Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/102

80 80 HISTOIIY OF THE something very remarkable in this address of the Muses. In the first place, it represents poetical genius as a free gift of the Muses, imparted to a rough, unlettered man, and awakening him from his brutish condition to a better life. Secondly, this gift of the Muses is to be dedicated to the diffusion of truth ; by which the poet means to indicate the serious object and character of his theogonic and ethical poetry ; not without an implied censure of other poems which admitted of an easier and freer play of fancy. But, beautiful and significant as this story is, it is clear that the poetry of Hesiod can in nowise be regarded as the product of an inspiration which comes like a divine gift from above; it must have been connected both with earlier and with contemporary forms of epic composition. We have seen that the worship of the Muses was of old standing in these districts, whither it had been brought by the Pierian tribes from the neighbourhood of Olympus ; and with this v/orship the practice of music and poetry was most closely connected*. This poetry consisted chiefly of songs and hymns to the gods, for which Boeotia, so rich in ancient lemples, symbolical rites of worship, and festival ceremonies, offered frequent opportunities. Ascra itself, according to epic poems quoted by Pausanias, was founded by the Aloids, who were Pierian heroes, and first sacrificed to the Muses upon mount Helicon. That Hesiod dwelt at Ascra rests upon his own testimony in the Works and Days (v. 640) ; and this statement is confirmed in a remarkable manner by other historical accounts, for which we are indebted to the Boeotian writer, Plutarch. Ascra had, at an early period, been destroyed by the neighbouring and powerful race of Thespians, and the Orchomenians had received the fugitive Ascrseans into their city : the oracle then commanded that the bones of Hesiod should be transferred to Orchomenus, and, when what were held to be the remains of the poet were discovered, a monument was erected to him at Orchomenus, upon which was written an inscription, composed by the Boeotian epic poet Chersias, describing him as the wisest of all poets. On the other hand, the intercourse which subsisted between the Boeotians and their kinsmen on the jEolic coast of Asia Minor, and the flight which poetry had taken in those countries, probably contributed to stimulate the Boeotian poets to new productions. There is no reason to doubt the testimony of the author of the Works and Days (v. 636), that his father came from Cyme in JEoWs to Ascra : the motive which brought him thither was doubtless the recollection of the ancient affinity between the ./Eolic settlers and this race of the mother- country ; a recol- lection which was still alive at the time of the Peloponnesian war «f The father of the poet is not stated to be a Cymaean bard ; but is de- scribed as a mariner, who, after repeated voyages from Cyme, had at length taken up his abode at Ascra ; yet it must have been by settlers
 * Above, chap. lii. § 8, 9. r See Thucyd. iii. 2 ; vii. 57; viii. 100.