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REMAINS OF HESIOD.
When in the wintry season rigid cold
Invades the limbs and binds them in its hold.
Lo! then th' industrious man with thriving store
Improves his household management the more:
And this do thou: lest intricate distress
Of winter seize, and needy cares oppress:
Lest, famine-smitten, thou, at length, be seen
To gripe thy tumid foot[1] with hand from hunger lean.
Pampering his empty hopes, yet needing food,
On ill designs behold the idler brood:
Sit in the crowded portico and feed
On that ill hope, while starving with his need.
Thou in mid-summer to thy labourers cry,
"Make now your nests,"[2] for summer hours will fly.
Invades the limbs and binds them in its hold.
Lo! then th' industrious man with thriving store
Improves his household management the more:
And this do thou: lest intricate distress
Of winter seize, and needy cares oppress:
Lest, famine-smitten, thou, at length, be seen
To gripe thy tumid foot[1] with hand from hunger lean.
Pampering his empty hopes, yet needing food,
On ill designs behold the idler brood:
Sit in the crowded portico and feed
On that ill hope, while starving with his need.
Thou in mid-summer to thy labourers cry,
"Make now your nests,"[2] for summer hours will fly.
- ↑ To gripe thy tumid foot.] Aristotle remarks that, in famished persons, the upper parts of the body are dried up, and the lower extremities become tumid. Scaliger.
- ↑ Make now your nests.] Grævius finds out that καλιαι may mean huts and barns, as well as nests: and in the true spirit of a verbal commentator, explodes the old interpretation of "facite nidos" and substitutes "exstruite casas:" in which he is fol-
whither idlers of all kinds resorted. It should seem from Homer that beggars took up their night's lodging in such places: Odyssey xvii. Melantho, taking Ulysses for a mendicant, says to him,
Thou wilt not seek for rest some brazier's forge,
Or portico.
Or portico.
