Page:A History of Ancient Greek Literature.djvu/80

56 Muses who like to tell the truth. There is no swing in the verses; they seem to come from a tired, bent man at the end of his day's work—a man who loves the country life, but would like it better if he had more food and less toil. There is little sentiment. The outspoken bitterness of the first 'Gnômê' is characteristic: "Potter is wroth with potter, and carpenter with carpenter; aye, beggar is envious of beggar, and minstrel of minstrel!" So is the next about the judges who rob the poor man: "Fools, they know not how the half is more than the whole, nor the great joy there is in mallow and asphodel." Mallow and asphodel were the food and flowers of the poor. The moral sentences increase in depth in the middle of the poem, and show a true and rather amiable idea of duty.

"Hard work is no shame; the shame is idleness." "Help your neighbour, and he will help you. A neighbour matters more than a kinsman." "Take fair measure, and give a little over the measure—if you can." "Give willingly; a willing gift is a pleasure." "Give is a good girl, and Snatch is a bad girl, a bringer of death!" "It is best to marry a wife; but be very careful, or your neighbours may be merry at your expense. There is no prize like a good wife: nothing that makes you shudder like a bad; she roasts you without fire, and brings you to a raw old age"

At the end these sentences degenerate into rules of popular superstition—"not to put the jug on the mixing-bowl when drinking; that means death!" "not to sit on immovable things," and so on. One warning, "not to cross a river without washing your hands and your sins" approaches Orphism.

The agricultural parts of the Erga are genuine and country-like. They may be regarded as the gist of the poem, the rest being insertions and additions. There