Hesiod, Horace, and an Officer of the U.S. Treasury Department

“ All above is grand and striking, and every declivity of the mountain is covered with luxuriant shrubs, or tenanted by browsing flocks. Higher up the mountain, at the distance of two miles and a half from this grove and from the fountain of Aganippe, was the fountain of Hippocrene, fabled to have sprung from the earth when struck by the hoof of Pegasus."
⁠From the Grove of the Muses, Dr. Clarke descended to the Permessus, and crossing that rivulet, he ascended in a northwest direction towards the higher parts of Helicon. ”

“ With precepts inculcating these two virtues of industry and economy, as well as the practice of justice and benevolence, we may say the work is replete; and it contains not a few political maxims, too, which it would be well for rulers and all other in authority to study and observe. Indeed, this old Greek farmer poet was
as full of wise saws and modern intances, almost, as Shakespear himself. ”

“ To the young farmer, mechanic, or laborer just commencing active life, its pre-house of precepts, maxims, and reflections, many of which have come down to the present day, are invaluable; and being in poetical form and easy of retention, they will the more readily impress themselves upon the memory, and will continue to impress themselves until they become "familiar in the ear as household words." ”

“ In order to understand why the ancients, nevertheless, regarded the Theogony as a Hesiodic work, we must recollect the traditions of the poet's parentage and the marvellous events of his life. It was on Mt. Helicon, the ancient seat of the Thracian Muses, that he was believed ta have been born and bred, and his descent was traced to Apollo; the idea of his having composed a work on the genealogies of the gods and heroes cannot, therefore, have appeared to the ancients as very surprising. ”

“ Will best assuage the troublous cares of life.
But if dark Pride and Passion reign instead,
Look out for breakers, there are storms ahead!
An evil temper is a withering curse,
It grows no better, and it may grow worse. ”

“ The first part of the poem, which contains several episodes and fables, by way of illustrating the lessons he strives to inculcate, consists of a series of precepts and reflections in praise of justice, piety, industry and economy, intended for the moral and religious conduct of the husbandman. The second gives a number of rules for the guidance of the practical farmer of his day; although their chief object is to exhort to activity, and to encourage habits of industry and economy, rather than to prescribe detailed regulations for carrying on the operations of farming. ”

“ As Bœotia, Phocis, and Eubœa were the principal parts of Greece where the Hesiodic poetry flourished, we cannot be surprised at finding that the Delphic oracle is a subject of great veneration with this school, and that there exists a strong resemblance between the hexameter oracles of the Pythia and the verses of Hesiod; nay, there is a verse in Hesiod, which is also mentioned by Herodotus as a Pythian oracle, and Hesiod himself is said to have possessed the gift of prophecy, and to have acquired it in Acarnania. ”

“ A level plain is seen below, having its woods and corn fields almost buried in the deep bosom of the mountain. A steep and rugged descent now conducted Dr. Clarke to the village of Zagara, which is divided into two parts by a river flowing across this valley, one part of the village being high above the other. The lower part stretches into the level plain; and above the upper part a small white edifice, the monastery of Panaja, appears embosomed among trees. Dr. Clarke has shown, we think, that this village is the Ascra of the ancients, the place of Hesiod's nativity. ”

“ At the neighboring Ascra dwelt the ancient Hesiod, a fact which probably enhanced the poetic fame of the region. Pausanias, who describes Helicon in his ninth book, asserts that it was the most fertile mountain in Greece, and that neither poisonous plant nor serpent was to be found in it, while many of its herbs possessed a marvellous healing virtue. The highest summit, the present Paleovuni (old hill) , rises to the height of about 5,000 feet. ”

“ The apparent object of the poem seems to be to counsel Perses to abandon the dishonorable practice of hanging around the Courts of Law, speculating in legal "corners," and endeavoring to enrich himself by robbing others, and to betake himself to the honest and more reputable pursuits of rural life, and to the observance of the laws of justice in his dealings with his fellow man, which, in Hesiod's eyes, constitutes the sum total of all human virtues. ”

