ON THE POEMS OF HESIOD.[12]
Pausanias informs us that “the Bœotians, who dwell round Helicon, have
a tradition among them that Hesiod wrote nothing besides the poem of
‘Works:’ and from this they take away the introduction, and say that the
poem properly begins with The Strifes. They showed me a leaden tablet
near the fountain, which was almost entirely eaten away with age, and on
which were engraven the Works and Days of Hesiod.”
It is difficult to account for the manifest mutilation and corruption
of this venerable poet’s compositions, since it appears that they were
extant in a complete, or at least, a more perfect form, so late as the
age of Vespasian. Pliny, book xiv. complaining of the agricultural
ignorance of his age, observes that even the names of several trees
enumerated by Hesiod had grown out of knowledge: and in book xv. he
adverts to Hesiod’s opinion of the unprofitableness of the olive. From
some verses in the Astronomicon of Manilius, an Augustan writer, it would
seem that he had treated of ingrafting, and of the soils adapted to corn
and vines.
He sings how corn in plains, how vines in hills
Delight, how both with vast increase the olive fills:
How foreign grafts th’ adulterous stock receives,
Bears stranger fruit and wonders at her leaves.
CREECH.
and it is remarkable that the line in Virgil translated by Dryden,
And old Ascrean verse through Roman cities sing,
occurs in that book of the Georgics which is dedicated to planting,
ingrafting, and the dressing of vines. In the “Works,” as they now
appear, we find no mention of any trees but such as are fit for the
fabrication of the plough: and it is plain that the countrymen of Pliny
could be in no danger of forgetting the names of the oak, the elm, or the
bay-tree. Of the olive, and of ingrafting, there is no mention whatever,
and but a cursory notice on the vine: nor is there any comparison of the
soils respectively adapted to the growth of vines and of corn.
The poem in some editions has been divided into two books; under the
general title of “Works and Days,” but with a subdivision entitled Days
only: by which arrangement it is made virtually to consist of three
books. In Loesner’s edition the distinction of the second book is
done away: but the subdivision of Days is retained. From either mode
of disposition this incoherency results: that Works and Days no longer
appear to be the general title, but applicable only to the former part
of the poem, in which there is no mention of Days at all. The ancient
copies, as Heinsius has shown, had no division into parts. If any minor
distinction be deemed admissible for the more convenient arrangement of
the subject, the disposition of Henry Stephens is obviously the most
rational: whereby the poem is divided into two parts: the first entitled
“Works” only, and the second “Days.”
Cooke explains the “Works” of Hesiod to mean the labours of agriculture,
and the “Days” the proper seasons for the Works; but erroneously. The
term _Works_ is to be taken with greater latitude, as including not
only labours, but actions; and as referring equally to the moral, as to
the industrious œconomy of human life. It is evident also that the term
“Days” does not respect the seasons of labour specified in the course of
the poem, but the days of superstitious observance at the end of it: and
of these many have no reference whatever to the works of husbandry.
The Theogony has all the appearance of being a patchwork of fragments;
consisting of some genuine Hesiodéan passages;[13] pieced together with
verses of other poets, and probably of a different age. The mythology
is occasionally inconsistent with itself: thus the god Chrysaor is
re-introduced among the demi-gods; and the Fates are born over again from
different parents: an incongruity which Robinson attempts to obviate by
an ingenious, but over-refined construction.
The proem bears the internal marks of comparatively modern refinement.
It has not the simple outline of Hesiod. The whole passage has the air
of one of those introductions which the rhapsodists were accustomed to
prefix to their recitations: it is conceived in a more florid taste than
the usual composition of Hesiod, but expressed with considerable elegance
of fancy.
These arguments are not affected by the individual opinions of Romans and
Greeks, themselves modern with respect to Hesiod. Ovid in his “Art of
Love” alludes to this proem:
The sister Muses did I ne’er behold,
While, Ascra! midst thy vales, I fed my fold.
Plutarch in the ninth book of his Symposiacs, quotes two of the verses
in illustration of the propriety of epithets: Pausanias appeals to the
presentation of the branch as evidence that Hesiod did not sing to the
lyre; and Lucian in his dialogue “on the illiterate book-collector”
observes, “how can you have known these things without having learnt
them? how or whence? unless at any time you have received a branch from
the Muses like that shepherd. They, indeed, did not disdain to appear to
the shepherd, though a rough hairy man, with a sun-burnt complexion; but
they would never have deigned to come near you:” and in the “Dialogue
with Hesiod” he banters him as promising to sing of futurity; and
affecting the Chalcas or Phineas, when there is nothing of prophecy in
his whole poem. An indirect argument for the spuriousness of the verses.
