And Phœbus’ altar, flash’d with glimmering arms

Of that tremendous god: himself blazed light,
And darted radiance from his eye-balls glared
As it were flame. But who of mortal mould
Had e’er endured in daring opposite
To rush before him, save but Hercules,
And Ioläus, an illustrious name?

For mighty strength was theirs: and arms that stretch’d

From their broad shoulders unapproachable

In valorous force, above their nervous frames:

He therefore thus bespoke his charioteer:
“Oh hero Ioläus! dearest far
To me of all the race of mortal men;

I deem it sure that ’gainst the blest of Heaven

Amphitryon sinn’d, when to the fair-wall’d Thebes

He came, forsaking Tirynth’s well-built walls,

Electryon midst the strife of wide-brow’d herds

Slain by his hand: to Creon suppliant came,

And her of flowing robe, Henioche:

Who straight embraced, and all of needful aid

Lent hospitable, as to suppliant due:

And more for this, e’en from the heart they gave

All honour and observance. So he lived,
Exulting in his graceful-ankled spouse
Alcmena. When the rapid year roll’d round,
We, far unlike in stature and in soul,
Were born, thy sire and I: him Jove bereaved
Of wisdom; who from his parental home
Went forth, and to the fell Eurystheus bore
His homage. Wretch! for he most sure bewail’d
In after-time that grievous fault, a deed
Irrevocable. On myself has Fate
Laid heavy labours. But, oh friend! oh now

Quick snatch the purple reins of these my steeds

Rapid of hoof: the manly courage rouse

Within thee: now with strong unerring grasp

Guide the swift chariot’s whirl, and wind the steeds

Rapid of hoof: fear nought the dismal yell
Of mortal-slayer Mars, whilst to and fro
He ranges fierce Apollo’s hallow’d grove
With frenzying shout: for, be he as he may
War-mighty, he of war shall take his fill.”
Then answer’d Ioläus: “Oh revered!
Doubtless the father of the gods and men
Thy head delights to honour; and the god

Who keeps [255]the wall of Thebes and guards her towers,

[256]Bull-visaged Neptune: so be sure they give

Unto thy hand this mortal huge and strong,
That from the conflict thou mayst bear away
High glory. But now haste—in warlike mail
Dress now thy limbs, that, rapidly as thought
Mingling the shock of cars, we may be join’d
In battle. He th’ undaunted son of Jove
Shall strike not with his terrors, nor yet me
Iphiclides: but swiftly, as I deem,
Shall he to flight betake him, from the race
Of brave Alcæus: who now pressing nigh
Gain on their foes and languish for the shout
Of closing combat; to their eager ear
More grateful than the banquet’s revelry.”
He said: and Hercules smiled stern his joy
Elate of thought: for he had spoken words
Most welcome. Then with winged accents thus:
“Jove-foster’d hero! it is e’en at hand,
The battle’s rough encounter: thou, as erst,
In martial prudence firm, aright, aleft,
With vantage of the fray, unerring guide
Arion huge, the sable-maned, and me
Aid in the doubtful contest, as thou mayst.”

Thus having said, he sheathed his legs in greaves

Of mountain brass, resplendent-white: famed gift

Of Vulcan: o’er his breast he fitted close
The corselet, variegated, beautiful,
Of shining gold; this Jove-born Pallas gave,

When first he rush’d to meet the mingling groans

Of battle. Then the mighty man athwart

His shoulder slung the sword, whose edge repels

Th’ approach of mortal harms: and clasp’d around

His bosom, and reclining o’er his back,
He cast the hollow quiver. Lurk’d therein
Full many arrows: shuddering horror they
Inflicted, and the agony of death
Sudden, that chokes the suffocated voice:

The points were barb’d with death, and bitter steep’d

In human tears: burnish’d the lengthening shafts:

And they were feather’d from the tawny plume

Of eagles. Now he grasp’d the solid spear

Sharpen’d with brass: and on his brows of strength

Placed the forged helm, high-wrought in adamant,

That cased the temples round, and fenced the head

Of Hercules: the man of heavenly birth.

Then with his hands he raised The Shield, of disk

Diversified: might none with missile aim

Pierce, nor th’ impenetrable substance rive

Shattering: a wondrous frame: since all throughout

Bright with enamel, and with ivory,
And [257]mingled metal; and with ruddy gold
Refulgent, and with azure plates inlaid.
The scaly terror of a dragon coil’d
Full in the central field; unspeakable;
With eyes oblique retorted, that aslant

Shot gleaming flame: his hollow jaw was fill’d

Dispersedly with jagged fangs of white,

Grim, unapproachable. And next above

The dragon’s forehead fell, stern Strife in air

Hung hovering, and array’d the war of men:
Haggard; whose aspect from all mortals reft
All mind and soul; whoe’er in brunt of arms

Should match their strength, and face the son of Jove.

Below this earth their spirits to th’ abyss

Descend: and through the flesh that wastes away

Beneath the parching sun, their whitening bones

Start forth, and moulder in the sable dust.

[258]Pursuit was there, and fiercely rallying Flight,

Tumult and Terror: burning Carnage glow’d:
Wild Discord madden’d there, and frantic Rout
Ranged to and fro. A deathful Destiny
There grasp’d a living man, that bled afresh
From recent wound: another, yet unharm’d,
Dragg’d furious; and a third, already dead,
Trail’d by the feet amid the throng of war:
And o’er her shoulders was a garment thrown
Dabbled in human blood: and in her look
Was horror: and a deep funereal cry
Broke from her lips. There indescribable

Twelve serpent heads rose dreadful: and with fear

Froze all, who drew on earth the breath of life,

Whoe’er should match their strength in brunt of arms,

And face the son of Jove: and oft as he

Moved to the battle, from their clashing fangs

A sound was heard. Such miracles display’d

The buckler’s field, with living blazonry

Resplendent: and those fearful snakes were streak’d

O’er their cærulean backs with streaks of jet:

And their jaws blacken’d with a jetty dye.

Wild from the forest, [259]herds of boars were there,

And lions, mutual-glaring; and in wrath

Leap’d on each other; and by troops they drove

Their onset: nor yet these nor those recoil’d,

Nor quaked in fear. Of both the backs uprose

Bristling with anger: for a lion huge

Lay stretched amidst them, and two boars beside

Lifeless: the sable blood down-dropping ooz’d
Into the ground. So these with bowed backs
Lay dead beneath the terrible lions: they,
For this the more incensed, both savage boars
And tawny lions, chafing sprang to war.
There too [260]the battle of the Lapithæ

Was wrought; the spear-arm’d warriors: Cæneus king,

Hopleus, Phalérus, and Pirithous,
And Dryas, and Exadius: Prolochus,
Mopsus of Titaressa, Ampyx’ son,
A branch of Mars, and Theseus like a god:
Son of Ægéus: silver were their limbs,
Their armour golden: and to them opposed
The Centaur band stood thronging: Asbolus,
Prophet of birds; Petræus huge of height;
Arctus, and Urius, and of raven locks
Mimas; the two Peucidæ, Dryalus,
And Perimedes: all of silver frame,

And grasping golden pine-trees in their hands.

