"Fools! who, with all their learning could not tell
The worth of mallows or of asphodel," etc. (Pages 10–11.)
This is the only passage, in such portions of Hesiod as I have translated, that may require an explanation. Mallows and Asphodel (now corrupted into daffodil), were well known among the ancient Greek peasantry as articles of food, just as cowslips, or spinage is known to us of the present day; and the passage may recall to mind Solomon's proverb of the "dinner of herbs," which is better than dining on a stall-fed ox, when the feasting is accompanied by contention or by feelings of rivalry and hatred. As for the "half exceeding the whole," though unaccountable to mathematicians, it is plain enough to philosophers and poets. Plato, who quotes this passage, explains it to mean that when the whole is injurious or dishonest, it is better to have only the half, or rather, half as much; as, for instance, it is better to have five hundred dollars honestly earned, than a thousand dollars worth of stolen property, whether obtained by process of "law," sneak-thieving, or highway robbery; all of which was a palpable thrust at the corrupt judges who had been bribed to defraud Hesiod of his share of the patrimony. And just here, I should greatly desire to beg pardon of the venerable shade of Hesiod, as well as to ask the indulgence of the critics, for violating the rules of grammar in using the phrase "their soul instead of "their souls," were it not for the fact that these
