Page:Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica.djvu/23

INTRODUCTION

story is full of miraculous elements, and the various authorities disagree on numerous points of detail. The tradition seems, however, to be constant in declaring that Hesiod was murdered and buried at Oenoë, and in this respect it is at least as old as the time of Thucydides. In conclusion it may be worth while to add the graceful epigram of Alcaeus of Messene (Palatine Anthology, vii 55).

Λοκρίδος ἐν νέμεϊ σκιερῷ νέκυν Ἡσιόδοιο
Νύμφαι κρηνιάδων λοῦσαν ἀπὸ σφετέρων,
καὶ τάφον ὑψώσαντο· γάλακτι δὲ ποίμενες αἰγῶν
ἔρραναν, ξανθῷ μιξάμενοι μέλιτι·
τοίην γὰρ καὶ γῆρυν ἀπέπνεεν ἐννέα Μουσῶν
ὁ πρέσβευς καθαρῶν γευσάμενος λιβάδων.

“When in the shady Locrian grove Hesiod lay dead, the Nymphs washed his body with; water from their own springs, and heaped high his grave; and thereon the goat-herds sprinkled offerings of milk mingled with yellow-honey: such was the utterance of the nine Muses that he breathed forth, that old man who had tasted of their pure springs.”

The Hesiodic Poems. — The Hesiodic poems fall into two groups according as they are didactic (technical or gnomic) or genealogical: the first group centres round the Works and Days, the second round the Theogony.

I. The Works and Days. — The poem consists of four main sections (a) After the prelude, which Pausanias failed to find in the ancient copy engraved on lead seen by him on Mt. Helicon, comes a general exhortation to industry. It begins with the

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b