At once they onset made: in very life

They rush’d, and hand to hand tumultuous closed

With pines and clashing spears. There fleet of hoof

The steeds were standing of stern-visaged Mars

In gold: and he himself, tearer of spoils,
Life-waster, purpled all with dropping blood,
As one who slew the living and despoil’d,
Loud-shouting to the warrior-infantry
There vaulted on his chariot. Him beside

Stood Fear and Consternation: high their hearts

Panted, all eager for the war of men.
There too Minerva rose, leader of hosts,
Resembling Pallas when she would array

The marshall’d battle. In her grasp the spear,

And on her brows a golden helm: athwart
Her shoulders thrown her ægis. Went she forth
In this array to meet the dreadful shout
Of war. And there a tuneful choir appear’d
Of heaven’s immortals: in the midst the son
Of Jove and of Latona sweetly rang
Upon his golden harp. Th’ Olympian mount,

Dwelling of gods, thrill’d back the broken sound.

And there were seen th’ assembly of the gods

Listening, encircled with their blaze of glory:

And in sweet contest with Apollo there

The virgins of Pieria raised the strain

Preluding; and they seem’d as though they sang

With clear sonorous voice. And there appear’d
A sheltering haven from the untamed rage
Of ocean. It was wrought of tin refined,
And rounded by the chisel: and it seem’d
Like to the dashing wave: and in the midst
Full many dolphins chased the fry, and show’d
As though they swam the waters, to and fro
Darting tumultuous. Two of silver scale,
Panting above the wave, the fishes mute

Gorged, that beneath them shook their quivering fins

In brass: but on the crag a fisher sate
Observant: in his grasp he held a net,
Like one that, poising, rises to the throw.

There was the horseman, fair-hair’d Danaë’s son,

Perseus: nor yet the buckler with his feet

Touch’d, nor yet distant hover’d: strange to think:

For nowhere on the surface of the shield

He rested: so the crippled artist-god

Illustrious framed him with his hands in gold.

Bound to his feet were sandals wing’d: a sword

Of brass with hilt of sable ebony

Hung round him from the shoulders by a thong:

Swift e’en as thought he flew. The visage grim

Of monstrous Gorgon all his back o’erspread:
And wrought in silver, wondrous to behold,
A veil was drawn around it, whence in gold

Hung glittering fringes: and the dreadful helm

Of Pluto clasp’d the temples of the prince,

Shedding a night of darkness. Thus outstretch’d

In air, he seem’d like one to trembling flight

Betaken. Close behind the Gorgons twain

Of nameless terror unapproachable

Came rushing: eagerly they stretch’d their arms

To seize him: from the pallid adamant,

Audibly as they rush’d, the clattering shield

Clank’d with a sharp shrill sound. Two grisly snakes

Hung from their girdles, and with forking tongues

Lick’d their inflected jaws; and violent gnash’d

Their fangs fell glaring: from around their heads

Those Gorgons grim a flickering horror cast

Through the wide air. Above them warrior men

Waged battle, grasping weapons in their hands.

[261]Some from their city and their sires repell’d

Destruction: others hasten’d to destroy:

And many press’d the plain, but more still held

The combat. On the strong-constructed towers

Stood women, shrieking shrill, and rent their cheeks

In very life, by Vulcan’s glorious craft.
The elders hoar with age assembled stood
Without the gates, and to the blessed gods
Their hands uplifted, for their fighting sons
Fear-stricken. These again the combat held.
Behind them stood the Fates, of aspect black,
Grim, slaughter-breathing, stern, insatiable,

Gnashing their white fangs; and fierce conflict held

For those who fell. Each eager-thirsting sought

To quaff the sable blood. Whom first they snatch’d

Prostrate, or staggering with the fresh-made wound,

On him they struck their talons huge: the soul

Fled down th’ abyss, the horror-freezing gulf
Of Tartarus. They, glutted to the heart
With human gore, behind them cast the corse:

And back with hurrying rage they turn’d to seek

The throng of battle. And hard by there stood
Clotho and Lachesis; and Atropos,
Somewhat in years inferior: nor was she
A mighty goddess: yet those other Fates
Transcending, and in birth the elder far.
And all around one man in cruel strife

Were join’d: and on each other turn’d in wrath

Their glowing eyes: and mingling desperate hands

And talons mutual strove. [262]And near to them

Stood Misery: wan, ghastly, worn with woe:

Arid, and swoln of knees; with hunger’s pains

Faint-falling: from her lean hands long the nails

Out-grew: an ichor from her nostrils flow’d:

Blood from her cheeks distill’d to earth: with teeth

All wide disclosed in grinning agony

She stood: a cloud of dust her shoulders spread,

And her eyes ran with tears. But next arose

[263]A well-tower’d city, by seven golden gates

Enclosed, that fitted to their lintels hung:
There men in dances and in festive joys
Held revelry. Some on the smooth-wheel’d car
A virgin bride conducted: then burst forth
Aloud the marriage-song: and far and wide

Long splendours flash’d from many a quivering torch

Borne in the hands of slaves. Gay-blooming girls

Preceded, and the dancers follow’d blithe:
These with shrill pipe indenting the soft lip
Breathed melody, while broken echoes thrill’d
Around them: to the lyre with flying touch
Those led the love-enkindling dance. A group
Of youths was elsewhere imaged to the flute
Disporting: some in dances and in song,
In laughter others. To the minstrel’s flute
So pass’d they on; and the whole city seem’d

As fill’d with pomps, with dances, and with feasts.

Others again, without the city walls,

[264]Vaulted on steeds and madden’d for the goal.

[265]Others as husbandmen appear’d, and broke
With coulter the rich glebe, and gather’d up
Their tunics neatly girded. Next arose

A field thick-set with depth of corn: where some

With sickle reap’d the stalks, their speary heads

Bent, as weigh’d down with pods of swelling grain,

The fruits of Ceres. Others into bands
Gather’d, and threw upon the threshing-floor
The sheaves. And some again hard by were seen
Holding the vine-sickle, who clusters cut
From the ripe vines; which from the vintagers
Others in frails received, or bore away,

[266]In baskets thus up-piled, the cluster’d grapes,

Or black or pearly-white, cut from deep ranks

Of spreading vines, whose tendrils curling twined

In silver, heavy-foliaged: near them rose

The ranks of vines, by Vulcan’s curious craft

Figured in gold. The vines leaf-shaking curl’d

Round silver props. They therefore on their way

Pass’d jocund to one minstrel’s flageolet,

Burthen’d with grapes that blacken’d in the sun.

