24
REMAINS OF HESIOD.
That long before within the grave I lay,
Or long hereafter could behold the day!
Corrupt the race, with toils and griefs opprest,
Nor day nor night can yield a pause of rest.
Still do the gods a weight of care bestow,
Though still some good is mingled with the woe.
Jove on this race of many-languaged man,
Speeds the swift ruin which but slow began:
[50]For scarcely spring they to the light of day
Ere age untimely strews their temples gray.[1]
Or long hereafter could behold the day!
Corrupt the race, with toils and griefs opprest,
Nor day nor night can yield a pause of rest.
Still do the gods a weight of care bestow,
Though still some good is mingled with the woe.
Jove on this race of many-languaged man,
Speeds the swift ruin which but slow began:
[50]For scarcely spring they to the light of day
Ere age untimely strews their temples gray.[1]
- ↑ For scarcely spring they to the light of day,
Ere age untimely strews their temples gray.] Dr. Martyn, in a note on Virgil's 4th Eclogue, has fallen into the error of the old interpreters; when he quotes Hesiod as describing the iron age "which was to end when the men of that time grew old and gray." Postquam facti circa tempora cani fuerint: but the proper interpretation is, quum vix nati canescant: as Grævius has corrected it. The same critic is unquestionably right in his opinion, that the future tenses of this passage in the original are to be understood as indefinite present: μεμψονται, incusabunt: i.e. incusare solent: use to revile. Mark, iii. 27. και τοτε την οικιᾶν αυτου διαρπασει: "and then he will
regardé leur siècle comme le pire de tous: il n'y a que Voltaire qui ait dit du sien,
O le bon tems que ce siècle de fer!
Encore était-ce dans un accès de gaieté: car ailleurs il appelle le dixhuitième siècle, l'égout des siècles. C'est un de ces sujets sur lesquels on dit ce qu'on veut: selon qu'il plait d'envisager tel ou tel côté des objêts.—La Harpe, Lycée, tome prémier.
