i'iii»iiiiii^iiii,tii^^^ '^THE REMAINS OF HESIOD THE ASCRiEAN INCLUDING €fjc M)icili of l^erailf^, TRASSLATED INTO ENGLISH RHYME AND BLANK-VERSE; WITH A DISSERTATION ON THE LIFE AND iERA, THE POEMS AND MYTHOLOGY, OF HESIOD, AND COPIOUS NOTES. \ ^ THE SECOND EDITION, ^ BEVISED AND ENLARGED ^ BY CHARLES ABRAHAM ELTON, AOrnOR OF SPECIMENS OF THE CLASSIC POETS FHOM HOMES TO TRTPtHODORUS. 'O wpsV^uf xfl9apotv yivtrdf^iva; "KiBa^mv.—AAKAIOI, LONDON: PUINTED FOR BALDWIN, CRADOCBk, AND JOY, 47 PATERNOSTER.ROW. 1815. pfi UOIO C. Halriwin, Punter, Nffw Briilac'-sircet. London. l:l PREFACE. J. HE remains of Hesiod are not alone interesting to the antiquary, as tracing a picture of the rude arts and manners of the ancient Greeks. His sublime viewa of a retri- philosophic allegories ; his elevated butive Providence and the romantic or ; elegance, daring grandeur, with which he has invested the legends of his mytholog}', offer more solid reasons than the accident of coeval existence for the tradi- tional association of his name with that of Homer. Hesiod has been translated in Latin hexameters by Nicolaus Valla, and by Bernardo Zamagna. A French translation by Jacques le Gras bears date 1586. The earliest essay on his poems by our owni " countrymen appears in the old racy version of Tlie Works and Days," by George Chapman, the trans- lator of Homer, published in 1618. It is so scarce that " " Warton in The History of English Poetry doubts SI 2 IV PREFACE. its existence. Some specimens of a work equally curi- ous fioni its rareness, and interesting as an example of our ancient poetry, are appended to this translation. Parnell lias iriven a sprightly imitation of the Pan- " dora, under the title of Hesiod, or the Rise of " Woman : and Broome, the coadjutor of Pope in the Odyssey, has paraphrased the battle of the Titans and the Tartarus.'* The translation by Thomas " Cooke omits the splendid heroical fragment of Tlie Shield," which I have restored to its leeitimate con- nexion. It was first published in 1728; reprinted in 1740; and has been inserted in the collections of Anderson and Chalmers. ' This translator obtained from his contemporaries the " name of Hesiod Cooke." He was thouffht a good and translated the of Grecian ; against Pope episode Thersites, in the Iliad, with some success; which procured him a place in the Dunciad : this Be thine, my stationer, magic gift, Cooke shall be Prior, and Concanen Swift : " " and a passage in The Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot * A blank-verse translation of the Battle of the Titans may " " be found in Bryant's Analysis : and one of the descriptive "The Shield" in the part of "Exeter Essays." Isaac Ritson translated the Theogony ; but the work has remained in MS. PREFACE. .y seems pointed more directly at the affront of the Thcrsites : From these the world shall judge of men and books, Not from the Burnets, Oldmixons, and Cookes. Satire, however, is not evidence : and neither these distichs, nor the sour notes of Pope's obsequious commentator, are sufficient to prove, that Cooke, any more than Theobald and many others, deserved, either as an author or a man, to be ranked with dunces. A biographical account of him, with ex- tracts from his common-place books, was communi- cated by Sir Joseph Mawby to the Gentleman's Ma- gazine : vol. 61, 62. His edition of Andrew Mar- veil's works procured him the patronage of the Earl of Pembroke : he was also a writer in the Craftsman. Johnson has told (Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides, " p. 25.) that Cooke lived twenty years on a trans- lation of Plautus: for which he was always taking subscriptions." The Amphitryon was, however, ac- tually published. With respect to Hesiod, either Cooke's knowlege of Greek was in reality superficial, or his indolence inex- counteracted his abilities ; for his blunders are 1 PREFACE. : not in cusably frequent and unaccountably gross in several matters of mere verbal nicety, but impor- which tend tant particulars : nor are these instances, so perjictually to mislead the reader, compensated by or his notwithstand- the force beauty of style ; which, in ing some few unaffected and emphatical lines, is, errors its general effect, tame and grovelling. These I had thought it necessary to point out in the notes to first edition as a of own at- my ; justification my tempt to supply what I considered as still a desider- atum in our literature. The criticisms are now re- scinded; as their object has been misconstrued into a design of raising myself by depreciating my pre- decessor. , Some remarks of the different writers in the re- views appear to call for reply. as an of The Edinburgh Reviewer objects, instance defective translation, to my version of «j5uj