Page:Hesiod, and Theognis.djvu/178

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THEOGNIS
"Enjoy your time, my soul! another raceWill shortly fill the world, and take your place,With their own hopes and fears, sorrow and mirth:I shall be dust the while and crumbled earth.But think not of it! Drink the racy wineOf rich Taygetus, press'd from the vineWhich Theotimus, in the sunny glen(Old Theotimus loved by gods and men),Planted and watered from a plenteous source,Teaching the wayward stream a better course:Drink it, and cheer your heart, and banish care:A load of wine will lighten your despair."—(F.)

When in the concluding fragments (we follow Mr Hookham Frere's arrangement here as in most instances) Theognis is found reinstated in his native country, the sting of politics has been evidently extracted, as a preliminary; and the burden of his song thenceforth is the praise of wine and of banquets. These are his recipes, we learn in a passage which contributes to the ascertainment of his date, for driving far

"All fears of Persia, and her threatened war,"—

an impending danger, to which he recurs vaguely in another passage. It has been surmised from his speaking of age and death as remote, and of convivial pleasures as the best antidote to the fear of these, that he was not of very advanced age at the battle of Marathon. It is to be hoped that, when restored to home after his long exile, his wife was alive to receive him with warmer welcome than his children, to whom

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