Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/104

82 82 HISTORY OF THE supposed by the ancient Greeks to have been borrowed by one from the other : in general, too, they have the appearance of being separately derived from the common source of an earlier poetry ; and in Hesiod especially, if we may judge from statements of the ancients, and from the tone of his language, sayings and idioms of the highest antiquity are preserved in all their original purity and simplicity*. The opinion that Hesiod received the form of his poetry from Homer cannot, moreover, well be reconciled with the wide difference which ap- pears in the spirit and character of the two styles of epic poetry. Besides what we have already remarked upon this subject, we will notice one point which shows distinctly how little Hesiod allowed himself to be governed by rules derived from Homer The Homeric poems, among all the forms in which poetry can appear, possess in the greatest degree what in modern times is called objectivity; that is, a complete aban- donment of the mind to the object, without any intervening conscious- ness of the situation or circumstances of the subject, or the individual himself. Homer's mind moves in a world of lofty thoughts and ener- getic actions, far removed from the wants and necessities of the present. There can be no doubt that this is the noblest and most perfect style of composition, and the best adapted to epic poetry. Hesiod, however, never soars to this height. He prefers to show us his own domestic life, and to make us feel its wants and privations. It would doubtless be an erroneous transfer of the manners of later poets to this primi- tive age, if we regarded Hesiod's accounts of his own life as mere fictions used as a vehicle for his poetic conceptions. Moreover, the tone in which he addresses his brother Perses has all the frank- ness and naivete of reality ; and, indeed, the whole arrangement of the poem of the Works and Days is unintelligible, unless we conceive it as founded on a real event, such as the poet describes. § 2. This poem (which alone, according to Pausanias, the Boeotians hold to be a genuine work of Hesiod, and with which, therefore, we may properly begin the examination of the several works of this school) is so entirely occupied with the events of common life, that the author would not seem to have been a poet by profession, as Homer was de- (v. 370), was attributed to Pittheus of Troezen, a sage and prince of the early fabulous times. (See Aristotle in Plutarch. Theseus, c. 3.) The meaning, according to Buttmann, is, " Let the reward be surely agreed on with a friend/' Homer has the shorter expression : piirdo; Vi oi k^kio; 'itrrai. (See Buttmann's Lexilogus, in a^xio;, p. 1G4, Engl, transl.) So likewise the phrase of Hesiod, uwi. r'm y.oi Taura. mgi Wv connected with the Homeric, Ob fiiv iru; vuv tVni avo <W«j ««§' «cro ir'troris rS laoiZt- p.iva.1, and Ou yap ccxo %gv'o$ itriri vraXaiipariiv ovS atfo rrir^ns- The oak and the rock here represent the simple country life of the Greek autochthons, who thought that they had sprung from their mountains and woods, and whose thoughts dwelt only upon these ideas, in primitive innocence and familiarity. These words, with which Hesiod breaks off his description of the scene of the shepherds sleeping with their flocks, sound just like a saying of the ancient Pierian bards among the Pelasgians. (Above, p. 27 — 8.)
 * Thus the verse of the Works and Days, fwrio; %' av) <p!t» sigq/tives a^xio; un
 * i VBgi ■jrir^nM (Theog. 35), is doubtless derived from the highest antiquity ; it is