MOUNT HELICON. 141 
Thespia. The name of the place seems also to ^^^p- 
be still preserved, although corrupted, in the \— -y — ' 
modern appellation of this village ; for, with a 
transposition only of the two first letters, 
AscRA becomes Sacra; and although it be com- 
monly written Sagara, as the modern name of 
HELICo^^ in books of travels, the pronunciation 
of the word is Sacra, or Sackra; evidently 
being rather a corruption of the old name of 
the place, than an allusion, as Wheler supposes *, 
to the number oi hares found upon the moun- 
tain. Many instances of more remarkable 
changes may be observed in the modern appel- 
lations of places in Greece, still retaining some- 
thing of their original names. It was there- 
fore in this retreat that the shepherd, and poet, 
Hesiod, fed his flock ; although in a valley °, yet 
Part I. p. 47. Lond. I697.) ; and they serve to nullify the critical 
objection made to that biographer by the learned Professor Robinson, 
editor of the Oxford Hesiod: who, in the dissertation prefixed to his 
edition of Hesiod's Poems, makes the following remark : " Rus ple- 
nimque se abdebat Hesiodus, ibique in vallibus (non jugis, ut narrat 
ingeniosissimus /3<ayfaip«) Heliconis pastor erat." Fid. Dissertat, in 
Fit. ifc. Hesiodi, p. 4. Oxon. 1737. 
(5) " This mountain is now called Zagara by the Turks, from the 
great abundance of hares they say breed there." Journey into Greece,, 
p. 477. Lcmd. 1G82. 
(6) " Ncc mihi sunt visa: Clio, Cliusque sorores, 
Servant! pecudes vallibus, Ascra, tuis." 
Ovid, de Arte Amandi, lib. i. v, 25. 