Some also trod the wine-press, and some quaff’d

The foaming must. But in another part
Were men who wrestled, or in gymnic fight
Wielded the cæstus. Elsewhere men of chase

Were taking the fleet hares. Two keen-tooth’d dogs

Bounded beside: these ardent in pursuit,

Those with like ardour doubling on their flight.

Next them were horsemen, who sore effort made

To win the prize of contest and hard toil.

High o’er the well-compacted chariots [267]hung

The charioteers: the rapid horses loosed

At their full stretch, and shook the floating reins.

Rebounding from the ground with many a shock

Flew clattering the firm cars, and creak’d aloud

The naves of the round wheels. They therefore toil’d

Endless: nor conquest yet at any time

Achiev’d they, but a doubtful strife maintain’d.

In the mid-course the prize, a tripod huge,
Was placed in open sight; and it was carved
In gold: the skilful Vulcan’s glorious craft.

Rounding the uttermost verge [268]the ocean flow’d

As in full swell of waters: and the shield

All-variegated with whole circle bound.

Swans of high-hovering wing there clamour’d shrill,

And many skimm’d the breasted surge: and nigh

Fishes were tossing in tumultuous leaps.

Sight marvellous e’en to thundering Jove: whose will

Bade Vulcan frame the buckler; vast and strong.

This fitting to his grasp the strong-nerved son

Of Jupiter now shook with ease: and swift
As from his father’s ægis-wielding arm
The bolted lightning darts, he vaulted sheer
Above the harness’d chariot at a bound
Into the seat: the hardy charioteer

Stood o’er the steeds from high, and guided strong

The crooked car. Now near to them approach’d
Pallas, the blue-eyed goddess, and address’d
These winged words in animating voice:

[269]“Race of the far-famed Lyngeus! both all-hail!

Now verily the ruler of the Blest,

E’en Jove, doth give you strength to spoil of life

Cygnus your foe, and strip his gorgeous arms.

But I will breathe a word within thine ear

In counsel, oh most mighty midst the strong!

Now soon as e’er from Cygnus thou hast reft

The sweets of life, there leave him: on that spot,

Him and his armour: but th’ approach of Mars,
Slayer of mortals, watch with wary eye:
And where thy glance discerns a part exposed,

Defenceless of the well-wrought buckler, strike!

With thy sharp point there wound him, and recede:

For know, thou art not fated to despoil
“The steeds and glorious armour of a god.”
Thus having said, the goddess all-divine,
Aye holding in her everlasting hands
Conquest and glory, rose into the car
Impetuous: to the war-steeds shouted fierce
The noble Ioläus: from the shout

They starting snatch’d the flying car, and hid

With dusty cloud the plain: for she herself,

The goddess azure-eyed, sent into them

Wild courage, clashing on her brandish’d shield:

Earth groan’d around. That moment with like pace

E’en as a flame or tempest came they on,
Cygnus the tamer of the steed, and Mars
Unsated with the roar of war. And now
The coursers mid-way met, and face to face

Neigh’d shrill: the broken echoes rang around.

Then him the first stern Hercules bespake.

“Oh soft of nature! why dost thou obstruct

The rapid steeds of men, who toils have proved

And hardships? Outward turn thy burnish’d car:

Pass outward from the track and yield the way:

For I to Trachys ride, of obstacle
Impatient: to the royal Ceyx: he
O’er Trachys rules in venerable power,
As needs not thee be told, who hast to wife
His blue-eyed daughter Themisthonöe:

Soft-one! for not from thee shall Mars himself

Inhibit death, if truly hand to hand

We wage the battle: and e’en this I say

That elsewhere, heretofore, himself has proved

My mighty spear: when on the sandy beach
Of Pylos ardour irrepressible
Of combat seized him, and to me opposed

He stood: but thrice, when stricken by my lance,

Earth propp’d his fall, and thrice his targe was cleft:

The fourth time urging on my utmost force

His ample shield I shattering rived, his thigh

Transpierced, and headlong in the dust he fell

Beneath my rushing spear: so there the weight
Of shame upon him fell midst those of heaven,
His gory trophies leaving to these hands.”
So said he: but in no wise to obey

Enter’d the thought of Cygnus the spear-skill’d:

Nor rein’d he back the chariot-whirling steeds.

Then truly from their close-compacted cars

Instant as thought they leap’d to earth: the son

Of kingly Mars, the son of mighty Jove.
Aside, though not remote, the charioteers
The coursers drove of flowing manes: but then
Beneath the trampling sound of rushing feet

The broad earth sounded hollow: and [270]as rocks

From some high mountain-top precipitate

Leap with a bound, and o’er each other whirl’d

Shock in the dizzying fall: and many an oak

Of lofty branch, pine-tree and poplar deep

Of root are crash’d beneath them, as their course

Rapidly rolls, till now they touch the plain;
So met these foes encountering, and so burst
Their mighty clamour. Echoing loud throughout
The city of the Myrmidons gave back
Their lifted voices, and Iolchos famed,
And Arne, and Anthea’s grass-girt walls,
And Helice. Thus with amazing shout
They join’d in battle: all-considering Jove

Then greatly thunder’d: from the clouds of heaven

[271]He cast forth dews of blood, and signal thus

Of onset gave to his high-daring son.

[272]As in the mountain thickets the wild boar,

Grim to behold, and arm’d with jutting fangs,

Now with his hunters meditates in wrath

The conflict, whetting his white tusks aslant:

Foam drops around his churning jaws; his eyes

Show like to glimmering fires, and o’er his neck

And roughen’d back he raises up erect

The starting bristles, from the chariot whirl’d

By steeds of war such leap’d the son of Jove.

