WORKS.
9
The bribe-devouring Judges lull'd by thee
The sentence gave and stamp'd the false decree:
Oh fools! who know not in their selfish soul
How far the half is better than the whole:
The good which asphodel and mallows yield,[1]
The feast of herbs, the dainties of the field!
The sentence gave and stamp'd the false decree:
Oh fools! who know not in their selfish soul
How far the half is better than the whole:
The good which asphodel and mallows yield,[1]
The feast of herbs, the dainties of the field!
- ↑ The good which asphodel and mallows yield.] A similar sentiment occurs in the Proverbs: “Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.” Ch. 15. v. 17.
Plutarch in the “Banquet of the Seven Sages,” observes, that “the herb mallows is good for food, as is the sweet stalk of the asphodel or daffodil.” These plants were often used by metonymy for a frugal table. Homer (Odyssey 24.) places the shades of the blessed in meadows of asphodel, because they were supposed to be restored to the state of primitive innocence, when men were contented with the simple and spontaneous aliment of the ground. Perhaps the Greeks had this allusion in their custom of planting the asphodel in the cemeteries, and also burying it with the bodies of the dead. It appears from Pliny, b. xxii. c. 22. that Hesiod had treated of the aspho-
in equal portions. When there were children by a concubine, they also received a certain proportion. This is illustrated by a passage in the 14th book of the Odyssey:
An humbler mate,
His purchased concubine, gave birth to me:
. . . . . .His illustrious sons among themselves
Portion'd his goods by lot: to me indeed
They gave a dwelling, and but little more.
Cowper.
His purchased concubine, gave birth to me:
. . . . . .His illustrious sons among themselves
Portion'd his goods by lot: to me indeed
They gave a dwelling, and but little more.
Cowper.
