Fabricius decides that these introductory words will not permit us to doubt that “The Shield of Hercules” formed part of the Fourth Catalogue; but the inference does not necessarily extend beyond the first portion of the piece. Robinson justly argues on the incongruity of the poet’s digressing from the tale of Alcmena, to tell a story of Hercules; and he therefore conjectures that this piece is a fragment of the Heroical Genealogies; but aware that the concurrence of the exordium with the above-mentioned fragments, points the attention to the Fourth Catalogue, he cuts the Gordian knot by changing η οιη, or such as, into η οιη, she alone.
Guietus suggests the reading of ηοιη, rising with the dawn; for the purpose of rendering the piece complete in itself: but the very basis of the argument in favour of the authenticity of the poem as a work of Hesiod, is the striking coincidence of the introductory lines with the fragments of the Fourth Catalogue. This may be set aside by the ingenious expedient of altering the text; but if the text be suffered to remain, the presumption, so far as it extends, is irresistible. I do conceive that Robinson, when his judgment consented to this alteration of the reading, yielded a very important advantage to those who dispute the genuineness of the poem, as the production of Hesiod; that by the abandonment of these remarkably coincident words the difficulty of proving the poem to be a fragment is increased two-fold; and that with the fact of its being a fragment is closely linked the fact of its authenticity.
From what has been said, it will perhaps be thought extraordinary that the idea of a cento of dispersed fragments, pieced together and interpolated with Homeric imitations, never suggested itself to those critics who have bestowed such elaborate scrutiny on the composition of the poem.
In the scholium of the Aldine edition of Hesiod, it is stated, “The beginning of the Shield as far as the 250th verse is said to form a part of the Fourth Catalogue.” Here is at once an admission of the patchwork texture of the piece; and we may be allowed to conjecture that the scholiast may possibly be mistaken as to the exact number of lines. This portion, in fact, comprehends the meeting of Hercules with Cygnus, and his arming for battle; which follows, with a strange and startling abruptness, immediately on his birth; and seems to have little connexion with the praises of a heroine, in a poem devoted exclusively to celebrated women.
I should, therefore, be inclined to consider the first fifty-six lines only as belonging to the Fourth Catalogue. This introductory part, ending with the birth of Hercules, is awkwardly coupled with his warlike adventure in the grove of Apollo by the line
Who also slew Cygnus, the magnanimous son of Mars.
This line is perceptibly the link of connexion between the two fragments, and betrays the hand of the interpolator. The succeeding passage, as far as verse 153, I conjecture to have formed a part of the Herogony. It seems probable that Hesiod’s description of the sculpture on the Shield of Hercules was limited to the dragon in the centre, and the figure of Discord hovering above it; and was meant to end with the effects produced by the sight of this shield on the hero’s enemies. This short description appears to have suggested the experiment of ingrafting upon it a florid parody of the Shield of Achilles; and that here precisely we may fix the commencement of the spurious additions is probable from the verses
Οστεα δε σφι, περι ρινοῖο σαπεισης,
Σειριου αζαλεοιο, κελαινῇ πυθεται αιῃ.