’Twas in that season when, on some green bough

High-perch’d, the dusky-wing’d cicada first

Shrill chants to man a summer note; his drink,

His balmy food, the vegetative dew:

The livelong day from early dawn he pours

His voice, what time the sun’s exhaustive heat

Fierce dries the frame: ’twas in that season when

The bristly ears of millet spring with grain

Which they in summer sow: when the crude grape

Faint reddens on the vine, which Bacchus gave
The joy or anguish of the race of men;—
E’en in that season join’d the war; and vast
The battle’s tumult rose into the heaven.
[273]As two grim lions for a roebuck slain
Wroth in contention rush, and them betwixt
The sound of roaring and of clashing teeth
Ariseth; or [274]as vultures, curved of beak,
Crooked of talon, on a steepy rock
Contest loud-screaming; if perchance below
Some mountain-pastur’d goat or forest-stag

Sleek press the plain; whom far the hunter youth

Pierced with fleet arrow from the bow-string shrill

Dismiss’d, and elsewhere wander’d, of the spot

Unknowing: they with keenest heed the prize
Mark, and in swooping rage each other tear
With bitterest conflict: so vociferous rush’d
The warriors on each other. Cygnus, then,
Aiming to slay the son of Jupiter

Unmatch’d in strength, against the buckler struck

His brazen lance, but through the metal plate
Broke not; the present of a god preserved.
On th’ other side he of Amphitryon named,
Strong Hercules, between the helm and shield
Drove his long spear; and underneath the chin

Through the bare neck smote violent and swift.

The murderous ashen beam at once the nerves

Twain of the neck cut sheer; for all the man

Drop’d, and his force went from him: down he fell

Headlong: [275]as falls a thunder-blasted oak,

Or sky-capt rock, riven by the lightning shaft

Of Jove, in smouldering smoke is hurl’d from high,

So fell he: and his brass-emblazon’d mail
Clatter’d around him. Jove’s firm-hearted son
Then left the corse, abandon’d where it lay:
But wary watch’d the mortal-slayer god

Approach, and view’d him o’er with terrible eyes

Stern-lowering. [276]As a lion, who has fall’n

Perchance on some stray beast, with griping claws

Intent, strips down the lacerated hide;

Drains instantaneous the sweet life, and gluts

E’en to the fill his gloomy heart with blood;

Green-eyed he glares in fierceness; with his tail

Lashes his shoulders and his swelling sides,

And with his feet tears up the ground; not one

Might dare to look upon him, nor advance
Nigh, with desire of conflict: such in truth
The war-insatiate Hercules to Mars
Stood in array, and gather’d in his soul

Prompt courage. But the other near approach’d,

Anguish’d at heart; and both encountering rush’d

With cries of battle. As when from high ridge
Of some hill-top abrupt, tumbles a crag
Precipitous, and sheer, a giddy space,
Bounds in a whirl and rolls impetuous down:

Shrill rings the vehement crash, till some steep clift

Obstructs: to this the mass is borne along;
This wedges it immoveable: e’en so
Destroyer Mars, bowing the chariot, rush’d,
Yelling vociferous with a shout: e’en so,
As utterance prompt, met Hercules the shock
And firm sustain’d. But Jove-born Pallas came
With darkening shield uplifted, and to Mars
Stood interposed: and scowling with her eyes
Tremendous, thus address’d her winged words:

“Mars! hold thy furious valour: stay those hands

In prowess inaccessible: for know
It is not lawful for thee to divest
Slain Hercules of these his gorgeous arms,
Bold-hearted son of Jove: but come; rest thou
From battle, nor oppose thyself to me.”
She said: nor yet persuaded aught the soul

Of Mars, the mighty of heart. With a great shout

He, brandishing his weapon like a flame,

Sprang rapid upon Hercules, in haste

To slay; and, for his slaughter’d son incensed,

With violent effort hurl’d his brazen spear

’Gainst the capacious targe. The blue-eyed maid

[277]Stoop’d from the chariot, and the javelin’s force

Turn’d wide. Sore torment seiz’d the breast of Mars:

He bared his keen-edged falchion, and at once
Rush’d on the dauntless Hercules: but he,
The war-insatiate, as the God approach’d,

Beneath the well-wrought shield the thigh exposed

Wounded with all his strength, and thrusting rived

The shield’s large disk, and cleft it with his lance,

And in the middle-way threw him to earth

Prostrate. But Fear and Consternation swift

Urged nigh his well-wheel’d chariot: from the face

Of broad-track’d earth they raised him on the car

Variously framed: thence lash’d with scourge the steeds,

And bounding up the vast Olympus flew.
But now Alcmena’s son and his compeer,
The glorious Ioläus, having stripp’d

From Cygnus’ shoulders the fair armour’s spoil,

Retraced their way direct, and instant reach’d

The city Trachys with their fleet-hoof’d steeds:

While pass’d the goddess of the azure eyes
To great Olympus, and her father’s towers.
But Ceyx o’er the corse of Cygnus raised
A tomb. Innumerable people graced
His obsequies: both they who dwelt hard by
The city of the illustrious king, and they
Of Anthe, of Iolchos wide-renown’d,
Of Arne, of the Myrmidonian towers,
And Helice. So gather’d there around
A numerous people: honouring duteous thus
Ceyx, beloved of the blessed gods.
But [278]the huge mount and monumental stone
Anaurus, foaming high with wintry rains,
Swept from the sight away: Apollo this
Commanded: for that Cygnus ambush’d spoil’d
In violence the Delphic hecatombs.

FOOTNOTES

[252] In height surpass’d.] Aristotle observes that persons of small stature may be elegantly and justly formed, but cannot be styled beautiful, Ethics, iv. 7. Xenophon in his Cyropædia, ii. 5, describes the beautiful Panthea as “of surpassing height and vigour.” Theocritus mentions a fulness of form as equally characteristic of beauty:

So bloom’d the charming Helen in our eyes

With full voluptuous limbs and towering size:

In shape, in height, in stately presence fair,

Straight as a furrow gliding from the share:

A cypress of the gardens, spiring high,

A courser in the cars of Thessaly.

Idyl, xviii.

It is remarkable that Chaucer appears to glance at this comparison:

Winsing she was, as is a jollie colt,

Long as a maste and upright as a bolt.

The Miller’s Tale.

[253]

From the darkening lashes of her eyes

She breathed enamouring odour.]

I am satisfied that this is to be taken in a literal, not in a metaphysical or poetic sense. Nearly all the Greek female epithets had a reference to some artificial mode of heightening the personal allurements: as rosy-fingered; rosy-elbowed: I think κυανεαων, black, is an epithet of the same cast: and alludes to the darkening of the eye-lid by the rim drawn round it with a needle dipped in antimonial oil. “The eye-lashes breathing of Venus,” has a palpable connexion with this. Athenæus, xv. describes the several unguents for the hair, breast, and arms, which were in use among the Greeks, as impregnated with the odour of rose, myrtle, or crocus. The oily dye employed by the women to blacken their eye-brows and eye-lashes was doubtless perfumed in the same manner. Virgil probably had in his mind the perfumed hair of a Roman lady, when he described the tresses of Venus breathing ambrosia, Æn. i. 402:

She spoke and turn’d: her neck averted shed
A light that glow’d ‘celestial rosy red:’
The locks that loosen’d from her temples flew

Breathing heaven’s odours, dropp’d ambrosial dew.