It must have been an impression of this proem which led Gibbon in his
“Notes on the editions of the Classics” (Miscellaneous Works, vol. v.) to
observe, “in the Theogony I can discern a more recent hand:” for many
details in the poem have all the internal evidence of antiquity. Perhaps
the catalogue of names, which Robinson superfluously defends on the
score of their metrical harmony, and compares with Homer’s catalogue of
ships, of which the merit is geographical and historical, may furnish a
strong presumptive argument of antiquity. They would appear to have been
composed at a period when alphabetic writing was unknown, and the memory
of names and things depended on the technical help of oral tradition.
Pausanias says, speaking of the Theogony, “There are some who consider
Hesiod as the author of this poem.” That _some_ theogony was composed
by Hesiod is evidenced by the passage in Herodotus; who, speaking of
Hesiod and Homer, affirms, “these are they who framed a Theogony for the
Greeks:” and the fable of Pandora in the Theogony, that we now possess,
bears characteristical marks of having come from the same hand as that in
the Works and Days.
Of the Shield of Hercules it is asserted by Cooke, that “there is
great reason to believe this poem was not in existence in the time of
Augustus:” but he merely advances, in proof of this assertion, that
“Manilius, who was an author of the Augustan age, takes notice of no
other than the Theogony, and the Works and Days:” yet this, if indeed
anything decisive could be concluded from the omission, would only
prove that he did not believe the piece authentic. He further remarks
that critics should not suppose it to have formed a part of another
poem, unless they could show when, where, or by whom the title had
been changed. This is surely to demand a very unreasonable as well as
unnecessary kind of proof. The distinct title affords, in fact, no
evidence for the completeness of the poem; as we learn from Ælian, that
portions of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey were known by such separate titles
as, “the Funeral Games of Patroclus,” the “Grot of Calypso;” and sung as
detached pieces. The argument of Cooke that it cannot be an imitation
of the Shield of Achilles, because the description of the mere Shield
occupies but a small part of the piece, is equivalent to contending that
Virgil could not have imitated the simile of Diana in the first book
of the Æneid from the Odyssey, because the rest of the book bears no
resemblance to any thing in Homer. A slight presumption of the Shield
being from the hand of Hesiod may be founded on a quotation of Polybius,
from one of Hesiod’s lost works: the historian speaks of the Macedonians
as being “such as Hesiod describes the Æacidæ; rejoicing in war rather
than in the banquet:” book v. ch. i. In the Shield, Iölaus says of
himself and Hercules, that battles “are better to them than a feast.” The
expression, however, may have been proverbial, and used by more poets
than one.
The poem is ascribed to Hesiod by Athenæus: but Aristophanes the
grammarian rejected it as spurious, and Longinus speaks doubtingly
of Hesiod being the author. Tanaquil Faber confidently asserts “that
they who think the Shield not of Hesiod, have but a very superficial
acquaintance with Grecian poetry:” and on the other side Joseph Scaliger
speaks of the author, whoever he may be, of the Shield; which the
critical world by a preposterous judgment have attributed to the poet of
Ascra. It is not by a reference to authorities that the question must be
decided, but by an examination of the interior structure of the poem, and
the evidence of style.
The objections to a great part of the poem consist in its unlikeness to
the style of Hesiod, and its resemblance to that of Homer.
Robinson insists in reply that it is very usual for the same author to
show a diversity of style; which is at least an admission that Hesiod is
here different from himself. But to his question “whether we demand the
same fervour and force in the Georgics of Virgil as in the Æneid?” it may
be asked in return whether a certain similarity of style be not clearly
distinguishable in these poems, however distinct their nature? there is,
indeed, a difference, but not absolutely a discordance.
The whole laboured argument which he has bestowed on the necessary
dissimilarity of didactic and heroical composition is plainly foreign
to the question. Who would dream of urging as an objection to its
authenticity, that the style of “The Shield” is unlike the _georgical_
style of Hesiod? the objection is, that it is unlike his _epic_ style:
and Robinson has brought the question to a fair issue by his remark that
the Battle of the Gods abounds no less than the Shield with the ornaments
of poetry.
