in hand with the husbandman, than with any other occupation; and if an honest farmer does not get to heaven for the good he has done, then nobody. ever will; whence comes the true saying, "Arare est Orare," "To Plow is to Pray." The apparent object of the poem seems to be to counsel Perses to abandon the dishonorable practice of hanging around the Courts of Law, speculating in legal "corners," and endeavoring to enrich himself by robbing others, and to betake himself to the honest and more reputable pursuits of rural life, and to the observance of the laws of justice in his dealings with his fellow man, which, in Hesiod's eyes, constitutes the sum total of all human virtues.
Those who expect, from what has been said, a regularly planned essay on husbandry, or a well-connected discourse on piety and morals, will be disappointed. The first part of the poem, which contains several episodes and fables, by way of illustrating the lessons he strives to inculcate, consists of a series of precepts and reflections in praise of justice, piety, industry and economy, intended for the moral and religious conduct of the husbandman. The second gives a number of rules for the guidance of the practical farmer of his day; although their chief object is to exhort to activity, and to encourage habits of industry and economy, rather than to prescribe detailed regulations for carrying on the operations of farming. Had this latter been intended, the poem would have been too didactic, and would have probably found but few readers at the time, and would find still fewer now. In brief, the entire drift and argument of the poem is this: Be industrious and frugal, and you will be prosperous; be just, be pious, and you will be happy.
That the observance of these rules proved to be the best policy, in the long run, may be learned from the fact that, notwithstanding his loss, Hesiod's habits of industry and economy enabled him to eventually so far recover from the blow as to extend a helping hand to his needy brother, who, by this time, had succeeded in running through with not only his own share of the patrimony, but that also of which he had robbed Hesiod; thus enabling the poet to realize the truth of his own words:
