Page:The Remains of Hesiod the Ascraean, including the Shield of Hercules - Elton (1815).djvu/129

For many sons from heaven shall wealth obtain;
The care is greater, greater is the gain.
Do thus: if riches be thy soul's desire,
By toils on toils to this thy hope aspire.

II.
When, Atlas-born, the Pleiad stars arise
Before the sun^[1] above the dawning skies,
'Tis time to reap; and when they sink below
The morn-illumined west, 'tis time to sow.^[2]

1. ——————————Arise
   Before the sun.——————] In the words of Hesiod there is made mention of one rising of the Pleiads, which is heliacal, and of a double setting: the time of the rising may be referred to the 11th of May. The first setting, which indicated ploughing-time, was cosmical; when, as the sun rises, the Pleiads sink below the opposite horizon, which, in the time of Hesiod, happened about the beginning of November. The second setting is somewhat obscurely designated in the line

   They in his lustre forty days lie hid;

   and is the heliacal setting, which happened the third of April, and after which the Pleiads were immerged in the sun's splendour forty days. Hesiod, however, speaks as if he confounded the two settings, for no one would suppose but that the first-mentioned setting was that after which the Pleiads are said to be hidden previous to the harvest. But his words are to be explained with more indulgence, since he could not be ignorant of the time that intervened between the season of ploughing and that of harvest. Le Clerc.

2. 'Tis time to sow.] In the original, begin ploughing; by which