[254] Those herds, the cause of strife.] The story commonly runs, that the Taphians, and Teloboans, a lawless and piratical people, had made an inroad into the territory of Argos, and carried off Electryon’s herds: that in the pursuit a battle took place, and the robbers killed the brothers of Alcmena: and Amphitryon himself accidentally killed Electryon. But it should appear from Hesiod that he killed him by design on some provocation or dispute.

[255] The wall of Thebes.] Noah was directed in express terms to build Thiba, an ark: it is the very word made use of by the sacred writer. Many colonies that went abroad styled themselves Thebeans, in reference to the ark: as the memory of the deluge was held very sacred. Hence there occur many cities of the name of Theba, not in Ægypt only and Bœotia, but in Cilicia, Ionia, Attica, &c. It was sometimes expressed Thiba; a town of which name was in Pontus: it is called Thibis by Pliny; and he mentions a notion which prevailed, that the people of this place could not sink in water. Bryant.

[256] Bull-visaged Neptune.] The patriarch was esteemed the great deity of the sea: and at the same time was represented under the semblance of a bull, or with the head of that animal: and as all rivers were looked upon as the children of the ocean, they likewise were represented in the same manner. Bryant.

This seems to have been a double emblem: referring to the bull Apis, the representative of the father of husbandry, Osiris, and to the roaring of waters.

[257] Mingled metal.] Ηλεκτρον is not amber, but a mixed metal: which Pliny describes as consisting of three parts gold, and the fourth silver. Electrum is one of the materials in the Shield of Æneas, Æn. viii.:

And mingled metals damask’d o’er with gold.

Pitt.

[258] Pursuit was there.] Homer, Il. vi. 5:

She charged her shoulder with the dreadful Shield,

The shaggy Ægis, border’d thick around

With Terror: there was Discord, Prowess there,

There hot Pursuit.

There Discord raged, there Tumult, and the force

Of ruthless Destiny. She now a chief
Seiz’d newly wounded, and now captive held
Another yet unhurt, and now a third

Dragg’d breathless through the battle by his feet:

And all her garb was dappled thick with blood.

Like living men they travers’d and they strove,

And dragg’d by turns the bodies of the slain.

Cowper, book xviii. Shield of Achilles.

[259] Herds of boars.] That animal (the wild boar) was no less terrible on the opposite coast of Asia than in Greece: as we learn from Herodotus, book i. c. 34. Gillies.

[260] The battle of the Lapithæ.] This forms the subject of the alto-relievo on the entablature of the Parthenon, or the temple of Minerva: ascribed to Phidias. See the “Memorandum” on the Elgin marbles.

[261] Some from their city.] Homer, Il. book xvii. Shield of Achilles:

The other city by two glittering hosts
Invested stood: and a dispute arose
Between the hosts, whether to burn the town
And lay all waste, or to divide the spoil.
Meantime the citizens, still undismay’d,
Surrender’d not the town, but taking arms
Prepared an ambush; and the wives and boys,
With all the hoary elders, kept the walls.

Cowper.

[262]

And near to them

Stood Misery.]

Warton observes, History of English poetry, vol. i. p. 468: “The French and Italian poets, whom Chaucer imitates, abound in allegorical personages: and it is remarkable that the early poets of Greece and Rome were fond of these creations: we have in Hesiod ‘Darkness:’ and many others; if the Shield of Hercules be of his hand.” But it seems to have escaped the writer that it is not literal, but figurative Darkness which is personified. Guietus ingeniously supposes that it is meant for the dimness of death. Homer, indeed, applies to this the same term: in the death of Eurymachus, Od. xxii. 88:

Κατ’ οφθαλμων δ’ εχυτ’ ΑΧΛΥΣ.

A darkening mist was pour’d upon his eyes.

Tanaquil Faber, on Longinus, contends that αχλυς is here Sorrow. Sorrow is personified in a fragment of Ennius:

Omnibus endo locis ingens apparet imago

Tristitia.

Sorrow, a giant form, uprears the head

In every place.

This is adopted by Grævius and Robinson. In like manner φως its opposite, light, is often used for χαρα, joy: as appears in the oriental style of scripture. But they have omitted to notice that this is a specific sorrow: for what connexion have these horrible symptoms with sorrow in general? I conceive that the prosopopœia describes the misery attendant on war: and especially in a city besieged, with its usual accompaniments of famine, blood, and tears, and the dust or ashes of mourning. Longinus selects the line “an ichor from her nostrils flowed,” as an instance of the false sublime; and compares it with Homer’s verse on Discord,

Treading on earth, her forehead touches heaven.

This is to compare two things totally unlike: why should an image of exhaustion and disease be thought to aim at sublimity? The objection of Longinus that it tends to excite disgust rather than terror is nugatory. The poet did not intend to excite terror, but horror: that kind of horror which arises from the contemplation of physical suffering.

[263] A well-tower’d city.] Homer, Il. book xviii. Shield of Achilles:

Two splendid cities also there he form’d
Such as men build: in one were to be seen
Rites matrimonial solemnized with pomp

Of sumptuous banquets. Forth they led the brides

Each from her chamber, and along the streets
With torches usher’d them: and with the voice
Of hymeneal song heard all around.

Here striplings danced in circles to the sound

Of pipe and harp; while in the portals stood

Women, admiring all the gallant show.

Cowper.

[264] Vaulted on steeds.] This circumstance has been thought to betray a later age: as it is alleged, that the only instance of riding on horseback mentioned by Homer is that of Diomed, who, with Ulysses, rides the horses of Rhesus of which he has made prize. But though chariot-horses only are found in the Homeric battles, there is an allusion to horsemanship, as an exhibition of skill, in a simile of the 15th book of the Iliad, v. 679; where the rider is described as riding four horses at once, and vaulting from one to the other.

[265] Others as husbandmen appear’d.] Homer Il. xviii. Shield of Achilles:

He also graved on it a fallow field

Rich, spacious, and well-till’d. Plowers not few

There driving to and fro their sturdy teams
Labour’d the ground.
There too he form’d the likeness of a field

Crowded with corn: in which the reapers toil’d

Each with a sharp-tooth’d sickle in his hand.

Along the furrow here the harvest fell

In frequent handfuls: there they bound the sheaves.

Cowper.