“ Of dark despair, and make your toils a mock.
But he that holds out faithful shall secure
A happy life and fame that will endure.
Nor in less happ'ness shall that man rejoice
Who wisely hears Persuasion's warning voice;
But who to reason's warning gives no thought,
Or turns deaf ear, will surely come to nought.
With active labor, too, keep daily pace,
Lest grim starvation stare you in the face ”

“ The fires that soon assumed a fiercer glow.
Hate, pride, and insolence arose so high,
Man often gave his fellow man the lie.
Religion trembled on her very throne,
And gods themselves could scarce get justice done. ”

“ Respecting the life of the poet we derive some information from one of the poems ascribed to him, namely the Works and Days, We learn from that poem (648, etc.) that he was born in the village of Ascra, Bœotia, whither his father had emigrated from the Eolian Cuma in Asia Minor. Ephorus and Suidas state that both Homer and Hesiod were natives of Cuma, and even represent them as kinsmen,—a statement which probably arose from the belief that Hesiod was born before his father's emigration to Ascra ”

“ Sometimes a day is a stepmother, sometimes a mother. Blest and fortunate is he who knowingly does all things with reference to these days, unblamed by the immortals, discerning (i. e.—observing and respecting) the omens, and avoiding transgressions.
APPENDIX B. (1.)
⁠From Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography,
Vol II., Article, "Hesiod."
⁠Hesiodus, one of the earliest Greek poets, respecting whose personal history we possess little more authentic information than respecting that of Homer, together with whom he is frequently mentioned by the ancients. ”

“ Virtue, industry, economy recommended, and their rewards. Eagerness to acquire too much discountenanced. Ill-gotten wealth not durable. Hospitality, chastity, parental and filial affection, charity to the poor, and gratitude to Heaven enjoined. Beware of fraud and deception; to escape which, implicit faith and skeptical unbelief are both to be equally avoided. Precepts to be observed in providing for the future of one's children. Exhortation to industry and labor.
HINTS FROM THE WORKS AND DAYS OF
HESIOD. ”

“ But as "one touch of nature makes the whole world kin," so the denunciations against wrong in every shape to which he gives utterance, and the almost Christian morals he inculcates, have found an echo in all succeeding ages, not only among his own countrymen, but in countries also which at that time had no existence as nations. Perses, therefore, so far as we are concerned, may be regarded as a sort of ideal reader, and the readers of the present day may all profit by the admonitions and advice given to Perses. ”

“ So, we see, if necessity is the mother of invention she is also the mother of political economy. If Franklin were living now, he would probably think of something he then forgot, namely, that if a man marries very "early," he had better have a small fortune, or some well-paying trade, occupation, or profession to start with. ”

“ The description of the shield of Hercules is an imitation of the Homeric description of the shield of Achilles, but is done with less skill and ability. It should be remarked that some critics are inclined to look upon the Shield of Hercules as an independent poem, and wholly unconnected with the Eoæ, though they admit that it may contain various interpolations by later hands. The fragments of the Eoae are collected in Lehmann, De Hesiodi Carminibus perditis, pars 1, Berlin, 1828; in Goettling's edition of Hesiod, p. ”

“ Nor, in truth, is the Sixth day suitable for the birth of girls, but a favorable day tor cutting kids and flocks of sheep, and for building a fold for sheep. Fortunate is the day on which a man is born, but the same day is fond of uttering railleries, falsehoods, wily words, and stealthy fond discourses. ”

“ This age is designated probably on the ground that most men, if possessed of good habits, will, by that time, have become established in business, and better able to support a family. Benjamin Franklin, who was also wise in his day and generation, wrote a letter advocating early marriages—whatever age that may be—on the ground that young people assimilate better, form better habits, live more in accordance with the law of nature, but, chiefly, because America at that time needed population ”

“ It's a hard question to settle; but my own opinion as to age is that some men had better marry early, others later on, and some again—never; and this is just what they have been doing, time out of mind, and will continue to do until time is no more, the advice of poets and philosophers to the contrary notwithstanding. Only, it's sometimes the wrong men who marry, and the right men who don't. ”

