Ω Πέρση, σὺ δὲ ταῦτα τεῷ ἐνικάτθεο θυμῷ, μηδέ σ ̓ Ερις κακόχαρτος †ἀπ ̓ ἔργου θυμὸν ἐρύκοι νείκε ̓ ὀπιπεύοντ ̓ ἀγορῆς ἐπακουὸν ἐόντα. ὤρη γάρ τ' ὀλίγη πέλεται νεικέων τ ̓ ἀγορέων τε ᾧτινι μὴ βίος ἔνδον ἐπηετανὸς κατάκειται ὡραῖος, τὸν γαῖα φέρει, Δημήτερος ἀκτήν· τοῦ κε κορεσσάμενος νείκεα καὶ δῆριν ὀφέλλοις κτήμασ ̓ ἔπ ̓ ἀλλοτρίοις· σοὶ δ ̓ οὐκέτι δεύτερον ἔσται 28. ἄξεργον θυμὸν ? 31. ἐπαιξετανὸς 30 27. τεῷ ἐνὶ κάτθεο FH. 29. ἐπιπτεύοντ' a11. 33. κεκορεσσάμενος all. and hence it has been marked in the text as doubtful. 27. ταῦτα, the true distinction between the good and the bad ἔρις. 6 28. κακόχαρτος, rejoicing in another's misfortune, viz. the bad kind of ἔρις. Hesych. ὁ κακοῖς χαίρων.— ἀπ ̓ ἔργου, from farm-work. See v. 20 and 299. But this verse is in some way corrupt, since pyov invariably takes the digamma in Hesiod. See inf. on v. 382. Bentley proposed ἀεργὸν θυμῷ ἐρύκοι. Schoemann μὴ κ. Ερις σ ̓ ἀπὸ Γεργου, οι Γεργου σ ̓ ἀπό.—ὀπιπεύοντα is given from one of Goettling's MSS. for the vulg. ὀπιπτεύοντα. Watching closely the progress of law-suits as a listener about court, viz. the appeals to judges in the agora. Gloss. MS. Gale, ἐπιτηροῦντα. Inf. v. 806, Δημήτερος ἱερὸν ἀκτὴν εὖ μάλ ̓ ὀπιπεύοντας (MSS. ἐπιπτεύοντας) ἐϋτροχάλῳ ἐν ἀλωῇ βάλλειν. We have the compound παρθενοπίπης, said of Paris, Il. xi. 385, and πυροπίπης, corninspector,' Ar. Equit. 407. Photius, ὀπιπεύειν, παρατηρεῖν. In Il. iv. 371, vii. 243, and Od. xix. 67, Bekker has preferred the form ὀπιπεύειν. It is a reduplicated form of the root or=oc (Curtius, Gr. Et. 456).—As in the later times of the Attic Republic, so there was a clear distinction to be drawn in rural Boeotia between the active farmer and the idle loiterer in the agora. 6 30. ὤρη ὀλίγη. ‘For a man can attend little to law-suits and lawcourts, if substance sufficient for the year has not been stored up by him within, the produce of the year's crop which the earth bears, the bread of Demeter.' The scholiasts agree in explaining ὤρη by φροντίς. Some MSS. are said to give ὥρη, which might mean little time for.' 31. ἐπηετανός. Curtius, Gr. Et. 388, connects this word with del and αἰών. He supposes the original form was ἐπauFo-Tavòs, and rejects the etymology from Féros, vetus. Inf. 607 the word is of four syllables. The Boeotian form of αἰεὶ was ht, whence ἐπῃFτανὸν seems to have been one mode of pronunciation. 32. ὡραῖος, gathered in season, or the produce of the season. Cf. inf. v. 307. But this verse looks like the interpolation of a rhapsodist. If it had been genuine, the poet would probably have proceeded τῆς κε κορεσσάμενος, κ.τ.λ. For the genitive cf. inf. v. 368, ἀρχομένου δὲ πίθου καὶ λήγοντος κορέσασθαι. Ib. 593, κεκορημένον ἦτορ ἐδωδῆς. Ar. Pac. 1283, ἐπεὶ πολέμου ἐκόρεσθεν. Eur. Hipp. 112, βορᾶς κορεσθείς. Goettling supposes an allusion to the saying τίκτει τοι κόρος ὕβριν. But the resemblance is probably accidental. • When you have got enough of that, you may promote quarrels and strife about the possessions of others,' i. e. as you now do about mine, even while you neglect your own means. — ὀφέλλοις, sup. 14. Gloss. MS. Gale αὔξανε. 33. ὀφέλλοις, Schoemann, Com. Crit. p. 16, suggests ὀφέλλοι, and ἔστιν for ἔσται in the next line. 'Rich men only can afford to go to law to get other men's goods; you are too poor to do this a second time.' 345. δεύτερον κ.τ.