Page:Hesiod, and Theognis.djvu/51

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THE WORKS AND DAYS.
37
"May strikeStrangers when the boy they meetAs his father's counterfeit;And his face the index beOf his mother's chastity."—Epithalam. (Theod. Martin).

After a recurrence, suggested by this train of thought, to the opposite picture, and an appeal to the judges to remember those invisible watchers who evermore support the right and redress the wrong, as well as the intercession of Justice at the throne of Zeus for them that are defrauded and oppressed, the poet for a moment resorts to irony, and, like Job, asks "what profit there is in righteousness, when wrong seems to carry all before it?" But only for a moment. In a short but fine image, Perses is invited to lift up his eyes to the distant seat,—

"Where virtue dwells on high, the gods beforeHave placed the dew that drops from every pore.And at the first to that sublime abodeLong, steep the ascent, and rough the rugged road.But when thy slow steps the rude summit gain,Easy the path, and level is the plain."—E. 389-394.

He is urged again to rely on his own industry, and encouraged to find in work the antidote to famine, and the favour of bright-crowned Demeter, who can fill his barns with abundance of corn. That which is laid up in your own granary (he is reminded in a series of terse economic maxims, which enforce Hesiod's general exhortation) does not trouble you like that which you

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