[266] In baskets thus up-piled.] Homer Il. xviii. Shield of Achilles:

There also, laden with its fruit, he form’d
A vineyard all of gold: purple he made
The clusters: and the vines supported stood
By poles of silver, set in even rows.
The trench he colour’d sable, and around
Fenced it with tin. One only path it show’d:

By which the gatherers, when they stripp’d the vines,

Pass’d and repass’d. There youths and maidens blithe

In frails of wicker bore the luscious fruit;
While in the midst a boy on his shrill harp
Harmonious play’d: and ever as he struck
The chord, sang to it with a slender voice.
They smote the ground together, and with song
And sprightly reed came dancing on behind.

Cowper.

[267]

Hung

The charioteers.]

This may be compared with the chariot-race at the funeral games of Patroclus, in the Iliad, xxiii. 362, to which, however, it is very inferior.

All raised the lash together; with the reins

All smote their steeds, and urged them to the strife

Vociferating: they with rapid pace
Scouring the field soon left the fleet afar.
Dark, like a stormy cloud, uprose the dust
Beneath them, and their undulating manes
Play’d in the breezes: now the level field

With gliding course, the rugged now they pass’d

With bounding wheels aloft: meantime erect

The drivers stood: with palpitating heart

Each sought the prize: each urged his steeds aloud;

They, flying, fill’d with dust the darken’d air.

Cowper.

This description apparently suggested to Virgil the chariot-race in the Georgics iii. 402, which Dryden has rendered with all the fire of the original.

[268] The ocean flow’d.] Homer, Il. xviii. Shield of Achilles:

Last with the might of ocean’s boundless flood

He fill’d the border of the wondrous shield.

Cowper.

[269] Race of the far-famed Lyngeus.] Lyngeus was the ancestor of Perseus, the son of Danaë, and the father of Alcæus: of whom Amphitryon was the son.

[270]

As rocks

From some high mountain-top.]

Homer, Il. book xiii.

Then Hector led himself
Right on: impetuous as a rolling rock
Destructive: torn by torrent waters off
From its old lodgment on the mountain’s brow,
It bounds, it shoots away: the crashing wood
Falls under it: impediment or check
None stays its fury, till the level found
At last, there overcome it rolls no more.

Cowper.

[271] He cast forth dews of blood.] Iliad, xvi, 459. Death of Sarpedon:

The Sire of gods and men
Dissented not: but on the earth distill’d
A sanguine shower, in honour of a son
Dear to him.

Cowper.

[272] As in the mountain thickets.] Homer, Iliad xiii.

As in the mountains, conscious of his force,
The wild boar waits a coming multitude
Of boisterous hunters to his lone retreat:
Arching his bristly spine he stands: his eyes

Beam fire: and whetting his bright tusks, he burns

To drive not dogs alone, but men, to flight:

So stood the royal Cretan.

Cowper.

[273] As two grim lions.] Iliad xvi.:

Then contest such
Arose between them, as two lions wage
Contending in the mountains for a deer

New-slain: both hunger-pinched, and haughty both.

Cowper.

[274] As vultures curved of beak.] Iliad xvi.:

As two vultures fight
Bow-beak’d, crook-talon’d, on some lofty rock
Clanging their plumes, so they together rush
With dreadful cries.

Cowper.

[275] As falls a thunder-blasted oak.] Iliad xiv.:

As when Jove’s arm omnipotent an oak
Prostrates uprooted on the plain: a fume
Rises sulphureous from the riven trunk;
So fell the might of Hector, to the earth
Smitten at once. Down dropp’d his idle spear,
And with his helmet and his shield, himself
Also: loud thunder’d all his gorgeous arms.

Cowper.

[276]

As a lion, who has fall’n

Perchance on some stray beast.]

Iliad xvii.:

But as the lion on the mountains bred

Glorious in strength, when he hath seiz’d the best

And fairest of the herd, with savage fangs

First breaks the neck, then laps the bloody paunch,

Torn wide: meantime around him, but remote,

Dogs stand, and huntsmen shouting, yet by fear

Repress’d, annoy him not, nor dare approach;
So these all wanted courage to oppose
The glorious Menelaus.

Cowper.

[277] Stoop’d from the chariot.] Iliad v.:

When with determin’d fury Mars

O’er yoke and bridle hurl’d his glittering spear:

Minerva caught: and turning it, it pass’d

The hero’s chariot-side, dismiss’d in vain.

Cowper.

[278] The huge mount and monumental stone.] By the words tomb and monument, ταφος and σημα, I understand a mount of earth and a pillar of stone on the top of it: although Homer Il. xxiv. v. 801, applies σημα to the mount: which he seems to describe as raised of stones:

Χευαντες δε το σημα, παλιν κιον.

So casting up the tomb, they back return’d.

Appendix.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

George Chapman was born in 1557. Wood, in the Athenæ Oxonienses, imagines that he was a sworn servant either to James the First or his queen; and says that he was highly valued; but not so much as Ben Jonson: “a person of most reverend aspect, religious and temperate, qualities rarely meeting in a poet.” After living to the age of 77 years he died on the 12th day of May 1634, in the parish of St. Giles’s in the Fields, and was buried there on the south side of the church-yard. His friend Inigo Jones erected a monument to his memory. Of his[279] translation of Homer, Dryden tells us that Waller used to say he never could read it without incredible transport. Besides other translations and poems, he was the author of 17 dramatic pieces.—See Dodsley’s Collections of Old Plays, vol. iv.

His version of “The Georgicks of Hesiod” is inscribed in an Epistle Dedicatorie to “The most noble Combiner of Learning and Honour Sir Francis Bacon, Knight; Lord High Chancellor of England, &c.” and prefixed are two copies of commendatory verses with the signatures of Michael Drayton, and Ben Jonson.

This version is generally faithful both to the sense and spirit of the author. Amidst much quaintness of style and ruggedness of numbers, we meet with gleams of a rich expression and with a grasp of language, which, however extravagantly bold, bears the stamp of a genuine poet. Cooke had probably not seen this translation, or he must have avoided many of the errors into which he fell.

SPECIMENS OF CHAPMAN’S HESIOD.
WITH GLOSSARIAL AND CRITICAL EXPLANATIONS.

I.

Thus to him began
The Cloud-Assembler: Thou most crafty Man,
That ioy’st to steale my fire, deceiuing Me,

Shalte feele that Ioy the greater griefe to thee;

And therein plague thy vniuersall Race:

To whom Ile giue a pleasing ill, in place

Of that good fire: And all shall be so vaine

To place their pleasure in embracing paine.

