76
REMAINS OF HESIOD.
Then varying winds[1] in gustful eddies roar:
Then to black ocean[2] trust thy ships no more:
But heedful care to this my caution yield,
And, as I bid thee, labour safe the field.
Hale on firm land the ship: with stones made fast
Against the staggering force of humid-blowing blast:
Draw from its keel the peg, lest rotting rain
Suck'd in the hollow of the hold remain:
Within thy house the tackling order'd be.
And furl thy vessel's wings that skimm'd the sea:
The well-framed rudder in the smoke suspend,
And calm and navigable seas attend.
Then launch the rapid bark: fit cargo load,
And freighted rich repass the liquid road.
Then to black ocean[2] trust thy ships no more:
But heedful care to this my caution yield,
And, as I bid thee, labour safe the field.
Hale on firm land the ship: with stones made fast
Against the staggering force of humid-blowing blast:
Draw from its keel the peg, lest rotting rain
Suck'd in the hollow of the hold remain:
Within thy house the tackling order'd be.
And furl thy vessel's wings that skimm'd the sea:
The well-framed rudder in the smoke suspend,
And calm and navigable seas attend.
Then launch the rapid bark: fit cargo load,
And freighted rich repass the liquid road.
- ↑ Then varying winds.] Virgil cautions the navigator against the appearances of the sun, Georg. i. 455:If dusky spots are varied on his brow
And streak’d with red a troubled colour show:
That sullen mixture shall at once declare
Winds, rain, and storms, and elemental war:
What desperate madman then would venture o’er
The frith, or haul his cables from the shore? Dryden. - ↑ Black ocean.] Οινοπι ποντω, wine-coloured. This evidently means black: as the Greek poets apply the epithet black to wine. Hesiod has αιθοπα οινοι, black coloured wine. The sense of this latter epithet is deduced from the blackness caused by burning: as αιθω is to burn.
