Hesiod, and Theognis/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III.
HESIOD'S PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY.
A chief token of the antiquity of Hesiod's 'Works and Days' is his use of familiar proverbs to illustrate his vein of thought, and to attract a primitive audience. The scope and structure of his other extant poems are not such as to admit this mode of illustration; but the fact, that amidst the fragments which remain of his lost poems are preserved several maxims and saws of practical and homely wisdom, shows that this use of proverbs was characteristic of his poetry, or that his imitators—if we suppose these lost poems not to have been really his—at all events held it to be so. It is, perhaps, needless to remark that the poems of Homer are full of like adagial sentences—so much so, indeed, that James Duport, the Greek professor at Cambridge, published in 1680 an elaborate parallelism of the proverbial philosophy of the Iliad and Odyssey, with the adages as well of sacred as of profane writers. Other scholars have since followed his lead, and elucidated the same common point in the father of Greek poetry, and those who have opened a like vein in other nations and languages. Obviously an appeal to this terse and easily-remembered and retained wisdom of the ancients is adapted to the needs of an early stage of literature; and its kinship, apparent or real, to the brief "dicta" of the oracles of antiquity, would constitute a part of its weight and popularity with an audience of wonder-stricken listeners. And so we come to see the fitness of such bards as Homer and Hesiod garnishing their poems with these gems of antique proverbial wisdom, each drawing from a store that was probably hereditary, and pointing a moral or establishing a truth by neat and timely introduction of saws that possessed a weight not unlike that of texts of Scripture to enforce a preacher's drift. It is, furthermore, a minor argument for the common date of these famous poets, that both Homer and Hesiod constantly recur to the use of adages. With the latter the vein is not a little curious. The honest thrift-loving poet of Ascra has evidently stored up maxims, on the one hand of homely morality and good sense, and on the other of shrewdness and self-interest. He draws upon a rare stock of proverbial authority for justice, honour, and good faith, but he also falls back upon a well-chosen supply of brief and telling saws to affirm the policy of "taking care of number one," and is provided with short rules of action and conduct, which do credit to his observation and study of the ways of the world. If, as we have seen in his autobiography (if we may so call the 'Works and Days'), his life was a series of chronic wrestlings with a worthless brother and unjust judges, it is all the more natural that his stock of proverbs should partake of the twofold character indicated; and we proceed to illustrate both sides of it in their order.
In distinguishing the two kinds of contention, Hesiod ushers in a familiar proverb by words which have themselves taken adagial rank. "This contention," he says, "is good for mortals" ('Works and Days,' 24-26)—viz., "when potter vies with potter, craftsman with craftsman, beggar is emulous of beggar, and bard of bard." Pliny the younger, in a letter on the death of Silius Italicus, uses the introductory words of Hesiod à propos of the rivalry of friends, in provoking each other to the quest of a name and fame that may survive their perishable bodies;[1] and Aristotle and Plato quote word for word the lines respecting "two of a trade" to which it will be observed that Hesiod attaches a nobler meaning than that which has become associated with them in later days. He seems to appeal to the people's voice, succinctly gathered up into a familiar saw, for the confirmation of his argument, that honest emulation is both wholesome and profitable. The second of Hesiod's adages has an even higher moral tone, and conveys the lesson of temperance in its broadest sense, by declaring
In feasts of herbs, mallow, and asphodel."—D.