Thus spake, and laught, of Gods and Men the Sire;

And straight enioyn’d the famous God of fire
To mingle instantly, with Water, Earth;
The voyce, and vigor, of a humane Birth
Imposing in it; And so faire a face,
As matcht th’ Immortall Goddesses in grace:
Her forme presenting a most louely Maid:
Then on Minerua his Command he laid,

To make her worke, and wield the wittie loome:

And (for her Beauty) such as might become
The Golden Venus, He commanded Her
Vpon her Browes and Countenance to conferre
Her own Bewitchings: stuffing all her Breast
With wilde Desires, incapable of Rest;
And Cares, [280] that feed to all satiety
All human Lineaments. The Crafty spy,
And Messenger of Godheads, Mercury

He charg’d t’ informe her with a dogged Minde,

And theeuish Manners. All as he design’d
Was put in act. A Creature straight had frame
Like to a Virgine; Milde and full of Shame:

Which Ioue’s Suggestion made the [281]both-foot lame

Forme so deceitfully; And all of Earth
To forge the liuing Matter of her Birth.
Gray-ey’d Minerua Put her Girdle on;

And show’d how loose parts, wel-composed, shone.

The deified Graces, And [282]the Dame that sets

Sweet words in chiefe forme, Golden [283]Carquenets

Embrac’d her Neck withall; the faire-haird Howers

Her gracious Temples crown’d, with fresh spring-flowers;

But all of these, imploy’d in seuerall place,
Pallas gaue Order; the impulsiue grace.
Her bosome, Hermes, the great God of spies,

With subtle fashions fill’d; faire words and lies;

Ioue prompting still. But all the voyce she vs’d

The vocall Herald of the Gods infus’d;
And call’d her name Pandora; Since on Her
The Gods did all their seuerall gifts confer:
Who made her such, in euery moouing straine,
To be the Bane of curious Minded Men.

II.

When therefore first fit plow time doth disclose;

Put on with spirit; All, as one, dispose

Thy Servants and thy selfe: plow wet and drie;

And when Aurora first affords her eye

In Spring-time turn the earth vp; which see done

Againe, past all faile, by the Summers Sunne.

Hasten thy labours, that thy crowned fields

May load themselues to thee, and [284]rack their yeelds.

The Tilth-field sowe, on Earth’s most light foundations;

The Tilth-field, banisher of execrations,

Pleaser of Sonnes and Daughters: which t’ improve

With all wisht profits, pray to earthly Ioue,
And vertuous Ceres; that on all such suits
Her sacred gift bestowes, in blessing fruits.

When first thou enterst foot to plow thy land,

And on thy plow-staffe’s top hast laid thy hand;

Thy Oxens backs that next thee by a Chaine
Thy Oken draught-Tree drawe, put to the paine
Thy Goad imposes. And thy Boy behinde,
That with his Iron Rake thou hast design’d,
To hide thy seed, Let from his labour drive
The Birds, that offer on thy sweat to liue.

The best thing, that in humane Needs doth fall,

Is Industry; and Sloath the worst of all.

With one thy Corne ears shall with fruit abound;

And bow their thankfull forheads to the ground;

With th’ other, scarce thy seed again redound.

III.

But if thou shouldst sow late, this well may be

In all thy Slacknesse an excuse for thee:

When, in the Oakes greene arms the Cuckoe sings,

And first delights Men in the louely springs;

If much raine fall, ’tis fit then to defer

Thy sowing worke. But how much raine to beare,

And [285]let no labour, to that Much give eare:

Past intermission let Ioue steepe the grasse
Three daies together, so he do not passe
An Oxes hoofe in depth; and neuer [286]stay
To strowe thy seed in: (but if deeper way

Ioue with his raine makes; then forbeare the field;)

For late sowne then will [287]past the formost yield.

Minde well all this, nor let it fly thy powrs

To knowe what fits the white spring’s early flowrs;

Nor when raines timely fall: Nor when sharp colde,

In winter’s wrath, doth men from worke withholde,

Sit by Smiths forges, nor warme tauernes hant;

Nor let the bitterest of the season dant

Thy thrift-arm’d [288]paines, [289]like idle Pouertie;

For then the time is when th’ industrious [290]Thie

Vpholdes, with all increase, his Familie:

With whose [291]rich hardness spirited, do thou

[292]Poor Delicacie flie; lest frost and snowe

[293]Fled for her loue, Hunger [294]sit both them out,

And make thee, with the beggar’s lazie gout

Sit stooping to the paine, still pointing too’t,

And with a leane hand stroke a [295]foggie foot.

IV.

When aire’s chill North his noisome frosts shall blowe

All ouer earth, and all the wide sea throwe

At Heauen in hills, from colde horse-breeding Thrace;

The beaten earth, and all her Syluane race

Roring and bellowing with his bitter strokes;

[296]Plumps of thick firre-trees and high crested-Okes

Torne up in vallies; [297]all Aire’s floud let flie

In him, at Earth; [298] sad nurse of all that die.

Wilde beasts abhor him; and run clapping close

Their sterns betwixt their thighs; and euen all those

Whose hides their fleeces line with highest proofe;

Euen Oxe-hides also want expulsive stuffe,

And bristled goates, against his bitter gale:

He blowes so colde, he beates quite through them all.

Onely with silly sheep it fares not so;

For they each summer [299]fleec’t, their [300]fells so growe,

[301]They shield all winter crusht into his winde.

He makes the olde Man trudge for life, to finde

Shelter against him; but he cannot blast
The tender and the delicately grac’t
Flesh of the virgin; she is kept within,
Close by her mother, careful of her skin:
[302]Since yet she neuer knew how to enfolde

The force of Venus [303]swimming all in golde.

Whose Snowie bosome choicely washt and balm’d

With wealthy oiles, she keepes the house becalm’d,

All winter’s spight; when in his fire-lesse shed

And miserable roofe still hiding head,

The bonelesse fish doth eat his feet for colde:

To whom the Sunne doth neuer food vnfolde;

But turnes aboue the blacke Mens populous towrs,

On whom he more bestowes his radiant howres

That on th’ Hellenians: then all Beasts of horne,

And smooth-brow’d, that in beds of wood are borne,

About the Oken dales that North-winde flie,
Gnashing their teeth with restlesse miserie;
And euerywhere that [304]Care solicits all,

That ([305]out of shelter) to their Couerts fall,

And Cauerns eaten into Rocks; and then

Those wilde Beasts shrink, like tame three-footed Men,

Whose backs are broke with age, and forheads driu’n

To stoope to Earth, though borne to looke on Heav’n.

Euen like to these, Those tough-bred rude ones goe,

Flying the white drifts of the Northerne Snowe.

V.

