In Greece and Italy 289 



Hesiod, some eight hundred years b. c, was well ac- 

 quainted with hive-bees, understood the art of bee-keeping, 

 and was fond of using the drone to point a moral. In his 

 " Works and Days " we learn that — 



" Still on the sluggard hungry want attends; 

 The scorn of man, the hate of Heaven impends; 

 While he, averse from labor, drags his days, 

 Yet greedy on the gains of others preys ; 

 E'en as the stingless drones devouring seize 

 With glutted sloth the harvest of the bees.'' 



Still more severe is another reference to the drones in 

 which our poet casts a very unchivalrous lance at the fair 

 sex. He tells us that Vulcan fashioned a maid of azure eyes 

 at Jove's behest, because the All-Father, being angry with 

 mankind for having received from Prometheus the heavenly 

 fire, desired to do them an injury, and the greatest injury 

 the mighty intellect of the great god could devise was to 

 give them woman. This first woman, this maid of azure 

 eyes, was of surpassing loveliness, and was adorned by 

 Minerva herself. When she was presented, 



" On gods and men in that same moment seized 

 The ravishment of wonder, when they saw 

 The deep deceit, the inextricable snare. 

 From her the sex of tender woman springs : 

 Pernicious is the race : the woman tribe 

 Dwell upon earth, a mighty bane to man : 

 No mates for wasting want, but luxury : 

 And as, within the close-roof'd hive, the drones, 

 Co-operative in base and slothful works. 

 Are pamper'd by the bees, these all the day. 

 Till sinks the ruddy sun, haste on the wing, 

 ' Their murmuring labors ply,' and still cement 

 The white and waxen comb; those lurk within 

 The close hive, gathering in their maw the fruit 

 Of others' labors ; such are womankind : 

 They, whom the Thunderer sent, a bane to men, 

 111 helpmates of intolerable foils." 

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