λ. ‘But it shall not again after this be in your power to ὧδ ̓ ἔρδειν· ἀλλ ̓ αὖθι διακρινώμεθα νεῖκος 36. δίκησιν Α. tion of ἐδάσσαμεν. δικᾶσαι DI, Ald. 40. Είσασιν 35 40 37. ἐδασσάμεθα Κ, which indicates a correcἐδασσάμεθα Ald. 39. δικάσσαι Β. δικᾶσαι ΑΚ. δικάσαι the rest. act as you have done: rather let us once more get our dispute decided (and this time) by an impartial award, such as coming from Zeus (not from corruptible judges) is best. There is a kind of subtle irony in the hortative subjunctive, ‘I call upon you to have the quarrel settled.' It was not the object of Perses to go before an impartial judge; but the poet says, 'let us make an end of these disputes, and this time let us have a fair hearing. αὖθι is explained by the Schol. αὐτόθι and ἐν τῷ παρόντι. And so Hermann, followed by Goettling, extemplo, illico. But it is very doubtful if it can bear this sense. 37. ἤδη μὲν κ.τ.λ. For we had just shared between us our patrimony (literally had each of us got our portion assigned '), when you began to plunder and carry off many other things (i. e. beside your just right), paying great compliments to the kings, bribe-swallowers as they are, who are willing enough to decide this suit' (a suit of this kind). Gloss. MS. Gale, ἐκ πάλαι τὴν κληρονομίαν ἐμερίσαμεν. The aorist ἐδασσάμεθα and the imperfect εφόρεις are doubtless carefully employed; but the plundering of Perses would rather take place at the time of the distribution than after it. We might express the meaning thus; 'We had no sooner divided our inheritance than you began to rob me.' He wished to get back part of the property awarded to Hesiod. Perhaps there was some act of open violence on Perses' part; for there is a similar allusion inf. v. 356, δὼς ἀγαθὴ, ἅρπαξ δὲ κακή. ν. 320, χρήματα δ ̓ οὐχ ἁρπακτὰ, θεόσδοτα πολλὸν ἀμείνω. Cf. v. 275, βίης δ ̓ ἐπιλήθει πάμπαν. The Te seems to represent the more usual καὶ in the sense of when. Gaisford, after Guietus, reads ἀλλὰ τὰ πολλὰ, [οι which we should rather have expected τὰ πλείω. 39. ἐθέλουσι. One might easily read 20éλwo, praising those who may be willing,' &c. The sense would thus be, κυδαίνω (i. e. δωροῦμαι) ὑμᾶς, ἢν ἐθέλητε δικάσαι ἐμοὶ τήνδε δίκην. Schoemann reads ἐθέλοντι δίκασσαν, Hermann having proposed ἐθέλουσι δίκασσαν, “who decided this suit for us consenting to it.' We certainly should have expected ἤθελον rather than ἐθέλουσι. But he may mean, that these same judges are willing enough to hear the suit over again on the same terms.—δωροφάγους, a strong and satirical expression for δωροδόκους. Cf. 221, 264. 40-1. These two lines embody some old adage; but whether the application of it is to the kings, who do not know the happiness of honest contentment, or to the poet himself, whom the corrupt judges wrongly supposed they could really injure, is not very clear. Fools that they are, neither do they know how much more the half is than the whole, nor what great blessedness there is in a diet on mallows and squills.' These herbs were the food of the very poor, (Ar. Plut. 544,) and the poet probably means, that the kings do not know how much better it is to have a little with an easy conscience,than much gained by injustice. Moschopulus: οὐδ ̓ ὅσον μέγα ὄφελός ἐστιν ἐν τῇ ζωῇ τῇ κρύψαντες γὰρ ἔχουσι θεοὶ βίον ἀνθρώποισι. 