It is not sufficient that these passages respectively display ornament;
we must examine whether they display a similar style of ornament. Now the
descriptive part of the Shield is in a gorgeous taste; unlike the bold
and simple majesty of the Theogony. There is a visible effort to surprise
by something marvellous and uncommon; which often verges on conceit
and extravagance. For sublime images we are presented with gigantic and
distorted figures, and with hideous conceptions of disgusting horror.
There is indeed a considerable degree of genius even in these faulty
passages: but whoever perceives a resemblance in the imagery of the
Shield to that of the Titanic War, may equally trace an affinity between
Virgil and Ariosto.
These reasonings affect that part of the poem chiefly, which is occupied
with the mere description of the Shield; but a single circumstance will
show that the passages which represent the action of the poem are both
foreign to Hesiod’s manner, and are in the manner of Homer. I allude to
the employment of similes and to the character of those similes.
Homer is fond of comparisons; and of such, particularly, as are drawn
from animated nature. The Shield of Hercules also abounds with similes,
and they are precisely of this sort. But the frequent use of similitudes
is so far from being characteristic of Hesiod, that in the whole Battle
of the Giants but one occurs; and only one in the Combat of Jupiter and
Typhæus; and in both we look in vain for any comparison drawn from lions,
or boars, or vultures.
Robinson appears, indeed, conscious of a more crowded and diversified
imagery in the Shield than we usually meet with in Hesiod’s poetry; for
he is driven to the miserable alternative of supposing that Hesiod may
have produced the Shield in his youth, and his other works in his old
age. Longinus in the same manner accounts for the comparative quiet
simplicity of the Odyssey. The supposition in either case is founded on
the erroneous principle, that a poem is beautiful in proportion to the
noise and fury of its action, or the accumulation of its ornament. The
notion of the genius necessarily declining with the decline of youthful
vigour is completely unphilosophical; and is contradicted by repeated
experience of the human faculties. It was in his old age that Dryden
wrote his “Fables.”
As to that portion of the poem which is properly the Shield, and from
which the whole piece takes its title, it is self-evident that this
must have been borrowed from the description in the Iliad, or the
description in the Iliad from this. I do not allude merely to a whole
series of verses being literally the same in each; but to long passages
of description, bearing so close a resemblance as to preclude the idea
of accidental coincidence; such as the bridal procession, the siege, the
harvest, and the vintage.
Robinson admits the imitation; but thinks the partisans of Homer cannot
easily show that Homer was not the copyist. It were, however, easy to
decide from internal evidence which is the copy.
Where two poems are found so nearly resembling each other as to convey
at once the impression of plagiarism, the scale of originality must
doubtless preponderate in favour of that which is the more simple in
style and invention. Where a poem abounds with florid figures and
irregular flights of imagination, it is inconceivable that a _copy_
of that poem should exhibit a chaste simplicity of fancy: but it is
highly natural that an imitator should think to transcend his original
by the aid of meretricious ornament; that he should mistake bombast for
sublimity, and attempt to dazzle and astonish. Of this sort of elaborate
refinement a single instance will serve in illustration.
Both poets encircle their bucklers with the ocean. Robinson gives the
preference to the author of The Shield of Hercules; alleging that his
description is decorated with the utmost beauty of imagery; while that
of The Shield of Achilles is naked of embellishment. To the unornamented
style of the passage in Homer I appeal, as demonstrating the superiority
of his judgment, and as thereby establishing beyond dispute the fact of
his originality.
In one condensed verse he pours around the verge of the buckler
“the great strength of the ocean stream.” An image of roundness and
completeness is here at once presented to the eye, and fills the mind.
But the author of the Shield of Hercules, evidently striving to excel
Homer, says that “high-soaring swans there clamoured aloud, and many
floated on the surface of the billows, and near them fishes were leaping
tumultuously.” Who does not perceive that the full image of the rounding
ocean is broken and rendered indistinct by this multiplicity of images?
The description is, indeed, picturesque; _at nunc non erat his locus_.
Yet that Hesiod was the plagiarist will scarcely be contended, until the
assertion already advanced respecting the epic simplicity of his style
shall have been set aside.
But the former part of the piece has all the internal marks of having
been composed by an author of totally dissimilar genius. It has the stamp
of the ancient simplicity upon it. A few passages are magnificent; but
still in a noble and pure taste. Here then I discern the hand of Hesiod.
But the presumption rests on surer grounds than characteristics of style.