“ These traditions show that Hesiod was looked upon and worshipped in Bœotia (and also in Phocis) as an ancient hero, and, like many other heroes, he was said to have been unjustly killed in the Grove of the Nemean Jupiter. All that we can say, under these circumstances, is that a poet or hero of the name of Hesiod was regarded by the ancients as the head and representative of that school of poetry which was based on the Thracian or Pierian bards, and was developed in Bœotia. ”

“ A free prose translation of the Days of Hesiod.
⁠Mind well, too, and teach thy servants fittingly the days appointed by Jove, to wit: ⁠The Thirtieth day of each month is the best both for inspecting work done, and distributing allotted sustenance, when the peoples observe it in deciding the right. (That is, for distributing the month's rations to the hired laborers; it also being a holiday in the courts of law.)
⁠And these following days are from counselling Jove: The First, the Fourth, and the Seventh are holy days; for on this last day Latona gave birth to Apollo of the golden sword. ”

“ Himself and treasures to oblivion's deep."
⁠To prevent a misconstruction of Hesiod's true meaning, in his constant exhortations to get wealth, it may be proper to add that he means simply the acquisition of an easy competence; and nothing he says can be construed as urging his countrymen to join in a general scramble for building up fortunes, as we do at the present day, and in which people must of necessity resort to all sorts of trickery in order to encompass that end. ”

“ Whether the form in which the Theogony has come down to us is the original and genuine one, and whether it is complete or only a fragment, is a question which has been much discussed in modern times. There can be little doubt but that in the course of time the poets of the Hesiodic school and the rhapsodists introduced various interpolations, which produced many of the inequalities both in the substance and form of the poem which we now perceive ”

“ It is in the Works and Days especially that we glean indications of Hesiod's rank and condition in life, that of a stay-at-home farmer of the lower class, whose sole experience of the sea was a single voyage of forty yards across the Euripus, and an old-fashioned bachelor whose mysogonic views and prejudice against matrimony have been conjecturadUy traced to his brother Perses having a wife as extravagant as himself. ”

“ In this light we consider, for example, the traditions that Stesichorus was a son of Hesiod, and that Hesiod had a poetical contest with Homer, which is said to have taken place at Chalcis during the funeral solemnities of King Amphidamas, or, according to others, at Aulis or Delos. The story of this contest gave rise to a composition still extant under the title of the Contest between Homer and Hesiod, the work of a grammarian who lived toward the end of the first century of our era, in which the two poets are represented as engaged in the contest and answering each other in their verses. ”

“ The Theogony gives an account of the origin of the world and the birth of the gods, explaining the whole order in a series of genealogies, for every part of physical as well as moral nature appears there personified in the character of a distinct being. The whole concludes with an account of some of the most illustrious heroes, whereby the poem enters into some kind of connection with the Homeric epics. ”

“ Hesiod complains of it as a disagreeable residence, both in summer and winter; and Eudoxus found still more fault with it. But other writers speak of it as abounding in com and in wine. According to the poet Hegesinus, who is quoted by Pausanias, Ascra was founded by Ephialtes and Otus, the sons of Alœus. In the time of Pausanias a single tower was all that remained of the town. The remains of Ascra, says Leake, are "found on the summit of a high conical hill, or rather rock, which is connected to the N. W. with Mt. Zagara, and more to the westward, with the proper Helicon. ”

“ Works and Days, (Latin, Opera et Dies.) In the time of Pausanias, this was the only poem which the people about Mt. Helicon considered to be a genuine production of Hesiod, with the exception of the first ten lines, which certainly appear to have been prefixed by a later hand. There are also several other parts of this poem which seem to be later interpolations; but, on the whole, it bears the impress of a genuine production of very high antiquity, though in its present form it may consist only of disjointed portions of the original. ”

“ The tendency of man, as well as of all other animals, to acquire by force and fraud. The fable of the "Hawk and the Swallow." Wrong in all shapes denounced. The happiness and prosperity of individuals and nations, who observe the laws of Justice, contrasted with the misery and divine punishment of those who disregard them. ”