Page:Hesiod, and Theognis.djvu/58

44 processes of ploughing and hoeing gives a slave in the rear with a wooden hoe, engaged in breaking the clods. A little further on, a reference to the same interesting work explains Hesiod's meaning where he says, that if ploughing is done at the point of mid-winter, men will have to sit or stoop to reap (on account, it should seem, of the lowness of the ears), "enclosing but little round the hand, and often covered with dust while binding it up." To judge by the Egyptian paintings, wheat was reaped by men in an upright posture, because they cut the straw much nearer the ear than the ground. Of course, if the straw was very short, the reaper had to stoop, or to sit, if he liked it better. He is represented by Hesiod as seizing a handful of corn in his left hand, while he cuts it with his right, and binding the stalks in bundles in opposite directions, the handfuls being disposed alternately, stalks one way and ears the other. The basket of which Hesiod speaks as carrying the ears clipped from the straw, has its illustration also in the same pages. This is the explanation given also by Mr Paley in his notes. On the whole, the poet is strongly against late sowing, though he admits that if you can sow late in the dry, rainy weather in early spring may bring on the corn so as to be as forward as that which was early sown:—

In this part of the 'Works' our poet is exceptionally matter-of-fact; but as he proceeds to tell what is