WORKS.
7
Two Strifes on earth of soul divided rove:
The wise will this condemn and that approve:
Accursed the one spreads misery from afar,
And stirs up discord and pernicious war:
Men love not this: yet heaven-enforced maintain
The strife abhorr'd, but still abhorr'd in vain.
The other elder rose[1] from darksome night:
The God high-throned, who dwells in ether's light,
Fix'd deep in earth, and centred midst mankind
This better strife, which fires the slothful mind.
The needy idler sees the rich, and hastes
Himself to guide the plough, and plant the wastes:
Ordering his household: thus the neighbour's eyes
Mark emulous the wealthy neighbour rise:
Beneficent this strife's incensing zeal:
The potters angry turn the forming wheel:
Smiths beat their anvils; almsmen zealous throng,[2]
And minstrels kindle with the minstrel's song.
The wise will this condemn and that approve:
Accursed the one spreads misery from afar,
And stirs up discord and pernicious war:
Men love not this: yet heaven-enforced maintain
The strife abhorr'd, but still abhorr'd in vain.
The other elder rose[1] from darksome night:
The God high-throned, who dwells in ether's light,
Fix'd deep in earth, and centred midst mankind
This better strife, which fires the slothful mind.
The needy idler sees the rich, and hastes
Himself to guide the plough, and plant the wastes:
Ordering his household: thus the neighbour's eyes
Mark emulous the wealthy neighbour rise:
Beneficent this strife's incensing zeal:
The potters angry turn the forming wheel:
Smiths beat their anvils; almsmen zealous throng,[2]
And minstrels kindle with the minstrel's song.
- ↑ The other elder rose.] Night is meant to be the mother of both the Strifes. Guietus remarks that ευφρονη is a term for night: from ευφρονεω, to be wise. She was the mother of wise designs, because favourable to meditation: the mother of good, therefore, as well as of evil. The good Strife is made the elder, because the evil one arose in the later and degenerate ages of mankind.
- ↑ Almsmen zealous throng,] The proximity of the beggar to the bard might in a modern writer convey a satirical innuendo, of