43. Γεργάσσαιο 44. ἀἱεργὸν 43. ἐργάσσαιο BC. ἐν μαλάχῃ καὶ ἀσφοδέλῳ, ἀντὶ τοῦ εὐτελεῖ καὶ ἀπερίττῳ διαίτῃ, τῇ μετὰ δικαιοπραγίας δηλονότι, καὶ ἔξω πλεονεξίας. Plato refers to this passage, De Rep. v. p. 466, Β, εἰ οὕτως ὁ φύλαξ ἐπιχειρήσει εὐδαίμων γίγνεσθαι, ὥστε μηδὲ φύλαξ εἶναι,γνώσεται τὸν Ἡσίοδον ὅτι τῷ ὄντι ἦν σοφὸς λέγων πλέον εἶναί πως ἥμισυ παντός. See also Phaedr. p. 266, c. Theophrastus, Hist. Plant. vii. 11, πολλὰ δὲ εἰς τροφὴν παρέχεται χρήσιμα (ὁ ἀσφόδελος)· καὶ γὰρ ὁ ἀνθέρικος ἐδώδιμος σταθευόμενος, καὶ τὸ σπέρμα φρυγόμενον· πάντων δὲ μάλιστα ἡ ῥίζα κοπτομένη μετὰ σύκου καὶ πλείστην ὄνησιν ἔχει καθ ̓ Ἡσίοδον.— The asphodel is a liliaceous plant, allied to the squill. There are many species; that alluded to grows wild in Greece and the Levant. 42. Goettling has an idea, in which it is difficult to acquiesce, (though it receives some countenance from Tzetzes, ὁ δὲ νοῦς τοιοῦτος· ὦ Πέρση, μὴ ἀργὸς ἐν ταῖς ἀγοραῖς διάτριβε—οἱ θεοὶ γὰρ, ἤγουν ἡ εἱμαρμένη, ἀπέκρυψε καὶ δυσπόριστον ἐποίησε τὸν βίον τοῖς ἀνθρώποις), that the thread of the argument is here resumed from v. 24; as if the poet were now giving a reason why men require some stimulus to industry, viz. because the gods have made it hard to get a livelihood. He seems to have two theories on the subject; (1) That v. 25-41 is an interpolation; (2) That we should read κακκρύψαντες ἔχουσι κ.τ.λ., to avoid the γὰρ, which seems to give as a reason why there is happiness in poverty, the fact that men live only by hard labour. "Quæ nullo modo," he objects, "componi possunt." One thing is clear; whatever be the point of the fable of Prometheus, as applicable to Perses, the present passage is introductory to it; cf. v. 47. Now both this fable and that which follows, addressed specially to Perses, 46. Γέργα βοῶν ταλανέργων ἐργάσαιο the rest. 45 ἕτερόν τοι ἐγὼ λόγον ἐκκορυφώσω, v. 106,) are apparently meant to show the origin of evil on earth; and thus indirectly, how the poet has been made the victim of injustice. Since, then, he had just before dwelt on the wickedness of the unjust kings, he goes on to argue thus: The reason of all which wickedness is, that Zeus made life laborious through the fraud of Prometheus, and so men prefer to gain by injustice rather than by honest toil Schoemann (Com. Crit. p. 18) is satisfied that the whole passage 40-105 is the interpolation of an inferior poet. 434. ἐπ ̓ ἤματι. τουτέστιν ἐν μιᾷ ἡμέρᾳ. Proclus. This is rather a rare use. Cf. Il. x. 48, ἄνδρ ̓ ἕνα τοσσάδε μέρμερ ̓ ἐπ ̓ ἤματι μητίσασθαι. Od. xii. 105, τρὶς μὲν γάρ τ ̓ ἀνίησιν ἐπ ̓ ἤματι, τρὶς δ ̓ ἀναροιβδεῖ. Inf. v. 102, ἐφ' ἡμέρῃ ἠδ ̓ ἐπὶ νυκτί. Soph. Οed. Col. 688, αἰὲν ἐπ ̓ ἤματι ὠκυτόκος πεδίων ἐπινίσσεται (Κηφισός). It would be easy here to read γάρ κεν καὶ ἐν ἤματι. The sense is, You might easily make enough by your farm even in a single day, (or 'for a day,' with a view to no more than a day's maintenance,) so as to have subsistence for a year without working,' i. e. if Zeus had not made farming a slow and difficult process. Goettling proposes to read keis for the vulg. K' eis (κε εἰς). And the Aldine has κεἰς. Schoemann edits ὥστε καὶ εἰς. 456. αἶψα κε. The Schol. on Ar. Αν. 712 preserves a variant αὐτίκα. See on v. 12. Quickly (in that case, viz. if it had been easy to get a livelihood) would you store away your boat-paddle over the smoke (to dry and preserve it), and the fields tilled by oxen and by patient mules would go to ruin,' (or, there would soon be an end of farmwork for our oxen and mules.') It was the custom to remove the rudder or ἀλλὰ Ζεὺς ἔκρυψε χολωσάμενος φρεσὶν ᾗσιν, ὅττι μιν ἐξαπάτησε Προμηθεὺς ἀγκυλομήτης. τοὔνεκ ̓ ἄρ ̓ ἀνθρώποισιν ἐμήσατο κήδεα λυγρά, κρύψε δὲ πῦρ' τὸ μὲν αὖθις ἐῢς παῖς Ιαπετοῖο ἔκλεψ ̓ ἀνθρώποισι Διὸς πάρα μητιόεντος Tò 47. φρεσὶ τῇσιν ? 