374 COSMOS. 



nation, riveted theii attention almost exclusively. An active 

 life, spent chiefly in public, drew the minds of men from dwell- 

 ing with enthusiastic exclusiveness on the silent workings 

 of nature, and led them always to consider physical pheno- 

 mena as having reference to mankind, whether in the relations 

 of external conformation or of internal development.* It 

 was almost exclusively under such relations that the conside- 

 ration of nature was deemed worthy of being admitted into 

 the domain of poetry under the fantastic form of comparisons, 

 which often present small detached pictures replete with 

 objective truthfulness. 



At Delphi, paeans to Spring were sung,f being intended, proba- 

 bly, to express the delight of man at the termination of the discom- 

 forts of winter. A natural description of winter is interwoven 

 (perhaps by the hand of some Ionian rhapsodist) in the 

 Wotks and Days of Hesiod. J This poem, which is composed 

 with noble simplicity, although in accordance with the rigid 

 didactic form, gives instructions regarding agriculture, direc- 

 tions for different kinds of trade and labour, and ethic pre- 

 cepts for a blameless course of life. It is only elevated to the 

 dignity of a lyric poem, when the poet clothes the miseries of 

 mankind, or the exquisite mythical allegory of Epimetheus 

 and Pandora in an anthropomorphic garb. In the theogony 

 of Hesiod, which is composed of many ancient and dissimilar 

 elements, we frequently find, as, for instance, in the enume- 

 ration of the Nereides, natural descriptions of the realm of 



* Schnaase, Oeschichte der bildenden Kiinste bei den Alien, bd. ii. 

 1843, s. 128-138. 



t Plut., de E. I. apud Delphos, c. 9. [an attempt of Plutarch's to explain 

 the meaning of an inscription at the entrance of the temple of Delphi. 

 Tr.] Regarding a passage of Apollonius Dyscolus of Alexandria 

 (Mirab. Hist., c. 40), see Otfr. Muller's last work, Gesch. der griech. 

 Litteratur, bd. i. 1845, s. 31. 



J Hesiodi Opera et Dies, v. 502-561. Gottling, in Hes. Carm. 1831, 

 p. xix. ; Ulrici, Gesch. der hellenischen Dichtkunst, th. i. 1835, s. 337. 

 Bernhardy, Grundriss der griech. Litteratur, th. ii. s. 176. According 

 tn the opinion of Gottfr. Hermann (Opuscula, vol. vi. p. 239) " the 

 picturesque description given by Hesiod of winter, bears all the evidence 

 of great antiquity." 



Hes. Theoff., v. 233-264. The Nereid Mera (Od., xi. 326; IL t 

 xviii. 48), may perhaps be indicative of the phosphoric light seen on the 

 surface of the sea, in the same manner as the same word juaT/oa desig 

 nates the sparkling dog-star Sirius. 



