Page:Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica.djvu/629

 by Homer's felicity and hurried on to pose him with hard questions. He therefore began with the following lines:

"Come, Muse; sing not to me of things that are, or that shall be, or that were of old; but think of another song."

Then Homer, wishing to escape from the impasse by an apt answer, replied:—

"Never shall horses with clattering hoofs break chariots, striving for victory about the tomb of Zeus."

Here again Homer had fairly met Hesiod, and so the latter turned to sentences of doubtful meaning : he recited many lines and required Homer to complete the sense of each appropriately. The first of the following verses is Hesiod's and the next Homer's: but sometimes Hesiod puts his question in two lines.

"Then they dined on the flesh of oxen and their horses' necks—"

"They unyoked dripping with sweat, when they had had enough of war."

"And the Phrygians, who of all men are handiest at ships—"

"To filch their dinner from pirates on the beach."

"To shoot forth arrows against the tribes of cursed giants with his hands—"

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