66
REMAINS OF HESIOD.
So move the beasts of earth; and creeping low
Shun the white flakes and dread the drifting snow.
I warn thee, now, around thy body cast,
A thick defence, and covering from the blast:
Let the soft cloak its woolly warmth bestow:
The under-tunic to thy ankle flow:
On a scant warp[1] a woof abundant weave;
Thus warmly wov'n the mantling cloak receive:
Nor shall thy limbs beneath its ample fold
With bristling hairs start shivering to the cold.
Shoes from the hide of a strong-dying ox[2]
Bind round thy feet; lined thick with woollen socks:
Shun the white flakes and dread the drifting snow.
I warn thee, now, around thy body cast,
A thick defence, and covering from the blast:
Let the soft cloak its woolly warmth bestow:
The under-tunic to thy ankle flow:
On a scant warp[1] a woof abundant weave;
Thus warmly wov'n the mantling cloak receive:
Nor shall thy limbs beneath its ample fold
With bristling hairs start shivering to the cold.
Shoes from the hide of a strong-dying ox[2]
Bind round thy feet; lined thick with woollen socks:
- ↑ On a scant warp.] The nap is formed by the threads of the woof: Hesiod therefore directs the woof to be thick and strong, that the nap may the better exclude wet.
- ↑ A strong-dying ox.] This expression is borrowed from Chapman. Thus we find in Homer, “a thong from a slaughtered ox.” This is illustrated by Plutarch in his Symposiacs, 2. by the fact that the skins of slaughtered beasts are tougher, less flaccid, and less liable to be broken than those of animals which have died of age or distemper. The ancients, says Grævius, made their shoes of the raw hide.
Πιλοι, in Latin udones, were woollen socks; worn, when abroad, inside the shoes; or as substitutes for shoes, in the manner of slippers, when within doors and in the bed-chamber. Le Clerc.
