This book contains the invocation to the whole, the general proposition, the story of Prometheus Epimetheus, and Pandora; a description of the golden age, silver age, brazen age, the age of heroes, and the iron age; a recommendation of virtue, from the temporal blessings with which good men are attended, and the condition of the wicked; and several moral precepts proper to be observed through the course of our lives.
SING, Muses, sing, from the Pierian grove; Begin the song, and let the theme be Jove; From him ye sprung, and him ye first should praise; From your immortal sire deduce your lays;
The Scholiast Tzetzes tells us, this poem was first called the Works and Days of Hesiod;' to distinguish it from another on the same subject, and of the same title, wrote by Orpheus. How much this may be depended on I cannot say; but Fabricius assures us from Pliny, book xviii. chap. 25, that Hesiod was the first who laid down rules for agriculture. It is certain, that of all the pieces of this nature which were before Virgil, and extant in his days, this was most esteemed by him; otherwise he would not have showed that respect to our author which he does quite through his
To him alone, to his great will, we owe
That we exist, and what we are below.
Whether we blaze among the sons of fame,
Or live obscurely, and without a name ;
Or noble, or ignoble, still we prove
Our lot determined by the will of Jove.
With ease he lifts the peasant to a crown,
With the same ease he casts the monarch down;
With ease he clouds the brightest name in night,
And calls the meanest to the fairest light;
At will he varies life through every state,
Unnerves the strong, and makes the crooked
straight.
Georgic. In one place he proposes him as a pattern in that great work, where, addressing to his country, he says,
tibi res antiquæ laudis et artis
Ingredior, sanctos ausus recludere fontes ;
Ascræumque cano, Romana per oppida, carmen.
For thee my tuneful accents will I raise,
And treat of arts disclosed in ancient days;
Once more unlock for thee the sacred spring,
And old Ascræan verse in Roman cities sing.
He begins the Georgic with an explanation of the title of the Works and Days.'
Quid faciat lætas segetes, quo șidere terram
Vertere, &c.
What makes a plenteous harvest, when to turn
The fruitly soil, and when to sow the corn.
for by Works' is meant the art of agriculture, and by 'Days'
the proper seasons for works.
See further in a Discourse on
the Writings of Hesiod prefixed.
Such Jove, who thunders terrible from high, Who dwells in mansions far above the sky. thou power supreme, vouchsafe thine
And let my judgment be by justice sway'd; 20 O! hear my vows, and thine assistance bring, While truths undoubted I to Perses sing.
As here on earth we tread the maze of life, The mind's divided in a double strife; One by the wise is thought deserving fame, And this attended by the greatest shame, The dismal source whence spring pernicious jars, The baneful fountain of destructive wars, Which, by the laws of arbitrary fate,
We follow, though by nature taught to hate; 30 From night's black realms this took its odious birth,
And one Jove planted in the womb of earth,
The better strife; by this the soul is fired
To arduous toils, nor with those toils is tired;
One sees his neighbour, with laborious hand,
Planting his orchard, or manuring land;
He sees another with industrious care,
Materials for the building art prepare;
Idle himself he sees them haste to rise,
Observes their growing wealth with envious eyes,
With emulation fired, beholds their store,
And toils with joy, who never toil'd before :
The artist envies what the artist gains,
The bard the rival bard's successful strains.
Perses, attend, my just decrees observe,
Nor from thy honest labour idly swerve;
The love of strife, that joys in evils, shun;
Nor to the forum from thy duty run.
How vain the wranglings of the bar to mind,
While Ceres, yellow goddess, is unkind!
But when propitious she has heap'd your store,
For others you may plead, and not before;
But let with justice your contentions prove,
And be your counsels such as come from Jove;
Not as of late when we divided lands,
You grasp'd at all with avaricious hands;
When the corrupted bench, for bribes well known,
Unjustly granted more than was your own.
Fools, blind to truth! nor knows their erring soul
How much the half is better than the whole, 60
How great the pleasure wholesome herbs afford,
How bless'd the frugal, and an honest board!
Would the immortal gods on men bestow
A mind, how few the wants of life to know;
They all the year from labour free might live
On what the bounty of a day would give;
They soon the rudder o'er the smoke would lay,
And let the mule and ox at leisure stray:
This sense to man the king of gods denies,
In wrath to him who daring robb'd the skies; 70
Dread ills the god prepared, unknown before,
And the stolen fire back to his heaven he bore:
But from Prometheus 'twas conceal'd in vain,
Which for the use of man he stole again,
And, artful in his fraud, brought from above
Closed in a hollow cane, deceiving Jove.
Again defrauded of celestial fire,
Thus spoke the cloud-compelling god in ire:
Son of Läpetus, o'er subtle, go,
And glory in thy artful theft below;
Now of the fire you boast by stealth retrieved, And triumph in almighty Jove deceived:
3 But thou too late shalt find the triumph vain, And read thy folly in succeeding pain; Posterity the sad effect shall know,
When, in pursuit of joy, they grasp their woe.'
He spoke, and told to Mulciber his will,
And, smiling, bade him his commands fulfil;
To use his greatest art, his nicest care,
To frame a creature exquisitely fair;
To temper
well the clay with water, then
To add the vigour and the voice of men ;
To let her first in virgin lustre shine,
In form a goddess, with a bloom divine.
And next, the sire demands Minerva's aid,
In all her various skill to train the maid;
Bids her the secrets of the loom impart,
To cast a curious thread with happy art:
And golden Venus was to teach the fair
The wiles of love, and to improve her air,
And then, in awful majesty, to shed
A thousand graceful charms around her head:
Next Hermes, artful god, must form her mind,
One day to torture and the next be kind;
With manners all deceitful, and her tongue
Fraught with abuse, and with detraction hung.
Jove gave the mandate; and the gods obey'd.
First Vulcan form'd of earth the blushing maid;
Minerva next perform'd the task assign'd,
With every female art adorn'd her mind.
To dress her, Suada and the Graces join;
Around her person, lo! the diamonds shine.
To deck her brows the fair-tress'd Seasons bring
A garland breathing all the sweets of spring.
Each present Pallas gives its proper place,
And adds to every ornament a grace.
|