50 48. ἀγκυλόμητ Α. -μητις BCDGHI. —μήτης ΕΕ, Ald. 49. årθρώποισι μήσατο ΕF. μήδεα D. κύδεα Κ. paddle, with the other moveable tackle, until the ensuing sailing-season. Inf. ν. 629, πηδάλιον δ ̓ εὐεργὲς ὑπὲρ καπνοῦ Kрeμάσασ0αι, where Proclus adduces another explanation of this passage, κατακαῦσαι. The πηδάλιον of the ancient Greeks is exactly the same as that still used in the Hindu river-boats, viz. a long and heavy beam (sometimes one on each side) worked on its axis by a tiller (otag) on deck, and suspended at a greater or less depth by tackle. This explains Eur. Hel. 1536, ndáλiá te ζεύγλαισι παρακαθίετο, and πηδάλιον κεxaλaoμévov, Arat. Phaen. 351. 47. кpuve, scil. Biov aveрámois. The general difficulties which henceforth attended the lives of men are expressed by eμhσaтo kηdea Avypà, while one of the chief evils specifically was the withdrawal of fire. Virgil evidently had this in view, Georg. i. 121-131; Pater ipse colendi Haud facilem esse viam voluit, primusque per artem Movit agros, curis acuens mortalia corda.Mellaque decussit foliis ignemque removit. This corresponds to the cursing of the earth,' in Genesis iii. 17-19. It has been well remarked, that no creature except man makes any use of fire, but that to his existence it is essential. Why Zeus withdrew the use of fire is declared in a curious and evidently ancient legend about Prometheus,differing materially from the mythology employed by Aeschylus. Prometheus had cheated Zeus (as related in Theog. 535 seqq.) at a sacrifice, by persuading men to offer to him the bones and fat of slain oxen, and to reserve for themselves the meat. Zeus had taken from them, in consequence of this, the use of fire which they had hitherto enjoyed both for sacrifices and for other purposes. Deprived of fire, they could not mock him by a burnt-offering of the inferior parts, nor could they cook their own portion of the better parts. Prometheus however had again baffled Zeus by restoring the element stealthily to man. Zeus then devised a punishment to man by creating woman with all her arts of seducing cunning and irresistible grace. She is sent as a present to Epimetheus by Hermes. Prometheus had warned his brother not to accept any gift from Zeus; but Epimetheus, (who is a kind of mythological blunderer, always in the wrong at the time of acting, though accustomed to repair his errors by afterthought, as his name implies,) found out his mistake after he had felt the evil consequences of it (v. 89). It was by the agency of this woman, Pandora, that the deа λvypà (v. 19 compared with v. 95) were first let loose upon mankind. Plato, Protag. p. 320, D, seqq., varies this fable. He makes the mistake of Epimetheus to consist in giving away all the faculties of self-preservation to animals, and leaving none to man. remedy this deficiency, Prometheus steals the fire, together with the handicraft, of Athena and Hephaestus, and confers it on man. The legend is very well explained by Sir G. W. Cox in p. 172, seqq. of Mythology and Folklore.' He points out that the name Prometheus is the Hindu (Vedic) Pramantha, which expresses the lighting of fire by the rubbing of two sticks. The name Epimetheus is a later invention, to supply a correlative to a word wrongly supposed to mean "Forethought." · To 50. τὸ μὲν κ.τ.