8 Essay on the Pf^ritings of Hesiod. 



It is evident, however, tliat very material interpolations must nataraliy 

 have taken place in poems which have descended to us under such cir- 

 cumstances as have attended the earlier fortunes of the productions of 

 Homer and Hesiod ; for the history of both is so identified, that we 

 cannot well separate the one from the other, which must be our excuse 

 for having thus far dwelt on the former, who is only thus indirectly con- 

 nected with our proper subject. The influence which this transmission 

 tlirough the channel of the Rhapsodists has produced on the poems of 

 Hesiod, has been so ably described by the pen of the most philosophical 

 and learned of all the critics who have illustrated any of these compositions, 

 that I cannot better sum up my remarks on this subject, than by translat- 

 ing a paragraph from Wolf's introduction to his observations on the 

 Theogony. 



" The Rhapsodists, on whose care the transmission of the older poets 

 depended, being for the most part poets themselves, and having also their 

 memories stored with such an immense variety of the verses of others so 

 often treating of identical or similar subjects, and always pouring forth 

 their effusions under the influence of strong excitement, and with the 

 affectation of a species of divine impulse, it may be well doubted whether 

 such persons were likely to be the most faithful and scrupulous guardians 

 of the compositions thus entrusted to them ; and moreover, the style of the 

 original authors had not yet attained that more elegant artifice of struc- 

 ture, in which the general harmony forbids extraneous addition j but 

 rather such was the prevailing simplicity of style and diction, and the 

 whole narrative was so much carried on by disconnected paragraphs and 

 clauses, (omnia ita membratim atque inclsim procurrunt) that the greatest 

 facility, whether of interpolation or substraction, was afibrded. With 

 these views I can little envy the easy judgment, not to say credulity of 

 those, if there be any such, who can persuade themselves that they read 

 the compositions of Homer and Hesiod, in as genuine and uncorrupted a 

 form, as did the Romans those of Lucretius and Virgil." 



We shall find ample illustrations of these remarks as we proceed to 

 examine, in detail, the Hesiodean remains ; but we may observe in limine 

 what appear to form the most striking instances of the interpolations in- 



With sorrow marks their grief, but soon again 



Exulting in the promise of iiis boys 



He fondly smiles ; his heart within him burns 



Doubly, for their dear sakes to brave the strife. 



An aged father o'er another bends, 



And girds, with old-experienc'd hand, around 



His son's young limbs, the needful fence of war. 



And much exhorts the youth, amid the press. 



No step to yield for life or death — and bares 



His own old sinewy breast, all seam'd with scars, 



The glorious marks of many a long struck field." 