In the concluding verses of the Theogony, the poet invokes the Muses
to sing the praises of women; and among the lost works of Hesiod,
whose titles are dispersed in ancient authors, are enumerated the
four Catalogues of Women or Heroines; and the Herogony, or Generation
of Heroes descended from them; which are thought to have been five
connected parts of the same poem. That this was the work of Hesiod we
have the testimony of Pausanias; who alludes to the tale of Aurora and
Cephalus, and that of Iphigenia, as treated by Hesiod in his Catalogue
of Women. The fourth Catalogue had acquired a secondary title of Ηοιαι
μεγαλαι; the great Eoiæ: fantastically framed out of the words η οιη, or
_such as_, which introduced the stories of the successive heroines. From
the use of this title a strange idea got abroad that Eoa was the name of
a young woman of Ascra, the mistress of Hesiod.
Bœotian Hesiod, vers’d in various lore,
Forsook the mansion where he dwelt before:
The Heliconian village sought, and woo’d
The maid of Ascra in her scornful mood:
There did the suffering bard his lays proclaim,
The strain beginning with Eoa’s name.
HERMISIANAX OF COLOPHON, in Athenæus, book xiii.[14]
Among the minor fragments of Hesiod are preserved three passages, each
beginning with the words η οιη, introductory of a female description.
They are naturally considered as remnants of the Fourth Catalogue.
Now the piece entitled “The Shield of Hercules” also opens with these
identical words, introductory of the story of Alcmena.
Fabricius decides that these introductory words will not permit us to
doubt that “The Shield of Hercules” formed part of the Fourth Catalogue;
but the inference does not necessarily extend beyond the first portion
of the piece. Robinson justly argues on the incongruity of the poet’s
digressing from the tale of Alcmena, to tell a story of Hercules; and
he therefore conjectures that this piece is a fragment of the Heroical
Genealogies; but aware that the concurrence of the exordium with the
above-mentioned fragments, points the attention to the Fourth Catalogue,
he cuts the Gordian knot by changing η οιη, or _such as_, into η οιη,
_she alone_.
Guietus suggests the reading of ηοιη, _rising with the dawn_; for the
purpose of rendering the piece complete in itself: but the very basis
of the argument in favour of the authenticity of the poem as a work
of Hesiod, is the striking coincidence of the introductory lines with
the fragments of the Fourth Catalogue. This may be set aside by the
ingenious expedient of altering the text; but if the text be suffered
to remain, the presumption, so far as it extends, is irresistible. I do
conceive that Robinson, when his judgment consented to this alteration
of the reading, yielded a very important advantage to those who dispute
the genuineness of the poem, as the production of Hesiod; that by the
abandonment of these remarkably coincident words the difficulty of
proving the poem to be a fragment is increased two-fold; and that with
the fact of its being a fragment is closely linked the fact of its
authenticity.
From what has been said, it will perhaps be thought extraordinary that
the idea of a _cento_ of dispersed fragments, pieced together and
interpolated with Homeric imitations, never suggested itself to those
critics who have bestowed such elaborate scrutiny on the composition of
the poem.
In the scholium of the Aldine edition of Hesiod, it is stated, “The
beginning of the Shield as far as the 250th verse is said to form a
part of the Fourth Catalogue.” Here is at once an admission of the
patchwork texture of the piece; and we may be allowed to conjecture
that the scholiast may possibly be mistaken as to the exact number of
lines. This portion, in fact, comprehends the meeting of Hercules with
Cygnus, and his arming for battle; which follows, with a strange and
startling abruptness, immediately on his birth; and seems to have little
connexion with the praises of a heroine, in a poem devoted exclusively to
celebrated women.
I should, therefore, be inclined to consider the first fifty-six lines
only as belonging to the Fourth Catalogue. This introductory part,
ending with the birth of Hercules, is awkwardly coupled with his warlike
adventure in the grove of Apollo by the line
Who also slew Cygnus, the magnanimous son of Mars.
This line is perceptibly the link of connexion between the two fragments,
and betrays the hand of the interpolator. The succeeding passage, as far
as verse 153, I conjecture to have formed a part of the Herogony. It
seems probable that Hesiod’s description of the sculpture on the Shield
of Hercules was limited to the dragon in the centre, and the figure of
Discord hovering above it; and was meant to end with the effects produced
by the sight of this shield on the hero’s enemies. This short description
appears to have suggested the experiment of ingrafting upon it a florid
parody of the Shield of Achilles; and that here precisely we may fix the
commencement of the spurious additions is probable from the verses
Οστεα δε σφι, περι ρινοῖο σαπεισης,
Σειριου αζαλεοιο, κελαινῇ πυθεται αιῃ.
