Page:Hesiod, and Theognis.djvu/72

 ral that his stock of proverbs should partake of the twofold character indicated; and we proceed to illustrate both sides of it in their order.

In distinguishing the two kinds of contention, Hesiod ushers in a familiar proverb by words which have themselves taken adagial rank. "This contention," he says, "is good for mortals" ('Works and Days,' 24-26)—viz., "when potter vies with potter, craftsman with craftsman, beggar is emulous of beggar, and bard of bard." Pliny the younger, in a letter on the death of Silius Italicus, uses the introductory words of Hesiod à propos of the rivalry of friends, in provoking each other to the quest of a name and fame that may survive their perishable bodies; and Aristotle and Plato quote word for word the lines respecting "two of a trade" to which it will be observed that Hesiod attaches a nobler meaning than that which has become associated with them in later days. He seems to appeal to the people's voice, succinctly gathered up into a familiar saw, for the confirmation of his argument, that honest emulation is both wholesome and profitable. The second of Hesiod's adages has an even higher moral tone, and conveys the lesson of temperance in its broadest sense, by declaring

Here the seeming paradox of the first portion of the couplet is justified and explained by Cicero's remark that men know not "how great a revenue consists in