On the Theogony. 45 



Movaaiav '&y.tKoiviaSoiv apxtafnQ' aeiCeiv, 

 AtO' "EXiicwvoc Exaff'*" opog ^iiya Tt ZaGEov re 

 Kai rs TTEpt Kptjviiv lotiSia Troircr' aTraXoiffiJ' 

 OpxtiivTat, Kai jSwjuov tptirSfi'soc Kpoviwvoe' 

 Kat rt Xoeaaafiipai rtptva x9°o- Utpfiticroio, 

 H 'linriiKpyivtjc, »; OXf^tis ^aQeoio 

 AKpoTUTOJ 'EXiKwi't x^P**? EWTotjjtravro 

 KaXsf, ifitpotvraQ' iirtppuiaavTO Se -n-oaaiv. 

 EvOev aTTOpvvfisvai KiKoXvuixivai 7)ipi ttoXXij 

 Evvf xio" TEiX"*') TtpiKaXXta oaaav luaai 



Now from the muses let our strain commence. 

 Who fondly haunt the vast and sacred hrow 

 Of Helicon ; around its violet spring, 

 And altars of the high Saturnian Jove, 

 With tender feet they dance, their delicate limbs 

 In Hippocrenfe or th' Olmeian streams 

 They hathe ; then with firm step they joyous bound ; 

 And so those fair and lovely choral trains 

 Proceed along the loftiest mountain crest, 

 / Or thence descending at night's darkling hour, 



Shrouded in shadowy mist they tread earth's plains, 

 And pour their voice of passing loveliness. 



Here the admiration of every competent judge must at once bo excited 

 by the delicacy and sweetness of the language. The passage is, indeed, a 

 most beautiful specimen of that middle style of composition, in which 

 Hesiod has ever been reckoned to excel : the images themselves, distin- 

 guished by their own native beauty, are further embellished by a selection 

 of phraseology, which indicates no vulgar taste ; in which the appropriate 

 and picturesque epithets, applied to the persons and scenery, claim our 

 especial notice — a praise which Hesiod may justly share with Homer himself. 

 But if, in these remote scenes and distant ages, we are still so much captivated 

 with the beauty of this passage, how much more warmly must it not have 

 affected the immediate countrymen of the poet himself, residing in a valley at 

 the foot of the muse-haunted Helicon, sketching in his verse the picturesque 

 features of the scenery with which he was most familiar, and embodying 

 the local superstitions with which his own mind was most deeply embued. 

 We may almost fancy the poet at the close of evening listening, in the mur- 

 murs of the breeze, for the mystic voices, and watching, in the uncertain 

 gloom of twilight, for the shadowy forms he has so exquisitely described. 



This highly ornamented introduction is followed by an enumeration of 

 tlie gods and goddesses, in whose honour the muses pour forth their strains, 

 consisting of a mere dry list of names and epithets, without the slightest 

 pretension to poetical beauty. A similar recital of the subjects of their 

 songs is, with some change of form, again and again repeated in different 

 parts of tlic present exordium, affording a strong argument in favour of Her- 

 man's hypothesis, that it is made up of various fragments originally distinct. 



No. 2.— Vol. I. 11* 



