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110
HESIOD.
Commanded: for that Cycnus ambushed spoiled
By violence the Delphic hecatombs."
—E. 681-654.
By violence the Delphic hecatombs."
—E. 681-654.
Thus ends our sole sample extant of the short epics which antiquity attributes to Hesiod. With all its repetitions and interpolations, there is in it a residuum of genuine poetry which is happily rescued from the spoils of time. Even as a "fugitive ballad," which Mure has designated it, it is too good to be lost; and though we may not venture to attribute it confidently to Hesiod, the 'Shield' has its place in classical literature, if we can even accept it as "Hesiodian."