Here the seeming paradox of the first portion of the couplet is justified and explained by Cicero's remark that men know not "how great a revenue consists in moderation;" and whilst in the first clause a sound mind is the end proposed, the latter part evidently has reference to the frugal diet, which bespeaks contentment and an absence of covetousness, such as breathes in Horace's prayer:—
and which, moreover, favours health and a sound body. It is unnecessary to point out the similarity of this proverb to that of Solomon respecting the "dinner of herbs," or to our own adage that "enough is as good as a feast;" but it may be pertinent to note that this Hesiodian maxim is, like the former, quoted by Plato, who in his Laws (iii. 690) explains Hesiod's meaning, "that when the whole was injurious and the half moderate, then the moderate was more and better than the immoderate." The next which presents itself in the 'Works and Days' owes its interest as much to the fact that it occurs almost totidem verbis in Homer, as to its resemblance to a whole host of later proverbs and adages amongst all nations. When Hesiod would fain enforce the advantage of doing right, and acting justly, without constraint, he, as it were, glances at the case of those who do not see this till justice has taught them its lesson, and says, in the language of proverb,
—'Works and Days,' 218.
In the 17th Book of the Iliad, Homer has the same expression, save in the substitution of the word "acts" for "suffers;" and it is exceedingly probable that both adapted to their immediate purposes the words of a pre-existing proverb.[2] Hesiod had already glanced at the same proverb, when, in v. 89 of the 'Works and Days,' he said of the improvident Epimetheus that "he first took the gift "(Pandora)," and after grieved;" and it is probable that we have in it the germ of very many adagial expressions about the teaching of experience—such as those about "the stung fisherman," "the burnt child," and "the scalded cat" of the Latin, English, and Spanish languages respectively. The Ojis, according to Burton, say, "He whom a serpent has bitten, dreads a slow-worm." Of a kindred tone of high heathen morality are several proverbial expressions in the 'Works and Days' touching uprightness and justice in communities and individuals. Thus in one place we read that
The crimes of one are visited on all."
—E. 319, 320.
In another, that mischief and malice recoil on their author:—
With it himself is overtaken still;
In ill men run on that they most abhor;
Ill counsel worst is to the counsellor."
—Chapman.
And in a third, that
Is heaven-sent wealth without reproach possest."
The second of these sentences recalls the story of the "Bull of Phalaris;" whilst another, not yet noticed, according to Elton's version, runs on this wise:—
With brightening lustre through his latest line."
—E. 383, 384.
More literally rendered, the sentence might read, "Of a man that regardeth his oath the seed is more blessed in the aftertime" and so rendered, it curiously recalls the answer of the oracle to Glaucus in Herodotus (vi. 86), where the Greek words are identical with Hesiod's, and either denote an acquaintance, in the Pythoness, with the 'Works and Days,' or a common source whence both she and Hesiod drew. We give Juvenal's account of the story of Glaucus, from Hodgson's version:—
While indignation raised her awful tongue:
'The time will come when e'en thy thoughts unjust,
Thy hesitation to restore the trust,
Thy purposed fraud shall make atonement due—
Apollo speaks it, and his voice is true.'
Scared at this warning, he who sought to try
If haply Heaven might wink at perjury,
Alive to fear, though still to virtue dead,
Gave back the treasure to preserve his head.
Vain hope, by reparation now too late,
To loose the bands of adamantine fate!
Swept from the earth: nor he sole sacrifice—
One general doom o'erwhelms his cursed line,
And verifies the judgment of the shrine."
—P. 251, 252.
Within a couple of lines of the proverb last cited occurs a maxim almost scriptural in its phraseology. "Wickedness," sings the poet, "you might choose in a heap; level is the path, and it lies hard at hand." One is reminded of the "broad and narrow roads" in our Saviour's teaching; and the lines which follow, and enforce the earnest struggle which alone can achieve the steep ascent, have found an echo in many noble outbursts of after-poetry. The passage in Tennyson's Ode, which expands the sentiment, is sufficiently well known, but perhaps it is itself suggested by the 20th fragment of Simonides, which may be freely translated:—
Virtue dwells on summits high,
Sheer and hard for man to scale,
Where the goddess doth not fail
Her pure precincts, ever nigh,
Unrevealed, save then alone
When some hero scales her height,
Whom heart-vexing toil for right
Bringeth up to virtue's throne."[3]
Of a less exalted tone is the famous graduation of man's wisdom, which declares "that man far best who can conceive and carry out with foresight a wise counsel; next in order, him who has the sense to value and heed such counsel; whilst he who can neither initiate it, nor avail himself of it when thrown in his way, is to all intents worthless and good for nothing."—('Works and Days,' 294-297.) This passage, however, has been thought worthy of citation by Aristotle. Another passage of proverbial character, but subordinate moral tone, is that which declares—
The lips of moderate speech with grace are hung."
—E. 1005, 1006.
And a little further on an adage of mixed character, moral and utilitarian, deifies the offspring of our unruly member, by saying—
But deathless like a goddess doth abide."—D.
When we turn to the other class of adages—those which syllable the teaching of common-sense—we are struck more by the poet's shrewdness than his morality. The end of all his precepts is, "Brother, get rich;" or, "Brother, avoid poverty and famine." Even the worship and offerings of the gods are inculcated with an eye to being able "to buy up the land of others, and not others thine" (341). He says, indeed, in v. 686, that "money is life to miserable men," in much the same terms as Pindar after him; but this is only as a dissuasive from unseasonable voyages, and because "in all things the fitting season is best." In effect he upholds the maxim that "money makes the man," though it is but fair to add that he prescribes right means to that end. To get rich, a man must work:—
Is natural consort to the idle boor."—C.
"Hard work will best uncertain fortune mend."—D.
He must save, too, on the principle that "many a little makes a mickle," or, as Hesiod hath it,
In small time makes a good possession."—C.
It is no use, he sagaciously adds, to spare the liquor when the cask is empty:—
To save the cask, but spare the middle wine;"
—E. 503, 504.
nor to procrastinate, because
—413.
and the man that would thrive must take time by the forelock, repeating to himself, as well as to his slaves at midsummer,—
Endures not ever: toil ye while ye may,"
—E. 698, 699.
and rising betimes in the morning, on the faith that
The morn makes short thy way, makes short thy pain."—C.
Shrewd and practical as all this teaching is, its author deprecates anything that is not honest and straightforward. "Dishonest gains," he declares in v. 352, "are tantamount to losses;" and perhaps his experience of the detriment of such ill gains to his brother enabled him to judge of their hurtfulness the more accurately. Referable to this experience is a maxim that is certainly uncomplimentary to brotherly love and confidence:—
Call witnesses, if you with brother deal."
—D. 371.
And there is a latent distrust of kinsfolk and connections involved in another proverb:—
Half-clothed come neighbours: kinsmen stay to dress."
—D. 345.
Perhaps his bardic character won him the goodwill of his neighbours, and so he estimated them as he found them; for he says a little further on, with considerable fervour—
That hath a neighbour of an honest mind."
—C. 347.
And in his treatment of these neighbours there was, to judge by his teaching, a very fair amount of liberality, though scarcely that high principle of benevolence which is content "to give, hoping nothing again." Self-interest, indeed, as might be expected, leavens the mass of his precepts of conduct, which may be characterised as a good workaday code for the citizen of a little narrow world, shut up within Bœotian mountains. We laugh at the suspicion that animates some, and the homeliness of others, but cannot fail withal to be captivated perforce by the ingenuousness with which the poet speaks his inner mind, and pretends to no higher philosophy than one of self-defence. In the line which follows the couplet last quoted, and which says that "where neighbours are what they should be, not an ox would be lost," for the whole village would turn out to catch the thief,—it has been surmised that there is allusion to an early "association for the prosecution of felons" in the Æolian colony from which Hesiod's father had come; but these glosses of commentators and scholiasts only spoil the simplicity of the poet's matter-of-fact philosophy, which in the instance referred to did but record what Themistocles afterwards seems to have seen, when, as a recommendation to a field for sale, he advertised that it had "a good neighbour."
Though the 'Theogony' is, from its nature and scope, by no means a storehouse of proverbs like the 'Works and Days,' it here and there has allusions and references to an already existing stock of such maxims. Where, in pointing a moral à propos of Pandora, he takes up his parable against women, and likens them to the drones,
Of others' labour,"—
—E. 797, 798.
Hesiod has in his mind's eye that ancient proverb touching "one sowing and another reaping," which Callimachus gives as follows in his hymn to Ceres (137)—
"And those who ploughed the field shall reap the corn"—
but which, in some shape or other, must have existed previously even to Hesiod's date. In most modern languages it has its counterpart; and it was recognised and applied by our Lord, and His apostle St Paul.[4] Earlier in the poem, the saw that "Blest is he whom the Muses love" is probably pre-Hesiodian; but it is too obviously a commonplace of poets in general to deserve commemoration as a proverb. We cannot cite any adages from 'The Shield,' and an examination of 'The Fragments' adds but few to the total of Hesiod's stock. These few are chiefly from the 'Maxims of Chiron,' supposed to have been dictated by that philosophic Centaur to his pupil Achilles. One of these, preserved by Harpocration from an oration of Hyperides, may be thus translated:—
The old may best in vows and prayers engage."
Another savours of the philosophy of the 'Works and Days:'—
"Gifts can move gods, and gifts our godlike kings."
Whilst a third might well be a stray line from one of the exhortations to Perses; for it deprecates the preference of a shadow to a substance in some such language as this:—
That he the charm of doubtful chase may know."
Another proverb, preserved by Cicero in a letter to Atticus,[5] looks very like Hesiod's, though the orator and critical man of letters dubs it "pseudo-Hesiodian." It bids us "not decide a case until both sides have been heard." And yet another saw, referred to the Ascræan sage, appears to us in excellent keeping with the maxims respecting industry and hard work which abound in his great didactic poem. We are indebted for it to Xenophon's Memorabilia, and it may be Englished—
"Seek not the smooth, lest thou the rough shouldst find,"—
an exhortation in accord with the fine passage in the 'Works and Days,' which represents Virtue and Excellence seated aloft on heights difficult to climb.
Perhaps also the following extracts from the extant fragments of the 'Catalogue of Women,' though not succinct enough to rank as adages, may lay some claim to containing jets and sparkles of adagial wisdom. The first, taken from the pages of Athenæus,[6] concerns wine that maketh sorry, as well as glad, the heart of man:—
To men who drink to excess. For wine to such
Acts insolently, binds them hand and foot,
Yea, tongue and mind withal, in bondage dire,
Ineffable! Sleep only stands their friend."—D.
The second is a curious relic of the ancient notions about comparative longevity:—
Of old men's life; the lively stag outlasts
Four crow-lives, and the raven thrice the stag's.
Nine raven's terms the phoenix numbers out;
And we, the long-tressed nymphs, whose sire is Zeus,
By ten times more the phoenix life exceed."—D.
Enough, however, has been set down of Hesiod's proverbial philosophy, to show that herein consists one of his titles to a principal place among didactic poets. A plain blunt man, and a poet of the people, he knew how and when to appeal with cogency to that "wisdom of many and wit of one," which has been styled by our own proverb-collector, James Howell, "the people's voice."
- ↑ Epist. III., vii. 15.
- ↑ Livy has "Eventus stultorum magister;" and the Proverbs of Solomon, xx. 2, 3—"A prudent man foreseeth the evil and hideth himself; but the simple pass on and are punished."
- ↑ Tennyson's Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington:—
"He that ever follows her commands,
Or with toil of heart and knees and hands,
Through the long gorge to the far light hath won
His path upward, and prevailed,
Shall find the toppling crags of duty scaled
Are close beside the shining table-lands
To which our God Himself is moon and sun." - ↑ St Matt. xxv. 24; Gal. vi. 7; 2 Cor, ix. 6.
- ↑ vii. 18, 4.
- ↑ x. 428.