Success in every enterprise depends

On Destiny and man combined, the acts
Of Destiny are out of man's control;
Think not on Destiny, but act thyself.

Be courteous to thy guest who visits thee;
Offer a seat, bed, water, food enough,

According to thy substance, hospitably;
Naught taking for thyself till he be served;

(vii. 205.)

Homage to guests brings wealth, fame, life, and heaven.

(iii. 106, iv. 29.)

He who possessed of ample means bestows

His gifts on strangers while his kindred starve,
Thinks to enjoy the honey of applause,

But only eating poison dies despised
Such charity is cruelty disguised.

(xi. 9.)

He who pretends to be what he is not,
Acting a part, commits the worst of crimes,

For, thief-like, he abstracts a good man's heart.

(iv. 255.)

Though thou mayst suffer for thy righteous acts,
Ne'er give thy mind to aught but honest gain.

(iv. 171.)

So act in thy brief passage through this world
That thy apparel, speech, and inner store
Of knowledge be adapted to thy age,
Thy occupation, means, and parentage.

(iv. 18.)

The man who keeps his senses in control,

His speech, heart, actions, pure and ever guarded,

Gains all the fruit of holy study; he

Needs neither penance nor austerity.

(ii. 160.)

But if a single organ fail, by that defect
His knowledge of the truth flows all away

Like water leaking from a leathern vessel.

(ii. 99.)

Contentment, patience under injury,
Self-subjugation, honesty, restraint
Of all the sensual organs, purity,
Devotion, knowledge of the Deity,
Veracity, and abstinence from anger,
These form the tenfold summary of duty.

Long not for death, nor hanker after life;
Calmly expect thine own appointed time,
E'en as a servant reckons on his hire.

(vi. 92.)

(iv. 45.)

This mansion of the soul, composed of earth,

Subject to sorrow and decrepitude,

Inhabited by sicknesses and pains,

Bound by the bonds of ignorance and darkness, Let a wise man with cheerfulness abandon.

(vi. 77.)

Quitting this body, he resembles merely
A bird that leaves a tree. Thus is he freed
From the fell monster of an evil world.

(vi. 78.)

6

HESIOD

(Eighth century, B. C.)

"Ir is from the Works and Days' and the introduction to the Theogony' that we learn all we know about Hesiod's life. His father came from Cyme in Æolia and settled in Ascra, at the foot of Mount Helicon, in Boeotia. There, as far as we know, Hesiod spent his life. After his father's death he lost his share of his father's property in a lawsuit brought against him by his brother, Persês, who obtained a verdict by bribing the judges. This, however, seems not to have prevented Hesiod from obtaining, by careful farming, a livelihood sufficient to enable him to give assistance to his brother subsequently, when Persês was in need of aid. Nor did the work which he had to do prevent him from composing didactic poetry.

"The lawsuit with his brother was the occasion of Hesiod's composing the poem which now forms the first part of the 'Works and Days'; the appeals of Persês for assistance afforded him the opportunity for giving the advice contained. Under the title Works and Days' there are comprised in all probability two works. There is the Works and Days' proper, consisting of advice about farming and husbandry generally, and constituting the second half of the poem as it now stands. There is also another poem addressed to Hesiod's brother and containing moral advice, which makes the first half of the poem in its present form.

"Hesiod's verses are not in themselves beautiful, nor does his subject, even when it of itself suggests poetical treatment, exalt his style above his ordinary prosaic level. He lacks imagination. But it is unfair to convert this into a reproach. His object was to give sound practical advice, and this he does in a practical if prosaic manner.

Verse

was the proper vehicle for his ideas, not because they required poetical rendering, but because it was an aid to the memory."F. B. JEVONS," History of Greek Literature," pt. i. bk. i. ch. 6.

"The Hesiodic poems contain certain pretended reminiscences, and one of them, the 'Erga,' is largely made up of addresses to Persês, assumed to be the poet's erring friend in one part, his brother. We have seen that the reminiscences are fictions, and presumably Persês is a fiction too. If a real man had treacherously robbed Hesiod of his patrimony by means of bribes to 'man-devouring princes,' Hesiod would scarcely have remained on intimate terms with him. Persês is a lay figure for the didactic epos to preach at, and as such he does his duty. . . We have, then, no information of what Hesiod was only a tradition of what Hesiod was supposed to be." — GILBERT MURRAY, "History of Ancient Greek Literature," ch. 2.

ADVICE TO PERSÊS.

(From Hesiod's "Works and Days," translated by C. A. Elton.)

Most simple Persês! I the good perceive,
And willing tell thee, wouldst thou but believe:
Choose Sin, by troops she shall beside thee stand:
Smooth is the track, her mansion is at hand:
Where Virtue dwells the gods have placed before
The dropping sweat that springs from every pore;
And ere the foot can reach her high abode,
Long, rugged, steep th' ascent, and rough the road:
The ridge once gain'd, the path so hard of late
Runs easy on, and level to the gate.

Far best is he whom conscious wisdom guides,
Who, first and last, the right and fit decides;
He too is good that to the wiser friend
His docile reason can submissive bend;
But worthless he that Wisdom's voice defies,
Nor wise himself, nor duteous to the wise.

But thou, O Persês! what my words impart
Let memory bind forever on thy heart.
O son of Dios! labour evermore,

That hunger turn abhorrent from thy door;
That Ceres bless'd with spiky garland crown'd,
Greet thee with love, and bid thy barns abound.
Still on the sluggard hungry want attends;
The scorn of man, the hate of Heaven impends;
While he, averse from labour, 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.
Love every seemly toil, that so the store
Of foodful seasons heap thy garner's floor.

Shame of ill sort shall still the needy bind;
Shame, which or greatly helps or hurts mankind:
Shame leads to want; to courage wealth is given;
No ravish'd riches; best the boon of Heaven.
He that shall heaps of hoarded gold command,
By fraudful tongue, or by rapacious hand;
As oft betides, when lucre lights the flame,
And shamelessness expels the better shame ;
Him shall the god cast down, in darkness hurl'd,
And that man's house be wasted from the world;
The wealth, for which he pawn'd his soul, decay,
The breath and shining bubble of a day.

Alike the man of sin is he confess'd,

Who spurns the suppliant, and who wrongs the guest;
Who climbs, by lure of stol'n embraces led,
With ill-timed act, a brother's marriage bed ;

Who dares by crafty wickedness abuse

His trust, and robs the orphans of their dues;
Who, on the threshold of afflictive age