But then betake thee to the shade that lies

In shield of Rocks; drinke Biblian wine, and eate

The creamy wafer: Gotes milke, that the Teate

Giues newly free, and nurses Kids no more:

Flesh of Bow-brousing Beeues, that neuer bore,

And tender kids. And to these, taste black wine,

The third part water, of the Crystaline

Still flowing fount, that feeds a streame beneath;

And sit in shades, where temperate gales may breath

On thy oppos’d cheeks. When Orion’s raies
His influence, in first ascent, assaies,
Then to thy labouring Seruants giue command,
[306]To dight the sacred gift of Ceres hand,

In some place windie, on a [307]well-planed floore;

Which, all by measure, into Vessels poure;

Make then thy Man-swaine, one that hath no house;

Thy handmaid one, that hath nor child nor spouse;

Handmaids, that children have, are rauenous.

A Mastiffe likewise, nourish still at home;

Whose teeth are sharp, and close as any Combe;

And meat him well, to keep with stronger guard

The Day-sleep-wake-Night Man from forth thy yard:

That else thy Goods into his Caues will beare:

[308]Inne Hay and Chaffe enough for all the yeare,

To serve thy Oxen and thy Mules; and then

Loose them: and ease [309]the dear knees of thy Men.

VI.

If of a Chance-complaining Man at seas
The humor take thee; when the Pleiades
Hide head, and flie the fierce Orion’s chace,
And the darke-deep Oceanus embrace;
Then diuerse Gusts of violent winds arise;
And then attempt no Nauall enterprize.
But ply thy Land affaires, and draw ashore

Thy Ship; and fence her round with stonage store

To shield her Ribs against the [310]humorous Gales;

Her Pump exhausted, lest Ioue’s rainie falls
Breed putrefaction. All tooles fit for her,
And all her tacklings, to thy House confer:
Contracting orderly all needfull things
That imp a water-treading Vessel’s wings;

Her well-wrought Sterne hang in the smoke at home,

Attending time, till fit Sea Seasons come.—

When thy vaine Minde then would Sea-ventures try,

[311]In loue the Land-Rocks of loath’d Debt to fly,

And Hunger’s euer-harsh-to-hear-of cry:
Ile set before thee all the Trim and Dresse
Of those still-roaring-noise-resounding Seas:
Though neither skild in either Ship or Saile
Nor euer was at Sea; Or, lest I faile,
But for Eubœa once; from Aulis where

The Greeks, with Tempest driuen, for shore did stere

Their mighty Nauie, gatherd to employ

For sacred Greece gainst faire-dame-breeding Troy.

To Chalcis there I made by Sea my passe;
And to the Games of great Amphidamas;
Where many a fore-studied Exercise
Was instituted with excitefull prise
For great-and-good, and able-minded Men;
And where I wonne, at the Pierian Pen,
A three-ear’d Tripod, which I offer’d on
The Altars of the Maids of Helicon.
Where first their loues initiated me
In skill of their unworldly Harmony.

But no more practise have my trauailes [312]swet,

In many-a-naile-composed ships; and yet

Ile sing what Ioue’s Minde will suggest in mine

Whose daughters taught my verse the rage diuine.

FOOTNOTES

[279] Granger, in his biographical history of England, speaks slightingly of Chapman’s Homer on Pope’s authority. Pope singularly explains what he considers as the defects of this translation, by saying that “the nature of the man may account for his whole performance: as he appears to have been of an arrogant turn, and an enthusiast in poetry.” A strange disqualification! He confesses, also, that “what very much contributed to cover his defects, is a daring fiery spirit that animates his translation: which is something like what one might imagine Homer himself would have written before he arrived at years of discretion.” Preface to Homer.

Mr. Godwin, in his “Lives of Edward and John Philips, nephews of Milton,” has illustrated the natural energy of style in Chapman’s Homer with critical taste and just feeling. Chap. x. p. 243.

[280] Feed upon or emaciate the features by dissipated excess.

[281] Vulcan.

[282] Persuasion.

[283] Necklaces; from Carquan, Fr. or Carcan. Dict. de l’Ac. Fr.

Threading a carkanet of pure round pearl.

Sir W. Davenant. The Wits, a comedy.

[284] To rack here means to give what is exacted; yeelds is yieldings, produce.

[285] Hinder.

[286] Hesitate.

[287] Beyond that which was sown first.

[288] Exertions.

[289] So much as.

[290] The Man of Thrift. Thie in the old Saxon is thrift.

[291] Animated with whose hardihood in braving the season for the sake of wealth.

[292] Slothful averseness to meet the rigour of the season, of which the consequence is poverty.

[293] Avoided through love of delicacy; or slothful indulgence.

[294] Remain unemployed; sit starving in idleness as long as the frost and snow endure.

[295] Thick, swollen.

[296] Clusters.

[297] The whole deluge of air being let loose in him, the (north-wind) on the surface of earth.

[298] In the original, many-nourishing. Chapman has elsewhere more faithfully the same epithet “many-a-creature-nourishing earth.”

[299] Being sheared.

[300] Skins.

[301] They keep out the whole force of the winter, which is concentrated in his (the winter’s) wind.

[302] She was of too tender an age to sustain the bridal embrace.

[303] A Grecism: swimming in beauty: in the Greek, many-golden Venus: abounding with charms.

[304] The care of seeking shelter.

[305] Being in need of shelter.

[306] To dress, or prepare by thrashing.

[307] Well-smooth’d or levell’d.

[308] Stow in.

[309] A Grecism: Dear in Greek being synonymous with his, hers, their: and in this instance an expletive.

[310] Humid.

[311] With the wish or desire.

[312] Sweated through; toiled through.

THE END.

C. Baldwin, Printer,
New Bridge-street. London.

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Table of Contents

- THE REMAINS OF HESIOD THE ASCRÆAN

- PREFACE.

- FOOTNOTES

- DISSERTATION ON THE LIFE AND ÆRA OF HESIOD, HIS POEMS, AND MYTHOLOGY.

- SECTION I. ON THE LIFE OF HESIOD.

- FOOTNOTES

- SECTION II. ON THE ÆRA OF HESIOD.

- FOOTNOTES

- SECTION III. ON THE POEMS OF HESIOD.[12]

- FOOTNOTES

- SECTION IV. ON THE MYTHOLOGY OF HESIOD.

- FOOTNOTES

- The Works and Days.

- THE WORKS AND DAYS.

- The Argument.

- WORKS.

- I.

- II.

- DAYS.

- FOOTNOTES

- The Theogony.

- THE THEOGONY.

- The Argument.

- THE THEOGONY.

- FOOTNOTES

- The Shield of Hercules.

- THE SHIELD OF HERCULES.

- The Argument.

- THE SHIELD OF HERCULES.

- FOOTNOTES

- Appendix.

- BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

- SPECIMENS OF CHAPMAN’S HESIOD. WITH GLOSSARIAL AND CRITICAL EXPLANATIONS.

- I.

- II.

- III.

- IV.

- V.

- VI.

- FOOTNOTES

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE