Page:Hesiod, and Theognis.djvu/33

 descended to our day under the name of Hesiod, unless, indeed, we take as a sample of his 'Eoiæ, or Catalogue of Heroines,' the fifty-six verses which, having slipped their cable, have got attached to the opening of 'The Shield of Hercules.' The 'Shield' is certainly of questionable merit, date, and authorship, though a little hesitation would have been wise in Colonel Mure, before expressing such wholesale condemnation and contempt as he heaps upon it. These three poems, at all events, are what have come down under the name and style of Hesiod, and are our specimens of the three classes of poetical composition which tradition imputes to him:—(1) didactic; (2) historical and genealogical; (3) short mythical poems. Under one or other of these heads it is easy to group the Hesiodic poems, no longer extant, of which notices are found in ancient authors. Thus the 'Astronomy' and the 'Maxims of Chiron,' with the 'Ornithomanteia, or Book of Augury,' belong to the first class; the 'Eoiæ, or Catalogue of Women,' which is probably the same poem as the 'Genealogy of Heroes;' the 'Melampodia,' which treated of the renowned prophet, prince, and priest of the Argives, Melampus, and of his descendants in genealogical sequence; and the 'Ægimius,' which gathered round the so-named mythical prince of the Dorians, and friend and ally of Hercules, many genealogical traditions of the Heraclid and Dorian races,—will, with the extant 'Theogony,' represent the second; while the smaller epics of 'The Marriage of Ceyx,' 'The Descent to Hades of Theseus,'