62
REMAINS OF HESIOD.
He stoops to earth; shrill swells the storm around,
And all the vast wood rolls a deeper roar of sound.
The beasts their cowering tails with trembling fold,
And shrink and shudder at the gusty cold.
Thick is the hairy coat, the shaggy skin,
But that all-chilling breath shall pierce within.
Not his rough hide can then the ox avail:
The long-hair'd goat defenceless feels the gale:
Yet vain the north-wind's rushing strength to wound
The flock, with thickening fleeces fenced around.
He bows the old man, crook'd beneath the storm;
But spares the smooth-skin'd virgin's tender form.
Yet from bland Venus' mystic rites aloof,[1]
She safe abides beneath her mother's roof:
The suppling waters of the bath she swims,
With shining ointment[2] sleeks her dainty limbs:
And all the vast wood rolls a deeper roar of sound.
The beasts their cowering tails with trembling fold,
And shrink and shudder at the gusty cold.
Thick is the hairy coat, the shaggy skin,
But that all-chilling breath shall pierce within.
Not his rough hide can then the ox avail:
The long-hair'd goat defenceless feels the gale:
Yet vain the north-wind's rushing strength to wound
The flock, with thickening fleeces fenced around.
He bows the old man, crook'd beneath the storm;
But spares the smooth-skin'd virgin's tender form.
Yet from bland Venus' mystic rites aloof,[1]
She safe abides beneath her mother's roof:
The suppling waters of the bath she swims,
With shining ointment[2] sleeks her dainty limbs:
- ↑ Yet from bland Venus' mystic rites aloof.] Hesiod introduces the privacy and retiredness of a virgin's apartment in the house of her mother, as conveying the idea of more complete shelter.
- ↑ With shining ointment.] Ointment always accompanied the bath. Thus Homer describes the bathing of Nausicaa and her maids in the sixth book of the Odyssey:And afterwards of Ulysses:And laving next and smoothing o'er with oil
Their limbs, all seated on the river bank
They took repast.