hk ayaflu : " " which he says is improperly rendered shame : whereas it rather means that diffidence and want of enteqorise which unfits men from improving their fortune. In this sense it is opposed by Hesiod to an active fia^tro,-, and courageous spirit." PREFACE. viS But the Edinburgh Reviewer is certainly mistaken. If ai^ug is to be taken in this limited sense, what can be the meaning of the hne Shame greatly hurts or greatly helps mankind ? the proper antithesis is the aj5ioc ayuSv, alluded to in a subsequent line, And shamelessness expels the better shame. The good shame, which deters men fi'om mean actions, as the evil one depresses them from honest enterprise. In my dissertation I had ventured to call in ques- tion the judgment of commentators in exalting their the flivourite author : and had doubted whether meek Hesiod towards his forgiving temper of brother, whom he seldom honours with any better title than " as a theme for ad- fool," was very happily chosen miration. On this the old Critical Reviewer ex- " claimed as if that, and various other gentle ex- dunder- pressions, for example blockhead, goose-cap, " : and head, were not frequently terms of endearment " I he added his suspicion that like poor old Lear, VUl PREFACE. dill not know the diflercnce between a bitter fool and a sweet one." " But, as the clown in Hamlet says, 'twill away from me to you." The critic is bound to prove, 1st, that vnTTjs is ever used in this playful sense; is which he has not attempted to do : 2dly, that it of : so used with the aggravating prefix MEFA vyittis Sdly, that it is so used by Hesiod. Hector's babe on the nurse's bosom is described as and Patroclus is Achilles vrjTnoc ; weeping compared by Tliese words bear the senses of to Koupn wjTTj)]. may " " " of " poor innocent; and fond girl; the former is the latter but in both the tender, playful ; places word is usually vmderstood in its primitive sense of " infant." Homer says of Andromache preparing a bath for Hector, XefO-iV Aj^iKXiio; iafAas-lv yXayxaiTnf aSuvf: ; II, xxii. Fond one ! she knew not that the blue-eyed maid Had quell'd him, far from the refreshing bath, Beneath Achilles' hand. But this is in commiseration : or would the critic apply to Aiidiomache the epithet of goose-cap P After PREFACE. IX of all, who in his senses would dream singling out a word fi'om an author's context, and delving in other authors for a meaning ? The question is, not how it is used by other authors, but how it is used by Ilesiod. Till the Critic favours us with some proofs of Ilcsiod's namby-pamby tenderness towards the brother who had cheated him of his patrimony, I beg to return both the quotation and the appellatives upon his hands.* The London Reviewer censui-es my choice of blank- verse as a medium for the ancient hexameter, on the ground that the closing adonic is more fully repre- sented by the rounding rhyme of the couplet : but it may be urged, that the flowing pause and continuous consonant period of the Homeric verse are more with our blank measure. In confining the latter to dramatic poetry, as partaking of the character of the * The untimely death of the writer unfortunately precludes to the translator me from offering my particular acknowledgments of Aristotle's Poetics, for the large and liberal praise which he number of The London has bestowed upon my work in the second the of a more Review: a journal established on plan manly whose transla- system of criticism by the respectable essayist, tions from the Greek comedy first drew the public attention to the mijustly vilified Aristophanes. X PREFACE. Greek Iambics, he has overlooked the visible distinc- tion of structure in our dramatic and heroic blank verse. With respect lo the particular poem, I am details of the disposed to concede that the general TheofTony might be improved by rhyme : but tlie more to those interesting passages are not to be sacrificed which cannot interest, be they versified how they a may : and as the critic seems to admit that poem whose action passes " '* Beyond the flaming bounds of time and space clothed with this may be fitly Wank numbers, by admission he gives up the argument as it affects the Theogony. In disapproving of my illustration of Hesiod by the Bryantian scheme of mythology, the London Reviewer refers me for a rei'utation of this system to Professor Richardson's preface to his Arabic Dic- tionary : where certain etymological combinations and derivations are contested, which Mr. Bryant produ- ces as authorities in support of the adoration of the Sun or of Fire. Mr. Richardson, however, pre- " mises by acknowledging the penetration and judge- ment of the author of the Analytic System in the re- futation of vulgar errors, with the new and inform- PREFACE.