74
REMAINS OF HESIOD.
From forth thy house dismiss, when all the store
Of kindly food is laid within thy door:
And to thy service let a female come;
But childless, for a child were burthensome.
Keep, too, a sharp-tooth'd dog,[1] nor thrifty spare
To feed his fierceness high with generous fare:
Lest the day-slumbering thief thy nightly door
Wakeful besiege, and pilfer from thy store.
For ox and mule the yearly fodder lay
Within thy loft; the heapy straw and hay:
This care dispatch'd, refresh the bending knees
Of thy tired hinds, and give thy unyoked oxen ease.
Of kindly food is laid within thy door:
And to thy service let a female come;
But childless, for a child were burthensome.
Keep, too, a sharp-tooth'd dog,[1] nor thrifty spare
To feed his fierceness high with generous fare:
Lest the day-slumbering thief thy nightly door
Wakeful besiege, and pilfer from thy store.
For ox and mule the yearly fodder lay
Within thy loft; the heapy straw and hay:
This care dispatch'd, refresh the bending knees
Of thy tired hinds, and give thy unyoked oxen ease.
- ↑ Keep, too, a sharp-tooth'd dog.] Virgil has a more poetical passage on the same subject, Georg. iii. 404:Nor last forget thy faithful dogs: but feed
With fattening whey the mastiff's generous breed
And Spartan race, who for the fold's relief
Will prosecute with cries the nightly thief,
Repulse the prowling wolf, and hold at bay
The mountain robbers rushing to the prey.
Dryden.
is rendered by Grævius comparare sibi servum domo carentem: and Schrevelius explains the passage to mean that "you should seek out a servant who, having no house of his own to look after, could direct his whole attention to your concerns." So when the harvest is over, and the corn laid up in the granaries, he is to look out for a labourer! Was there ever a direction so unmeaning as this? I translate the words, (meo periculo) "servum operarium è domo dimitte."
