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54 times a day is a stepmother, sometimes a mother." "Blest and fortunate he who knowingly doeth all with an eye to these days, unblamed by the immortals, discerning omens and avoiding transgression."

Such is the appropriate ending of Hesiod's didactic poem—a termination which ascribes prosperity in agricultural pursuits to ascertainment of the will of the gods, and avoidance of even unwitting transgression of their festivals. The study of omens, the poet would have it understood, is the way to be safe in these matters.

The 'Works and Days' possesses a curious interest as Hesiod's most undoubted production, and as the earliest sample of so-called didactic poetry; nor is it fair or just to speak of this poem as an ill-constructed, loose-hanging concatenation of thoughts and hints on farming matters, according as they come uppermost. That later and more finished didactic poems have only partially and exceptionally borrowed Hesiod's manner or matter does not really detract from the interest of a poem which, as far as we know, is the first in classical literature to afford internal evidence of the writer's mind and thoughts,—the first to teach that subjectivity, in which to many readers lies the charm and attraction of poetry. No doubt Hesiod's style and manner betoken a very early and rudimentary school; but few can be insensible to the quaintness of his images, the "Dutch fidelity" (to borrow a phrase of Professor Conington) of his minute descriptions, or, lastly, the point and terseness of his maxims. To these the fore-going chapter on the 'Works and Days' has been