Through the flesh that wastes away
Beneath the parching sun, their whitening bones
Start forth, and moulder in the sable dust:
being instantly followed by a passage from the Achillean Shield: Εν δε
προιωξις, &c.
Pursuit was there, and fiercely rallying Flight.
I suppose, therefore, the description of the putrefying corses of the
foes of Hercules to have joined the 320th verse; where he is made to
grasp the shield and ascend the chariot. Several of the subsequent
passages, as, in particular, the description of the Cicada, appear to me
genuine; but they are visibly patched with Homeric similes, which are in
general mere plagiarisms; and are not at all in unison with the style
of the rest of the poem; nor with the characteristic manner of Hesiod.
This mixture of authenticity and imposture will explain the contradictory
decisions of learned men; who, in examining this curious question, have
looked only at one side.
It does not appear that Hesiod was the most ancient author either of a
theogony or a rural poem; although Herodotus speaks of him as the first
who framed a theogonic system for the Greeks, and Pliny cites him as
the earliest didactic poet on agriculture. But tradition has preserved
the fame of theogonies by Orpheus and Musæus: and Tzetzes mentions two
poems of Orpheus, the one entitled _Works_, the other _Diaries_; the
archetypes, probably, of The Works and Days.
Quintilian observes that “Hesiod rarely rises, and a great part
of him is occupied in names; yet he is distinguished by useful
sentences conveying precepts, and a commendable sweetness of words and
construction; and the palm is given him in that middle kind of writing.”
This is niggardly praise; and is somewhat similar to that which the same
critic awards to Apollonius Rhodius;[15] whose picturesque style and
impassioned sentiment are honoured with the diluted commendation of “an
equable mediocrity.” Who that read the above character would suppose that
Hesiod was at all superior to the gnomic or sententious poets; such as
Theognis or Phocylides? that he had ever composed his Combat of Giants,
or his Ages of Gold and of Iron?
If the battle of the Titans be Hesiod’s genuine composition, and if
the Shield, as there is reason to believe, contain authentic extracts
from his Heroical Genealogies, we shall decide that Hesiod, as compared
with Homer, is less rapid; less fervent in action; less teeming with
allusions and comparisons; but grand, energetic, occasionally vehement
and daring; but more commonly proceeding with a slow and stately march.
In the mental or moral sublime I consider Hesiod as superior to Homer.
The personification of Prayers in the latter is almost the only allegory
that can be compared with the awful prosopopeia of Justice, weeping her
wrongs at the feet of the Eternal: while Justice and Modesty, described
as virgins in white raiment, ascending out of the sight of men into
heaven, and the Holy Dæmons, after having animated the bodies of just
men, hovering round the earth, and keeping watch over human actions, are
equalled by no conceptions in the Iliad or Odyssey.
Addison, with that squeamish artificial taste which distinguishes the age
of Anne, as compared with that of Elizabeth, underrates, as might have
been expected, the vigorous simplicity of Hesiod. But the strong though
simple sketches of the old Ascræan bard are often more striking than the
finished paintings of the Mantuan. Critics admire the pastoral board of
Virgil’s Corycian husbandman; but there is a far greater charm in the
summer-repast of Hesiod: so picturesque in its scenery; so patriarchal in
its manners. The winter tempest is a bolder copy of nature than any thing
in the Latin Georgics; more fresh in colouring; more circumstantiated in
detail. The rising of the north-wind, moving the ocean, rooting the pines
and oaks from the tops of the mountains, and strewing them along the
valleys, and after a pause, suddenly roaring in its strength through the
depths of the forests; the exquisite circumstances of life intermingled
with the effects of the storm on inanimate nature; the beasts quaking and
grinding their teeth with cold and famine; shuddering at the snowflakes,
and shrinking into dens and thickets; the old man bent double with the
blast;[16] the delicate contrast of the young virgin, sheltered in a soft
chamber under her mother’s roof, and bathing previously to her nightly
rest, compose a picture wild, romantic, and interesting in an uncommon
degree.
