Page:Hesiod, and Theognis.djvu/34

 and the 'Epithalamium of Peleus and Thetis,' will keep in countenance the sole extant representative of the third class, and enhance the possibility that 'The Shield of Hercules' is at least Hesiodic, though it is safer to put it thus vaguely than to affirm it Hesiod's. A conveniently wide berth is afforded by the modern solution, that several imputed works of Hesiod are the works of a school of authors of which Hesiod was the name-giving patriarch. The truth in this matter can only be approximated. Enough, perhaps, is affirmed when we say that in style, dialect, and flavour of antiquity, the 'Theogony' and the 'Works' are more akin to each other than to the 'Shield;' while, at the same time, the last-named poem is of very respectable age. The two former poems are of the Æolo-Bœotic type of the ancient epic dialect, while the 'Shield' is nearer to the Æolo-Asiatic branch of it, used by Homer. Discrepancies, where they occur, may be set down to the interpolations of rhapsodists, and to the accretions incident to passage through the hands of many different workmen, after the original master. The style and merits of each work will best be discussed separately; and we shall give precedence to Hesiod's most undoubted poem, the 'Works and Days.'