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HESIOD.
"By swift destruction seized, the caitiff dies,
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.
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:—
""List an old and truthful tale,—
Virtue dwells on summits high,
Sheer and hard for man to scale,
Where the goddess doth not fail
Her pure precincts, ever nigh,
Virtue dwells on summits high,
Sheer and hard for man to scale,
Where the goddess doth not fail
Her pure precincts, ever nigh,
Unrevealed to mortal sight,
Unrevealed, save then alone
When some hero scales her height,
Whom heart-vexing toil for right
Bringeth up to virtue's throne."[1]
Unrevealed, save then alone
When some hero scales her height,
Whom heart-vexing toil for right
Bringeth up to virtue's throne."[1]
- ↑ Tennyson's Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington:—