As a legendary mythologist the elegant tale of Pandora, and the Island
of the Blessed Spirits, are far beyond any thing of Ovid, and can only
be compared with Homer: and as a poetical moralist, the strongest proof
of his merit is, that innumerable sentences of Hesiod, as is well
remarked by Voltaire in his “Dictionnaire Philosophique” have grown into
proverbial axioms. Cicero observes in one of his Epistles; “Let our dear
Lepta learn Hesiod, and have by heart ‘the gods have placed before virtue
the sweat of the brow.’” His plain and downright rules of decency,[17]
his superstitious saws, and his lumber of names, belong to the manners
of a semi-barbarous village and the learning of a dark age: his genius
and his wisdom are his own. From that which remains, mutilated as it
obviously is, we may form a judgment of what he would appear to us, if
the whole of his numerous works, complete and unadulterated by foreign
mixture, were submitted to our observation. _Ex pede Herculem._
FOOTNOTES
[12] The following are enumerated as the lost poems of Hesiod.
The Catalogue of Women or Heroines, in five parts, of which the fifth
appears to have been entitled “The Herogony.” SUIDAS.
The Melampodia; from the sooth-sayer Melampus; a poem on divination.
PAUSANIAS, ATHENÆUS.
The great Astronomy or Stellar Book. PLINY.
Descent of Theseus into Hades. PAUSANIAS.
Admonitions of Chiron to Achilles. PAUSANIAS, ARISTOPHANES.
Soothsayings and Explications of Signs. PAUSANIAS.
Divine Speeches. MAXIMUS TYRIUS.
Great Actions. ATHENÆUS.
Of the Dactyli of Cretan Ida; discoverers of iron. SUIDAS, PLINY.
Epithalamium of Peleus and Thetis. TZETZES.
Ægimius. ATHENÆUS. _Apocryphal._
Elegy on Batrachus, a beloved youth. SUIDAS.
Circuit of the Earth. STRABO.
The Marriage of Ceyx. ATHENÆUS, PLUTARCH.
On Herbs. PLINY.
On Medicine. PLUTARCH.
Fabricius (Bibliotheca Græca) supposes the two latter subjects to be
alluded to as incidental topics in other works of Hesiod. But the
passages quoted by him from Pliny and Plutarch seem to justify the
opinion that they meant to advert to distinct poems. There is nothing in
the works extant which favours the former idea. Mallows and asphodel are
the only herbs mentioned: and that merely as synonymous with a frugal
meal: like the _cichorea levesque malvæ_ of Horace: nor is there anything
medical; for the passages respecting bathing, children, &c. are mere
superstitions, unconnected with health. Athenæus (book iii.) quotes some
verses as ascribed to Hesiod respecting the fishes fit for salting; but
says they seem to be rather the verses of a cook than of a poet; and adds
that cities are mentioned in them which were posterior to Hesiod’s time.
Lilius Gyraldus states that the fables of Æsop have been assigned to
Hesiod. Plutarch, indeed, observes that Æsop might himself have profited
by Hesiod’s apologue of the Hawk and the Nightingale; and Quintilian
mentions Hesiod, and not Æsop, as the earliest fabulist; which passages
may have been strained to bear the above meaning. As to the Greek fables,
extant under the name of Æsop, they are proved to be spurious. See
Bentley’s Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris, Themistocles, &c. and
the fables of Æsop.
[13] Manilius, describing the subjects of Hesiod, has a line
Atque iterum patrio nascentem corpore Bacchum,
excellently rendered by Creech, a translator now too fastidiously
undervalued,
And twice-born Bacchus burst the Thunderer’s thigh:
but this tale, which Ovid and Nonnus have related, is not found in the
present theogony.
[14] In the same poem, which is a love-elegy to his mistress Leontium on
the sufferings of lovers, Homer is made to visit Ithaca, “sighing like
furnace” for the chaste Penelope.
[15] The Quarterly Reviewer, in his critique on my “Specimens of the
Classic Poets,” conceives it strange that I should prefer the Medea
of Apollonius to Virgil’s Dido; and talks of critical heresies. The
deliberation of Medea on her purposed suicide, and her interview with
Jason in the temple of Hecate, place the matter beyond all question;
except with those who may be frightened by the word _heresy_ into a
surrender of their judgments to vulgar prejudice and traditional error.
[16] This fine natural image is ridiculously parodied by Addison, “The
old men, too, _are bitterly pinched by the weather_.” Essay on Virgil’s
Georgics.
[17] These were excluded from the first edition of my translation, but
are now reinstated, as curiously illustrative of manners.