The first portion of this work is devoted to moral lessons; some in a proverbial form, and others illustrated by narratives and fables. The latter part contains practical directions for the husbandman, and also treats of the art of navigation, important to the Bœotian farmer because much of his produce was shipped to other countries. The whole abounds in excellent precepts for every-day life, and forms the earliest specimen of didactic poetry among the Greeks. For ages its lines were committed to memory and recited as part of the course of ethics in their schools.
FROM HESIOD’S WORKS AND DAYS.
RIGHT AND WRONG.
“Wrong, if he yield to its abhorred control,
Shall pierce like iron to the poor man’s soul:
Wrong weighs the rich man’s conscience to the dust,
When his foot stumbles on the way unjust.
Far different, is the path, a path of light,
That guides the feet to equitable right:
The end of righteousness, enduring long,