22 Hesiod 



conceived by the poet. If the men who practise handicrafts are freemen, 

 and their presence welcome, this does not exalt them to anything 

 like equality with the warrior nobles and chiefs. And in agriculture 

 the labourer is either a slave or a wage-earner of a very dependent 

 kind. The lord shews no inclination to set his own hand to the plough. 

 When one of the suitors derisively invites the supposed beggar to 

 abandon his idle vagrancy for a wage-earning 'job on the land/ the 

 disguised Odysseus retorts 1 'Ah, if only you and I could compete in a 

 match as reapers hard at work fasting from dawn to dark, or at ploughing 

 a big field with a pair of full-fed spirited oxen, you would soon see 

 what I could do.' He adds that, if it came to war, his prowess would 

 soon silence the sneer at his begging for food instead of working. Now, 

 does the hero imply that he would really be willing to reap or plough? 

 I do not think so: what he means is that he is conscious of that reserve 

 of bodily strength which appears later in the poem, dramatically shewn 

 in the bending of the famous bow. 



IV. HESIOD. 



Hesiod, Works and Days. Whether this curious poem belongs in 

 its present shape to the seventh century BC, or not, I need not attempt to 

 decide. It seems certain that it is later than the great Homeric poems, 

 but is an early work, perhaps somewhat recast and interpolated, yet 

 in its main features representing conditions and views of a society rural, 

 half-primitive, aristocratic. I see no reason to doubt that it may fairly 

 be cited in evidence for my present purpose. The scene of the 'Works' 

 is in Boeotia: the works (epya) are operations of farming, and the 

 precepts chiefly saws of rustic wisdom. Poverty 2 is the grim spectre 

 that haunts the writer, conscious of the oppressions of the proud and 

 the hardness of a greedy world. Debt, want, beggary, must be avoided 

 at all costs. They can only be avoided 3 by thrift, forethought, watch- 

 fulness, promptitude that never procrastinates, and toil that never ceases. 

 And the mere appeal to self-interest is reinforced by recognizing the 

 stimulus of competition (ept?) 4 which in the form of honest rivalry is a 

 good influence. The poet represents himself as owner of a land-lot 

 (tcXrjpos)*, part of a larger estate, the joint patrimony of his brother 

 Perses and himself: this estate has already been divided, but points 

 of dispute still remain. Hesiod suggests that Perses has been wronging 

 him with the help of bribed ' kings.' But wrong-doing is not the true 

 road to well-being. A dinner of herbs and a clear conscience are the 



\ xvm 366-75. 2 299 _ 302> 394 _ 5> 399 _ 4 oo, 403-4, 646-7. 



3 289-90, 303-5, 308-13, 381-2, 410-3 (cf 498). 4 20-4. 6 37-41. 