λ. That indeed Prometheus on another occasion stole for men, the context suggesting the suppressed sentiment, but other ills resulted from a theft, which only aggravated the wrath of Zeus against men.' 55 ἐν κοίλῳ νάρθηκι, λαθὼν Δία τερπικέραυνον. τὸν δὲ χολωσάμενος προσέφη νεφεληγερέτα Ζεύς· Ιαπετιονίδη, πάντων πέρι μήδεα εἰδὼς, χαίρεις πῦρ κλέψας καὶ ἐμὰς φρένας ήπεροπεύσας, σοί τ' αὐτῷ μέγα πῆμα καὶ ἀνδράσιν ἐσσομένοισι· τοῖς δ ̓ ἐγὼ ἀντὶ πυρὸς δώσω κακὸν ᾧ κεν ἅπαντες τέρπωνται κατὰ θυμὸν ἑὸν κακὸν ἀμφαγαπώντες. Ὣς ἔφατ'· ἐκ δ ̓ ἐγέλασσε πατὴρ ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν τε· Ηφαιστον δ' ἐκέλευσε περικλυτὸν ὅ ττι τάχιστα γαῖαν ὕδει φύρειν, ἐν δ ̓ ἀνθρώπου θέμεν αὐλὴν 54. Ιαπετεονίδη ΑΕF. In D ous superscr. in red ink. 54. Γειδὼς 60 55. χαίροις Α (gl. ἀντὶ τοῦ χαῖρε ΕF. 58. τέρπονται Ι, Ald. τέρπονται D. 52. νάρθηκι. “The narther is the umbelliferous plant called Kalami in modern Greek, the Ferula communis of Linnaeus, which grows abundantly about the bay of Phalerum. In the stalk is a pith, which makes good tinder when dry. Hence the story, that in it Prometheus brought down from heaven the fount of fire' which he gave to man." Clark, Peloponnesus, p. 111. See Aesch. Prom. 109. 54. On the patronymic Ιαπετιονίδη see Theog. 528.—πέρι, scil. περισσῶς, ὑπὲρ πάντας. Or perhaps, in reference to the name Prometheus, who know how to form plans about everything.' 55. χαίρεις, ‘you exult,' you think to come off with impunity. Gaisford less correctly puts a question at the end of this verse. The MS. Gale, two of the Bodleian, and one of Goettling's, have χαίροις. Gloss. ἀντὶ τοῦ χαῖρε. This would be ironically said, 'I congratulate you on the success of your theft.'Hesych. ήπεροπεύσας· ἐξαπατήσας. 57. ἀντὶ πυρὸς, in return for the fire they have got, and as a counterbalancing evil for the benefit they have fraudulently obtained. Cf. Theog. 570, αὐτίκα δ ̓ ἀντὶ πυρὸς τεῦξεν κακὸν ἀνθρώποισι. Euripides made use of this fable to express his dislike of women; ἀντὶ γὰρ πυρὸς Πῦρ ἄλλο μεῖζον ἠδὲ δυσμαχώτατον Εβλαστον αἱ γυναῖκες.—ᾧ κεν τέρπωνται, the epic use of the subjunctive, for which the Attics would have said The τέρποιντο. ἀμφαγαπώντες, hugging their own misfortune. Hesych. ἀσπαζόμενοι. This is the literal meaning of ayarav (as explained in the editor's note on Eur. Suppl. 764. Phoen. 1327). So Apoll. Rhod. iii. 1167, οἱ δέ μιν ἀμφαγάπαζον, ὅπως ἴδον. Gloss. MS. Cant. περισσῶς ἀγαπῶντες, περιθάλποντες. meaning is, it shall be an evil to them, while they shall unknowingly delight in it.—ἑὸν for σφέτερον has been criticised by the Grammarian Apollonius (ap. Goettl.) and by Proclus. It is much more common in the later epic. In the earlier indeed it pretty regularly takes the digamma, (not however invariably in Homer,) and always in Hesiod, except here and Theog. 467. 472. Scut. H. 9. 454. 59. ἐκ δ' ἐγέλασσε. Zeus was pleased with his own conceit, and laughed outright as he uttered the threat. Origen (who quotes the passages 53-82 and 90-98, contra Cels. iv. 38, p. 187, pointed out by Gaisford) cites this verse with ἐκ δ' ἐτέλεσσε, i. e. he no sooner conceived than he executed it. Cf. inf. ν. 83. 61. ὕδει. This dative is quoted from Theognis, v. 955, νῦν δ ̓ ἤδη τεθόλωται, ὕδωρ δ ̓ ἀναμίσγεται ὕδει, and the nominative ὕδος from Callimachus, frag. 466. Perhaps its origin was a dialectic variety of the Boeotic speech. Compare the Attic δόρει for δόρατι, as if from τὸ δόρος. See G. Curtius, Gr. Et. 248.-The sepa |