Page:Hesiod, and Theognis.djvu/164

150 at other times by plans for setting Providence to rights. Now he admits that patience is the only cure, and that, if impatient,—

Now again, he seems to think sullen resistance is a better policy; and in another curious musing he argues against the justice of visiting the sins of the fathers on the children:—

In the midst of these conflicting emotions it is pleasant to find that he can extend a welcome out of the remnant of his fortunes to such hereditary friends as one Clearistus, who has come across the sea to visit him; and it is consistent with his early habits that he should try the effect of drowning care in the bowl, though he is forced to admit that this factitious oblivion soon gives place to bitter retrospects, and equally bitter prospects.

We must not however suppose that Theognis and his fellow-sufferers brooded altogether passively over their wrongs. His famous political verses, likening the state to a ship in a storm, betray a weakness in the